A Nightmare Reborn: FVJ 02

John turned in the shower, and Mary noticed that his hand was working hard, back and forth near his crotch. She heard some barely audible moans and realized that he was masturbating. Mary smiled broadly and allowed herself to enjoy watching him jerk off. John had the biggest cock she had ever seen, crowning out at ten inches long and thick enough to stretch her out within an inch of her life every time they fucked. She felt herself becoming more aroused as she watched him work towards his climax.

Her nipples were erect and in desperate need of John's touch, of his hands and mouth. She walked over to the shower door and pressed her body against the glass. It was both cold and warm at the same time, the vibrations from the pelting water on the other side enticing her skin.

"John," she whispered, "You need any help?"

No answer. John sped up his jerking motions, as if in some kind of response to her question.

She smiled. "Is that a yes?"

No answer.

Mary frowned.

John wasn't one for cute little games when it came to sex, at least since she had known him. He was always direct and vocal about his wants and desires. Mary ran her fingers over the glass and decided to play along. She could play just as hard to get as he could, if not harder.

She smiled devilishly and tapped the glass.

"I guess you don't want me to suck you off, then?" she sighed, still keeping her breasts pressed against the glass. John made no effort to turn around. She continued, "I suppose I can just go back to bed and let you finish up by yourself... you seem to be so experienced at flying solo..."

No answer.

The steam in the shower room was now turning into a thick fog. She felt a cold shudder run up her spine and she felt a sudden sense of déjà vu.

"John," she slapped the glass impatiently, "Look, you want to fuck or not?"

No answer.

"John?"

Now she was getting a little pissed off.

"John," she shook her head and tried to open the glass door. It wouldn't open. Mary pulled on the handle and then she tugged on it.

"Open the door, John," she said, jiggling the handle.

Still no answer.

The fleshy blur of John's naked body was still by the glass enclosure, furiously working himself over.

"John, goddamit!" she yelled and slapped her hand against the glass carefully again, yet forcefully enough to make it vibrate.

Mary suddenly became aware that the temperature in the bathroom had dropped. It had dropped from a steaming shower to a frigid chill. She hugged her breasts to her body, arms crossed and tensed.

"John, what-" she had meant to finish speaking, but she saw something that she couldn't quite believe at first.

In the blurry world of the glass door, she saw John still feverishly jerking off. She saw his body stiffen and his head throw back, as he always did when he orgasmed. But instead of seeing a blur of white semen, a dark fluid spurted out. Mary jumped back, shocked.

John turned so his body was facing the glass separation. Blood erupted onto the glass and ran down slowly. The water from the shower at first began rinsing the blood away, and then Mary realized that the water itself was running dark. The spray turned crimson as John stood there, motionless in a downpour of blood.

"No," she croaked, taking a step back. The steam of the shower was still billowing, becoming cold and harsh like the mist she had seen at Crystal Lake.

"It was a dream," she whispered to herself.

There was a thud as John slumped against the shower stall. His face pressed against the glass, smearing the bloody water around. It seemed that his eyes were gone; only two dark sockets were looking at her through the distorted glass. She could see blood spilling from the open holes in thick, almost black trails down his face. It pooled against the glass for a moment and then found another route down, slowly trickling and being redirected by his face and the glass.

"No no no no no," she shook her head, chanting the simple word over and over.

"What's the matter?" a gurgling voice called from the shower.

Mary's voice hitched silently in her throat.

"Don't you want me, Mary?" the voice asked. It sounded like John, but his lips were not moving. They were pressed into the glass separation.

Mary tried to make her legs work, to start moving and carry her right the fuck out of the bathroom. But they were frozen in place, unwilling to obey.

The voice chuckled, gurgling and seeping with malice. It was no longer John's voice she heard. It was someone completely different.

"Are you trying to piss me off, Mary?" the voice hissed.

John's hand came up and slapped against the shower wall hard, his fingers spread out wide. Only when his fingers hit the glass, she heard a series of metallic scratches. Mary cautiously leaned in close and saw the distorted image of four, long metal blades slowly extending from John's fingertips. She knew they were metal because as they reached out, the glass squealed and shrieked against their edges. Her chest was heaving now, her lungs rapidly carrying her towards hyperventilation.

John's body began to move, the razor-tipped hand still flat against the glass.

"Not real," Mary shook her head, repeating her words with all the intensity of a child clapping her hands together to save a dying fairy. "Not real, not real, not real..."

The glass bowed outward for a moment and then shattered to the floor, scattering and sliding to every corner of the bathroom. The bloody water spilled out in a wave, washing across the floor and soaking Mary's bare feet and legs. Standing in the mist of the red shower was John, naked and very clearly dead. She could see a long, ugly wound from the base of his neck down to his left pectoral. When he moved, his entire torso seemed to slide along that deep cut. She frantically realized that if he were to get moving too much he might just split into two separate pieces.

The dead man laughed

Mary was wheezing now.

John's eyes were gone, about that she had been right. His face was smeared red while the gaping eye sockets regarded her quietly. She could see a wet, spongy blackness in those holes, devoid of humanity and yet filled with horrific amusement. He still had his right hand up, and she saw that he indeed had sprouted four long, metal blades from his fingers. They glistened in the harsh bathroom lighting, looking as real and as deadly as the set of knives she kept in the kitchen.

"Now that I have your attention," John gurgled.

His face began to change, dripping like hot wax. His entire form morphed and melted together as he stepped out of the shower. Mary's body had committed mutiny against her. She couldn't move, or even hardly breathe for that matter. Her lungs were only able to suck in quick, shallow breaths. Her hands trembled at her sides, shaking violently as the thing that was once John approached her.

It was only a few feet away now.

Where there had once been the illusion of skin on his torso there was now fibrous cloth forming. A ribbed sweater surfaced from the swirling liquid mass of its body. Red and green stripes quickly streaked across the surface, at first brilliant in color and then fading to an aged, dusty tint. Mary could actually smell mothballs as the fabric of the sweater became real, loose threads and all. Dirty brown work pants, probably something a blue-collar utilitarian might have worn to his job slowly appeared and covered the legs. Boots, sturdy and black appeared from nowhere and covered the creature's feet.

It kept its right hand in the air, blades poised as if for a strike. The bubbling mass of flesh covering the hand textured out to thick leather. The grease-stained glove hardened and became real. Metal attachments to the glove emerged from the leather and settled into place quickly, joining with the gleaming blades.

She could smell a horrendous stink on it, some sort of vile carrion that made her stomach flip over. From the running mass of its face came another countenance. Burned and twisted flesh coalesced and hardened into features. Large patches of the ruined skin were gone, revealing strong, angry red muscle beneath. The mouth was filled with rotted brown teeth, the lips drawn back in a gruesome parody of a smile. She tried to look away, but found her eyes frozen and held by the monster's yellow corneas.

"What's the matter?" it asked again and chuckled softly, the deep feral voice dripping with fascinated sarcasm.

"Who are you?" she managed, her legs beginning to shake badly.

"I'm the stuff nightmares are made of, bitch," the man scraped his claws at her menacingly with a vicious flip of his wrist. His voice seemed to echo throughout her mind as he talked.

"Krueger," she whispered, "Freddy Krueger."

"The one and only," he bowed irreverently. As he straightened himself out, he pulled a beaten brown fedora out from behind his back. He elegantly whipped the hat out and shook a plume of dust from it. Freddy never took his eyes off her as he slowly put the hat on and pulled it snug.

Mary nearly pissed herself as he mockingly tipped it to her.

"What do you want?" she asked, surprised to find her voice choking.

"What everyone wants," he walked calmly towards her, "What everyone should have. I want to live."

"You're dead," she said, eyes wide with fear as Freddy circled her. He was like a shark swimming in for the kill, taking his time and enjoying every moment.

"Death doesn't mean shit to me," he said and ran his blades gently over her bare shoulder. She shivered as the cool metal tickled across her flesh and raised gooesbumps. "I want my children back..."

"This isn't real," she shook her head insistently. "Not real."

"Oh?" Freddy laughed and waved his hand like a magician getting ready to show his next trick to the unbelieving masses. "Isn't it?"

Mary felt a sudden hot wetness around her toes, then followed by the sensation of something cold and scaly sliding over to tops of her bare feet. She could hear something writhing below her, making small splashes in the bloody liquid. A long muscular tail wrapped around her leg from the ankle to mid thigh in one smooth motion. She commanded her eyes not to look down, not to look and see what Freddy had conjured up for her. She knew that this had to be a dream and that dreams only had as much power as you give them.

But she also knew that she was on the verge of a breakdown, and that right now she didn't have the discipline to balance a check book let alone fight off Krueger.

Mary cried as her eyes looked down anyway.

Tangles dark slimy snakes were slithering below her in a boiling pool of blood. Large bubbles formed and exploded with sick popping sounds as her feet disappeared beneath the squirming mass of serpents. Small wiry snakes were trying to work their way up her leg as the large ones wrapped themselves around her calves and knees, slowly gaining ground. One of the bigger ones, a boa constrictor maybe, was lifting its blood soaked head up and looking at her with icy black eyes. The mouth opened to reveal huge wicked fangs.

It hissed.

"Oh shit," she whimpered. Her stomach turned again, threatening to heave everything she had ever eaten up in one volley.

"What is reality?" Freddy asked rhetorically as the boa wrapped itself around her leg, "A dream can be just real as anything else."

"Please don't hurt me," she begged, all of her courage and rationale fleeing her. All of her training and experience, all her knowledge about killers like Krueger meant nothing now. She had prepared herself to deal with the things other people couldn't her whole life and yet here she was at the moment of truth utterly afraid and unable to move. She was pleading for her life from a dead man.

"Hurt you?" Freddy bellowed, throwing his head back and guffawing a hearty series of laughs, "Why no, doctor. I need you alive. You and I have a lot to do."

"Why?" she asked, tears flooding her cheeks. The boa was up around her inner thigh now, pulling tight.

Freddy stood in front of her and got right in her face. His horrible breath singed her nose and he snapped his bare hand to her cheek, caressing her, "I almost had it all and I fucked it up. You see, I couldn't control him and that was my mistake. I underestimated him. I thought I could muzzle him... but this time, I don't plan to control him..."

"Who?" she cried, her chest hitching with each sob as the boa's head grazed her naked crotch and left a slimy trail across her labia.

"Jason," he sneered, "That asshole is the fucking Energizer Bunny. But then you already know that, don't you? So this time, I'm going to play it smart and prepare myself... with your help."

"I don't understand."

"You don't have to," Freddy reassured her and suddenly sliced her left cheek with one sharp finger. She shrieked as the razor blade cut her flesh open. Freddy grasped her face hard and squeezed, his grip as powerful as the boa on her leg. "When you wake up, you'll need to remember who you belong to..."

Freddy cut her again, extending his first wound sideways. From the top of the cut he pulled back towards her ear and stopped short.

"You belong to me now," Freddy said and made another smaller cut below the second one, forming a bloody "F" on her left cheek. He regarded her thoughtfully as he studied his handiwork like a master artist would his prized canvas.

"Please no..." she sobbed. The snake was pressing its snout against her moist sex now. The tickling of a forked tongue pushed her to the breaking point, the edge of a deep chasm.

"Sorry," Freddy shrugged, "But I gotta get inside..."

She screamed as it pushed inside her, its cold wet body invading her and painfully stretching her out with its passage. Slippery scales pulled and poked at her inner membrane.

"It's just a trouser snake," Freddy smiled and laughed.

"Please!"

"Bring him to me, Mary," Freddy bellowed, "Bring him here!"

"Who?! I don't understand what you want!"

Freddy laughed manically as she became hysterical, yelping and screaming. He watched the six-foot long snake slowly continue plowing into her body. It defied the laws of nature and physics as it buried two feet and then three feet of its long body into her. Mary screamed and convulsed as the snake buried itself another two feet into her vagina. Her stomach bowed out and undulated as the snake stretched her innards, pushing everything from their proper place. Finally, the tail slithered up her inner thighs and disappeared into her sex. Mary stood there, no longer screaming and dead silent. Her eyes were rolled back in her head, her mouth hanging open loosely.

"Now," Freddy whispered, his scarred lips less than an inch from hers, "Let's see what you've got for me..."

***

The world was dark and cold again.

Mary could no longer feel the snake in her body. She tried to open her eyes but found they would not work. She knew she was lying face up into the sky as her head throbbed with the worst headache she had ever known. She could feel rain splattering her face and running down her cheeks. She could also hear voices, muted and a thousand miles away. She tried to open her eyes again and couldn't. Mary took her hand and felt the mud beside her, thick and viscous.

Thud... thud... thud... thud...

She thought maybe she was hearing her heartbeat, slow and irregular, ready to quit. Her left cheek flared with pain.

Thud... thud... THUD...

It was something else. She strained to hear the pounding noise as her eyes swam in darkness. She made an effort to roll over but found her body was weak and not up to the task. She felt a sick, heavy thickness in her stomach, as though she had eaten too much.

THUD... THUD! THUD!

She could hear splashing with each sound, the voices coming closer and getting louder. It was footfalls she was hearing, people running to her. She tried to call out for help. Her voice cracked and eeked a pathetic, hollow rasp. She could hear them even better now as she felt hands on her body.

"... she alive?" someone asked nearby.

A moment of silence.

"Yes, but she ..."

"What the fuck is that..."

"-good God... get her up..."

"Her face, Sean..."

The voices faded in and out as she struggled with her eyes.

Then, a feminine voice, "-better get her rolling... this is Officer Alexander out at Crystal Lake on evening patrol we have a Caucasian female in serious-"

Mary swirled in the darkness as strong hands moved her to a dry place. The voices floated around her and before long sirens were screaming and bright colors filled her eyes. Strong straps were tightened around her arms and legs, securing her and grounding her in reality. She felt her body shaking violently as her rescuers tried to save her. She tried to remember what had happened to her. She recalled the shore, walking along the shore and to the dock with John... all the fog rolling in... she tried to remember, but only could see red blood and feel cold lake water.

And she could hear him laughing at her.

"Ma'am? Ma'am can you hear me?"

Mary shuddered.

"Ma'am?" the voice was definitely female, but so far away...

She could still hear Freddy laughing like a maniac in the back of her mind.

"-ambulance is here-"

Mary tried to speak.

"-get over here guys, she's in a bad way!"

The words fought to escape her throat.

"-she's been cut real bad-"

"Matthew" she whispered as the paramedics took her to the ambulance, the gurney wheels rattling over the uneven ground of the dirt road. Mary called out for her ex-husband, not knowing why she needed him so badly. She only knew that she needed him to be here with her now. She called out again, her voice overpowered by the wail of the ambulance.

"Matthew!"

"Ma'am?" came a soft feminine voice, "Ma'am hello?"

Mary muttered something inaudible.

"Ma'am do you know where you are?"

Mary closed her eyes and drifted off again.

"Ma'am?"

***

Saturday, May 14th, 2005

New York City, New York

Dr. Matthew Loomis rarely did sessions on the weekend, but for this case, he had made a special exception.

He sat back in his chair, slightly reclined and maintaining his aura of calm observation. Now into his forties, Loomis had all but lost his once thick mane of chestnut colored hair. While he knew that baldness was typically inherited from the mother's side of the gene pool, he still suspected that his father had somehow passed the trait along to him. What remained was a closely trimmed fringe around the sides of his skull. His closely trimmed beard was full and peppered with gray. His face was strong and compassionate, a countenance worthy of a man who had dedicated his life to the science of psychology.

Across from him, beyond the top of his large oak desk and sitting quietly in the large antique wing-backed chair was Lori Campbell-Rollins. Her normally beautiful face was shadowed by more uncertainty and fear than any twenty-one year-old should ever have to experience. When he had first met her six months ago, she had been able to hide the fear better, more efficiently. But as he had forced her to explore the trauma she had endured her final year of high school, her ability to mask that fear fell away day by day.

Loomis knew all about uncertainty and fear. As his father had told him in a letter shortly before he was murdered, they very often went together hand in hand enabling each other. Loomis didn't quite understand the meaning of that at first, but as he continued his father's work, he slowly came to live by that philosophy. Now, he treated his few, carefully chosen patients exclusively by that line of reasoning.

Lori wasn't making eye contact with him, instead choosing to fix her roaming gaze over the shelves of books and texts he had collected over the years.

"Lori," Loomis spoke softly.