A Nightmare Reborn Ch. 02

Jason had turned away and disregarded her.

She was dead, just like her man.

But then she had risen and stumbled into the forest. In her hand she had carried something he couldn't quite make out. Jason had followed her, slowly and cautiously through the woods as she made her way to the road. Instead of going to her truck and driving away, she had abandoned the vehicle on the shore and went crashing through the woods. Jason wondered how she could still be alive after being underwater for so long.

But then, he also knew that drowning didn't always equate to death. He didn't know much, but of that fact he was perfectly aware.

As he had approached her, his machete held firmly in his left hand, his good hand that still had all its fingers, he suddenly smelled a familiar stench. The smell had repulsed him and made him angry, forcing him to stop in his tracks.

It was the smell of the man in his dreams, a strange otherworldly odor that Jason had come to hate and even fear. The man in his dreams had almost killed him, succeeding where so many others had failed. He had forced him to relive the drowning in the lake, and for Jason it was as frightening and violent as it had been the first time. He could still taste the water in his throat, and as he stood there watching the woman run, he felt his lungs hitch involuntarily.

Jason lowered his machete and watched her, trying to understand why she wreaked of the dream man.

Was the dream man still alive?

No, he had to be dead. Jason had set his severed head in his dwelling, a hard-earned trophy.

Still, he knew that death didn't mean much here at Crystal Lake. The dream man was very good at disguising himself.

He recalled the image of his mother, and how the dream man had worn her face. He had believed his mother was there, talking to him, telling him to go to Elm Street where the children had been bad. They had been bad like the counselors at the lake had been that day. Bad like they had been when the cut his mother's head off on the shores of his lake. Bad like they had been ever since he found his true purpose in life.

For Jason, all he had was his purpose, what his heart raged every waking moment for him to do.

He would punish.

Jason's eyes didn't blink once as a Brown Recluse spider crawled across his mask slowly. The strange arachnid skittered along on its strong legs and stopped just below his left eyehole. Jason regarded the spider for a moment and they seemed to stare at each other. The spider then turned and scurried away. It fell from his head and into the flattened brush crushed beneath the bulk of his powerful frame.

Jason looked back to the sky.

He had watched the woman fall into a ditch by the road that led up to the Camp Crystal Lake entry. There she had lain until a car pulled up. Jason impassively watched a man get out and cautiously approach the woman. He poked at her with his foot for a moment and talked to her. After a moment, he pulled out a cell phone and frantically called for help. And then the ambulance had arrived, picked her up and took her away. There had been a police car too, but it left with the ambulance.

The smell was still here though.

Even as Jason laid low in the brush, waiting for the men that would soon come to investigate, he could smell the dream man. The odor angered him and filled him with a blind, hot rage. Jason gripped his machete so hard his knuckles popped loudly like pieces of tempered steel snapping.

He hated the dream man.

He hated the dream man so much.

The flashing lights of approaching police cars caught his attention, and Jason remained still. They were here now, intruding on the sacred ground of the lake. They would come with their guns and bullets and they would do as many had done before. They would shoot and scream and try to kill him. But in the end, he would split them all open. Every last one of them. Jason would cut through them like a force of nature, unchained and bowing to no one.

And once he was finished with them, he would go back to Elm Street and find the dream man. He would rid himself of that stench and finally be free of him. Jason had known almost no fear since that day in the lake, since he had choked on the murky water festering at the bottom. He had left his fear of the water behind with his humanity, buried it with his rage as he had done with everything else in his life. The dream man had used him, exploited him and then tried to kill him.

If Jason had been able to smile, he would have.

But then, what did smiles mean to him anyway?

***

"You okay?" Will asked.

He smiled warmly at his wife and pulled the elegant chair out for her. The restaurant was thick with the smell of Italian food and even heavier with its non-stop play list of Frank Sinatra music. At the moment, Old Blue Eyes was crooning his heart out about Luck being a lady tonight. Any Sinatra tune, this one particular brought back memories of his father before he died. Will hadn't really known Stephen Rollins all that well before he keeled over and died of a heart attack at age forty-five, but he carried some very good memories. Will had only been seven years old when Stephen passed. Long before he ever moved to Springwood, long before Westin Hills and certainly long before Freddy Krueger.

But he could always remember his father playing Frank Sinatra on the turntable on warm summer evenings for him and his mom. He always felt good whenever that music was playing, and he clung to those few precious memories like they were made of gold. The music made him feel almost as good as Lori made him feel.

Almost.

He smiled at her, loving her so completely it scared him sometimes.

"I'm fine," Lori smiled as Will seated her and pushed her chair in. She was clad in an elegant white dress that hugged her curves as though the dress had been designed specifically with her in mind. Her thick blonde hair had been pulled up in a simple French styling. As always, Will was pretty much speechless around her. To this day, he still couldn't believe he had somehow managed to win her over, much less marry her.

Still, she was wearing the two rings he had put on her finger.

"Dr. Loomis discover anything ground breaking?" he asked and opened his menu.

Lori shrugged and glanced at his wrists. "We talked about what happened last night mostly."

Will looked at her. "Look, forget about that, okay? I'm fine."

"No Will," she shook her head, "It's not okay. You've got bruises on your arms from me..."

She held his hands and pulled the cuffs of his blue dress shirt back. His wrists and forearms were bruised and purple. Her fingers had left clear marks where she had grabbed him and squeezed. Lori ran her fingertips gently over the swollen skin, her guilt concerning the incident plainly etched on her face. She said, "... see? God Will, I am so sorry."

"You had a bad dream," Will reassured her. "That's all. It's probably the memorial coming up that's got you spooked."

"Is it?" she asked.

"Positive."

"And what about how hard I squeezed you? I almost broke your wrists..."

"You're freakishly strong, babe," Will said after a moment, "Nothing wrong with that."

The waiter approached their table. He was a stocky man, with dark hair and a severely receding hairline. His glasses were wire-rimmed and magnified his small, beady eyes. Lori wondered how small his eyes actually were without magnification. His round belly seemed to reach the table before he did. The waiter smiled genuinely and said, "Are you ready?"

"Uh, no, not yet," Will told him, "A few more minutes..."

"Of course sir," the waiter bowed and left.

Will turned to Lori. "Babe," he said, "We've come along way from what happened two years ago. Your dad supplies us with hypnocil, we're hundreds of miles away from Springwood and Crystal Lake and we've started a new life. If Freddy was going to come back, he would have done it by now."

"How can you be sure?" Lori stirred her water with her index finger.

Will opened his mouth to argue, and then thought better of it. "I don't know for sure. But I do know that even if he did come back, he can't touch us. We're using the hypnocil."

"Dr. Loomis said we might building up and immunity to it," Lori replied.

"How does he know?" Will asked. "How does he know for certain?"

"Still, he told me that maybe I, no maybe we need to face this and get past it," Lori reached out and took his hand again, "We can't just bury Freddy like everyone else did and forget about him. It doesn't work that way. We have to come off the hypnocil eventually, Will. Maybe when we go back, we should visit-"

"No," Will said, "No way."

"But Will..."

"Lori," Will laughed, half scared that she might be serious, "I am not going back to Crystal Lake or that house you used to live in or Westin Hills."

"Don't you think that maybe we should go back and prove nothing is wrong? Just to see?"

"No, I don't want to see, Lori," Will said a little too loudly. Several people around them turned and watched with passing interest and then resumed their meals. Will looked at the tablecloth for a moment, embarrassed. He said, "The first time I came across Freddy Krueger I got locked up in Westin Hills. I lost five years of my life. The second time I lost almost everyone I ever cared about. Damn near got chopped up and came this close to losing you again. I can't risk all that a third a time. We can go to the memorial... fine. We can go and see everyone's families and all that stuff... fine. But we can't go sight seeing, okay?"

Lori said nothing, simply looking at Will with her large beautiful blue eyes.

"I won't risk losing you, Lori," Will repeated, "You're my life. You kept me going when your dad had me locked away at Westin Hills. I love you so much."

There were times when Lori tried to imagine what Will must have gone through during his forced stay at Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital. He had never really gone into detail much about what happened there, save for he met his best friend Mark there and spent most of his time brooding over the fact he had been given a raw deal.

Will had seen what he thought was her father murdering her mother one night. Will had been convinced of her father's guilt, but in truth Freddy Krueger had mind-fucked him and blurred the truth. Krueger killed her mother and her father covered it up to protect her. Her father didn't want her near anything to do with Freddy Krueger, lest her fear give him power over her.

So Will had been carted away to the funny farm to protect Lori.

"I love you too," she smiled.

"What happened last night was freaky, okay?" he said quietly, "But we were both tired, and I think it all happened so fast that-"

"You mistook my voice for Freddy's voice?"

"I love you sweetie," he said, "Let's just forget about it all for now, okay?"

She did love him very much, more than anyone else in the world. Even when her father objected so strenuously to their marriage and threatened to disown her it was never really a hard choice. Will had stuck by her the whole time, even while locked away. Lori supposed she knew that he was the only one all along which is why she never really dated or was interested in anyone else.

It was just right.

"Besides," Will shrugged, "I feel like we're tempting fate going back as it is anyway..."

Lori tilted her head lovingly and dismissed the notion. "I'm sorry."

Will kissed her hand gently, "It's okay."

"You ready to order?" Lori asked, changing the subject.

"Yeah," Will said and motioned for the waiter.

Lori took another drink of water and picked one of the long bread sticks from the small wicker basket in the middle of the table. "You ever think about them?"

"Who?" Will asked.

"Mark," Lori felt a sadness hanging over her heart as she spoke, "Kia, Linderman..."

"Every day," Will said quietly.

Lori closed her eyes for a moment.

She felt so tired, so worn out. She felt like she had been running a non-stop marathon from the night she and Will had escaped from Crystal Lake. She had taken Freddy's head from his body with Jason's machete and watched the corpse fall into the lake. She wanted to believe he was dead, she wanted so fucking badly to believe he was dead.

But belief always seemed to work better in the light for her, during the daytime when everything is illuminated. There were no secrets during the day. Lori always took what little comfort she could from knowing that during the day, everything seemed a little clearer to her.

Then night came, and she wasn't sure anymore. Uncertainty and fear, that's what Dr. Loomis had warned her about. When the sun went down and shadow claimed everything she felt cold and alone, sometimes even when Will was right there next to her in bed. She would doubt what she had seen with her own eyes and wonder whether Freddy had survived the decapitation.

Suppose he had? Then he would eventually seek out his revenge. Men like him always did.

It wasn't so much that she feared having to fight him in the real world again. That in and of itself was it's own nightmare.

The hard part was facing him in dreams because Freddy could make anything happen. In that strange in-between world of dreams and nightmares, Freddy Krueger ruled with unchallenged power and imagination. No, other people's imaginations. That was his real power, imagination and fear. Somewhere deep down Lori knew that from the beginning. It was the unspoken logic behind her being tranquilized that night into a deep sleep so she could catch Freddy and pull him out into the real world.

But facing Freddy Krueger again was only a small part of it.

Lori feared losing the life she had fought so hard for. She feared losing Will most of all, never being able to touch him again or kiss him or talk to him. Lori couldn't bear to think of Will not being in her life. She had become so thoroughly attached to him through this ordeal, so hopelessly in love with him that she wondered if Freddy ever did come back would he use her love for him against her?

And would she be quick enough to realize it was happening?

"Lori?"

Lori snapped back out her thoughts.

A hot plate of spaghetti sat in front of her, steaming and smelling delicious. The waiter was handing Will his generous portion of lasagna and making sure everything was to their satisfaction. Lori inhaled the scent of the thick, red sauce and smiled. Her mother used to make the best spaghetti ever. Lori had never been able to find another bowl of pasta that compared to what her mother could cook up. As she twirled the noodles around her fork, she thought maybe this might come close.

"This smells great," Lori commented, gently blowing on the pasta.

The waiter nodded politely. "I should hope so, Lori."

Lori took a bite and savored the flavor of the sauce. It was very good, and while it made her mouth water, it still didn't measure up to her mother's home cooking.

She frowned and looked to the waiter, "How did you know my name?"

The waiter regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, as though he had lost his train of thought. "I'm sorry, I overheard your boyfriend talking to you."

"He's my husband," Lori smiled and raised her hand, waving her ring finger, "And it's alright really-"

A strange mewling sound drifted up to her ears and she stopped mid-sentence.

"You married him?" the waiter chuckled.

Lori's eyes suddenly fixed on her plate of pasta. The sauce had been an orange-red color when the waiter brought it out. But now, it was the deep crimson shade of blood, almost looking black in some places. She poked at the pasta with her fork and when she moved the long, stringy noodles aside the sauce stretched with it in gooey ropes. It pulled and quivered like a thick wet membrane. Lori felt her stomach turn over as she tasted something metallic in her mouth. She spit the food out of her mouth onto the white tablecloth. It looked like chunks of bloody gore.

"Is everything alright, miss?" the waiter asked nonchalantly.

Lori shook her head, "No, I don't..."

And then she felt something in her mouth. Her entire body went rigid as her heart jumped and froze. Something prickly and hard was poking at her tongue. She could feel not one, not two but six pinpricks on her tongue as something smooth and cold skittered inside her mouth. Lori opened her mouth wide and screamed. A large cockroach fell from her mouth, bloody and covered with bits of chewed food. It landed on the table with a wet slapping sound and began running wildly in small irregular circles.

"Will," Lori gasped, her hands on her stomach protectively.

Will continued eating his lasagna, either unaware or not caring that a large insect had just fallen out of his wife's mouth. He shoved bite after bite of lasagna into his mouth, dripping the same blood red sauce onto his face and shirt.

Lori looked down at her own plate again. The roach had been joined by several equally repugnant cousins, all of them swarming her food and clattering against the ceramic plate. As she looked at the spaghetti, she realized that the thick, strange sauce was oozing out from the pasta and onto the white cloth. It was as if her dinner were bleeding to death, hemorrhaging all over the table. The viscous red liquid dripped and spread out as more cockroaches birthed themselves from the mound of pasta. The noodles made small sucking noises as each progressive roach worked its way out and onto the table.

"Will!" she screamed.

There was no reply from him. Will was covered by roaches, all of them bloody and iridescent in the low, yellow moody lighting of the restaurant. They swarmed over his face, a moving mass of live alien-like creatures. Lori screamed and stood up, grabbing the tablecloth from the table nearest them. The dishes and glasses crashed to the floor and shattered into a million pieces. The shards seem to ricochet off the floor in slow motion as she ran to Will, spinning and tumbling away at their own impossibly retarded speed.

"Help me!" she shouted to the waiter and made to swat the bugs off her convulsing husband. She could hear him screaming beneath the roaches, his voice pathetic and desperate.

"Miss, is there a problem?" the waiter asked impatiently and grabbed her arm so hard that Lori was jerked back mid-run.

She turned and was ready to scream at the waiter when she looked into his eyes and stopped. Her fingers went limp and the tablecloth dropped to the floor as her blood ran ice cold. She knew who it was even before she had turned to face the man holding her. There was a sickening familiarity about those eyes even before the kind visage of the waiter melted away to be replaced by burned flesh.

"Hello princess," Freddy Krueger leered, still dressed in the waiter's sharply pressed black and white outfit.

Lori could only gape at him.

"Ohhhhh... not enjoying your dinner tonight?" he pouted and tightened his grip on her arm. One of the roaches climbed the front of his shirt, leaving a small bloody trail up the white fabric.

Lori looked back down at the ever-expanding pile of roaches on the table. She could hear their hard shells clattering together, their rough legs scraping against each other as they swarmed the table. The entire tabletop was buried in a moving mass of insects, working their way to Will. She could no longer see any of his body, nothing recognizable as the roaches enveloped him.

Lori squirmed against Freddy's grip.

"Looks like your dinner is enjoying Will, though..."

"Let me go!" she found her voice, screaming into his face.

"So demanding," Freddy mocked and brought his bladed hand to bear. The knives gleamed in the warm lighting of the restaurant. Lori could hear them slicing through air as he whipped his hand up, sharp and deadly as ever. She noticed that the waiter's outfit had started turning red with green stripes, as though someone had poured water on him and magically brought his true colors to life.