A Nightmare Reborn: FVJ 02

"He's coming," Alice said quietly.

Lori almost asked who but then thought better.

"Freddy's found us," Alice told her.

***

"What do you think they're doing?" Tessa asked as she peered through the front window.

"Some kind of half-assed séance?" Sean muttered.

"I'm not entirely sure," Loomis said as he strained to see through dusty glass into the living room. Lori and Alice were on the floor, sitting quietly and holding hands. Their arms were crossed one over the other and their faces tilted to the ceiling. Alice's mouth seemed to be open and working in silent words while Lori was breathing hard. Her breasts heaved up and down under her sweatshirt as tears streamed down her face.

"Oh my," Loomis whispered. He felt his heart breaking for the young girl and it bothered him that he had lost his detachment with his patient. Up until now, he had been able to keep his clinical distance from those he treated and counseled. But Lori Rollins had been a special case. Everything about her and her husband had stuck a strong personal resonance with Loomis. In Lori he saw himself, even the memory and commitment of his late father.

"Are they dreaming?" Sean looked to Loomis as he braced himself against the windowsill.

"I suspect so," the doctor tilted his head, "But why now?"

"This shit is getting weirder and weirder by the minute," Tessa shook her head.

"So what do we do?" Sean asked.

"We wait," Loomis sighed and walked over the porch swing. He sat down and folded his hands neatly in his lap.

"We wait?"

"Yes," Loomis nodded.

"The world is falling apart as we speak and we wait?"

"That's right."

"That's crazy," Sean replied.

"Are we not pursued by three homicidal maniacs?" Loomis closed his eyes and tried to relax. He tried not to remember how horribly Will Rollins had been murdered. He tried not to remember the screams of Lori being held back from her dying husband. He tried not to remember what had happened to Mary. He asked, "Are we not in danger of imminent death from clearly supernatural phenomenon?"

"Yeah," Sean agreed hesitantly.

"Crazy is our only option."

Loomis closed his eyes and after a moment, despite how scared he was fell into a light sleep.

***

The church had shrunk back down its normal size.

The dusty walls and wooden structure warped and tightened as the faux reality of the dream world began to fall under the influence of the dream killer. Dust was falling in thick clouds now, coating the pews and the two women in a haze of thick ancient crud. Lori coughed and covered her mouth, a salty flavor burning in the back of her throat. It reminded her of the taste of sweat. In her mind she imagined the dust being the desiccated and dried remains of Freddy's victims. Her stomach lurched and she staggered back against Alice.

"He does this," Alice stood still and defiant against the herald of Krueger's arrival, "He can be overdramatic or subtle."

A violent tremor shook the foundations of the church.

"Either way," Alice looked to Lori, "It's all show."

The doors of the church blew open and smashed against the walls with a thunderous bang that echoed through the building. Black crows took flight from thin air at the feet of the man standing in the doorway. The beating of their wings filled the soundscape of the world and hurt Lori's ears as they rocketed overhead and then into the shadows of the upper ceiling structure. They cawed and squawked angrily in the infinite space of the ceiling, flying back into the oblivion from whence they came.

"My favorite bitches!" Freddy Krueger announced as he raked his bladed fingers over the church doorframe. He scrawled splinted gashes into the ancient wood as he passed. His yellow eyes fixed on Alice for a moment with hateful recognition and then rolled wetly to Lori. He crossed his arms over his green and red striped sweater, tapping the blades on his arm. He smiled, revealing the broken and rotted brown teeth behind his burned lips, "Fancy meeting you here."

"Always a pleasure," Alice replied.

"If only Nancy were here," Freddy walked slowly down the center aisle, "I mean then we'd really have some fun. Three bitches at the same time."

"In your dreams," Alice said.

"I thought we were," Freddy winked a demonic eye and added under his breath, "Do you have any idea how long it's been since I got laid?"

Alice shook her head.

"By the way Alice," Freddy reached behind his back and then pulled the body of a ten year old boy out from behind him like a ventriloquist with his prize dummy. The little boy was pale and dead, his face limp and sagging. Krueger held him by the skin of his bald scalp, the blades of his fingers dug in deep and pulling on the skin. Wet hospital pajama's clung to the boy's flaccid body as dead blue eyes stared into the void. Freddy shook the body and made it dance in an obscene electric jive, the bruised feet slapping against the floor, "How's your son doing? I hear he's dead on his feet."

Lori could feel Alice tense up at the sight of her dead son.

"Fuck you," Lori shouted.

"Lori," Freddy sighed, "Can't you see I'm trying to get reacquainted with an old friend here?"

"Leave her alone!" Lori screamed.

"Lori," Alice put a hand on her shoulder and shook her head, "No."

Freddy made the corpse of Jacob Johnson talk, a gross parody of Willie Tyler and Lester. Freddy looked surprised and shocked as he threw his voice and Jacob spoke, "While Uncle Freddy, it's been so long. I missed you."

"Jacob, you little scamp," Freddy chuckled and patted the dead boy's forehead with a proud mischievous grin, "You're mom is here to say hello."

The head of the corpse turned and stared at Alice, "Hello bitch."

"That's no way to talk to your mom," Freddy laughed and shrugged at Alice, "Kids say the darndest fucking things, don't they?"

"You're still just as pathetic as you were back then," Alice said.

"Whoop-dee shit, bitch," the corpse laughed mockingly, "Oh, Dad says hello Mom. He's burning in hell right now as we speak. He says he misses you."

"Stop it now, you fuck!" Lori screamed as a single tear rolled down Alice's cheek.

"Ohhhhh, such big fucking talk," Freddy eyed her and then leaned in closer as he tossed the dead body of Jacob Johnson into the front pew. It landed on the hard wooden bench with a wet crumpling sound and a loud echoing thud.

"You really are a bastard," Alice said quietly.

"I can't say you're wrong," Freddy nodded thoughtfully and put one dusty boot on the first step leading up to where Lori and Alice stood, "If the shoe fits, right Alice?"

"I'm going to stop you," Lori glared at him, her blue eyes filled with vengeance.

"Oh no," Krueger put his hands to his slimy burnt cheeks as his eyes went wide with mock fear. He raised his voice to a high squeal and whimpered as he pranced in place, "Oh please don't kill me! Please Mrs. Rollins! I've been killed so many times before that I can't do one more roll with the punch! Mercy!"

Krueger threw his head back and laughed, holding his stomach with both hands.

"He likes to hear himself talk," Alice glanced at Lori.

"Let's just get this over with," Freddy rolled his eyes, "I have a town to conquer, innocent people to murder and a world set ablaze."

"By all means," Alice stood in a classic fighting stance.

Freddy mimicked her and danced around like a twisted version of a champion boxer, his bottom lip sucked in and feral eyes wide with amusement. He rolled his fists in the air and did a gleeful dance. Freddy laughed and chuckled to himself as Alice watched him impassively. Krueger wasn't taking any of it seriously.

Alice made to lunge for him and then Krueger stopped, opening his right hand and extended the blades out. Alice was within a foot of him before an unseen force shoved her backwards hard. She lifted into the air and was thrown back into the large center window of the chapel. The glass shattered and fell in sharp slivers as she passed through and out of sight. Freddy looked at his knives like a well-manicured businessman appraising his nails before an important meeting.

"I can't tell you," the dream killer shook his head, "How fucking good that felt."

Lori looked out the window helplessly and then back at Freddy. He removed his dark fedora and looked at her with all the compassion of a venomous snake.

"We're going to stop you," Lori said, though she had a hard time believing it. She hated herself for not having the courage to face him. It was as though she were being drained from the inside out, like someone had pulled the plug on her soul and all of the essential parts that made her who she was were being flushed away. As she looked into his cold eyes and felt his stare on her she discovered a fear she hadn't known since the time she had faced him at the dock on Crystal Lake.

"What will it take?" Freddy ignored her, "What does a guy have to do to get rid of you? Was killing your husband not enough? Was killing your father not enough?"

"Liar!" she screamed, "My father is not dead!"

"Well, technically he killed himself," Freddy shrugged, "But regardless... DEAD!."

"Liar!"

"That's good," Freddy laughed and took a step back, "Denial is always good. Makes my job easier."

Lori wanted to jump on Krueger and beat the shit out of him until his head caved in. She wanted to avenge all the deaths he had caused and all the horrific crimes he had committed, but found herself paralyzed with fear. Her legs would not move and her arms remained frozen at her sides, trembling slightly as the fear enveloped her like a sackcloth cloak. Lori gritted her teeth and fought against the fear.

"Poor Lori," Freddy sighed and then pointed to the far side of the chapel. Lori saw her father there, slumped against the wall. His head was gone, only a raw and smoldering stump where the neck should have been. She could smell his cooked flesh and thought she might vomit as she looked at the wall behind him. Her father's face was in chunks and spatters across the surface. She could make out his mouth, sliding wetly down the wall past a destroyed eyeball. The eye seemed to look right at her.

"You're death, Lori," her father's corpse whispered through disembodied lips. When the fleshy lips moved, she could see the plaster behind the mouth, "Everything and everyone you touch dies."

Suddenly his torso opened up and revealed his inner workings like some gory flower yielding to the bloody sunlight. Ropes of gristly intestines looped out and roped across the floor towards her like spastic snakes. The pale tubes of flesh writhed and slithered for her feet. Lori hitched a silent scream in her throat as the intestines coiled around her legs and worked their way up her thighs. She could feel a warm length of the long organ slip up her pants leg and slide along her calve.

Thick membranes tore and separated as organs ruptured and fell to the floor. They scooted and squirmed towards her as that lone eyeball splattered on the wall watched her. The veins deeply embedded in the fleshy monstrosity began whipping out of their beds and lashing about like whips. The veins ripped away and followed the kidneys and lungs inching their way towards Lori.

"Not real," Lori huffed as panic gripped her mind, "Not real."

"Let me assure you," Freddy called from his seat in the front pew, a huge tub of popcorn tucked under his arm. He wore 3-D glasses and tossed the popcorn into his mouth as he laughed, "It is very real."

"You let me die, Lori," Will Rollins called to her.

Lori grimaced and felt tears burning her eyes again.

"You left me there and they killed me."

Lori breathed deeply and closed her eyes.

"Why did we have to stay?"

She dared not open her eyes. She dared not speak to him.

"I thought you loved me..."

Lori couldn't bear to see him in the illusion Krueger had created.

"Not real," she whispered.

Lori focused her mind on breathing and on the memories flashing before her eyes. The words of the dead people, the boy with no eyes in particular came back to her all at once. He had said where there is peace there is no fear. Lori didn't know if he was telling the truth or not. How many eyeless dead boys had she trusted in her life? But the fact was that she was losing her battle against Freddy Krueger. There was no one around to wake her up. There was no one around to help her. Loomis and the others might as well have been a million miles away.

She was alone.

Lori thought of Will and remembered his laugh.

Freddy looked up from his popcorn, suddenly angry.

"I remember him kissing me for the first time," Lori whispered, "In his bedroom..."

"Oh how clichéd is this?" Krueger groaned, but his voice was uncertain.

"I remember his hands were sweaty," Lori reminded herself, "He was nervous."

Freddy grunted in disgust. He stuck his finger in his mouth and made gagging sounds as his 3-D glasses flamed and burned off his face.

"So was I..."

"Spare me," the dream killer growled.

The ropes of intestines oozed around her neck and began to tighten, but Lori continued, "I kissed him back and then we laid on his bed for a long time."

Freddy stomped up the steps and stood in front of Lori and the mass of internal organs that were trying to smother her. The veins, all of them blue and red had laced around her body and were forming a cocoon. A large slab of bruised meat clung to her thigh, probably a pancreas or a liver, and hung there like a leech. Freddy looked at Lori and realized she wasn't panicking anymore.

"All right you bitch," Freddy nodded and put his hands on his hips as the veins began to lose their strength and fall away, "That's fine."

The leech like organ on her thigh quivered and then fell, splattering across the floor and unleashing a gush of churned meat and foul liquid. Lori was chanting the memory now as the intestines found their otherworldly strength negated and sapped. The long ropes of rubbery meat withered and then flopped to the floor around her feet. Blood stained her sweater and soaked her pants as she mouthed the words of her memories over and over again.

"I'm not afraid of you," she said quietly as the horrific contents of her dead father's body began to disintegrate on the floor before her.

Freddy stepped back, "Soon, you bitch. Both of you."

And then he was gone.

Lori stood alone for a long time, her body relaxed and her eyes closed as she continued to recall the memories. There was new sensation tingling in her fingers; a sort of prickly feeling that accompanied sleeping with your head on your arm for too long. The pins and needles poked and prodded her as a cool shiver worked its way down her spine. She still felt scared, and the ghostly voice of her dead husband had made her heart break all over again and yet she couldn't deny the presence of the new emotion.

"That was good," Alice Johnson said.

Lori opened her eyes slowly and found that the church was gone. It had melted away and the two women were floating in nothingness. Freddy was gone and so was the monstrous illusion of her dead father. She knew in her heart that Freddy wasn't lying and that he had died. She supposed he had been dead ever since her mother had been murdered. It had just taken longer than usual for his body to understand and accept that he was no longer alive. Lori imagined that was why he had been able to justify sending innocent children into comas with the experimental drug hypnocil. That was why he had condemned Will to Westin Hills.

"I didn't beat him," Lori said, "He left too quickly."

"He was probably going after someone else," Alice agreed and then added, "But you did something few people can do. You saw through the illusions."

"You think that's why he left?"

Alice thought for a moment, "He's not all powerful yet."

Lori looked at her, "Are you alright?"

Alice smiled warmly, and Lori saw a glimpse of the woman the Dream Master had once been a long time ago. She said, "I will be."

"What now?"

"We wake up," Alice told her, "Find the other two assholes running around Springwood and then send Freddy back to Hell."

***

"So," Tessa looked at Sean.

"So," Sean shrugged.

They had been sitting on the steps of the wooden porch now for an hour, waiting and wondering. It was difficult for them both. In Sean's mind, this was the time for action. They should be out there right now luring Michael and Jason to the power plant. They shouldn't be wasting any time. Tessa was feeling the same way, though her thoughts were less on the frustration of their position and more on other things.

"You think Charlie will come out here?" she asked and put a hand on Sean's strong forearm.

"Don't know," Sean replied, "He should've been here by now. That's if he even got our message. The radio is all fucked up."

"Until Lori and her new friend figure out how to catch Freddy, I guess we wait then," Tessa sighed and ran her finger along the large vein that bulged out from his elbow to his wrist in a slightly bent line.

"The longer we wait, the more people die."

Tessa looked over at Loomis, "That's probably the most sleep he's had in days."

Sean nodded.

"I have a bad feeling," Tessa cocked her eyebrow and licked her full lips, "That we haven't even seen the worst yet."

"Me too."

"If we get through this," she smiled and kissed his neck, "What then?"

"I'm going to buy a boat," Sean pulled her close to him, "Use a little of my rainy day money and go on vacation."

"Got room for one more?"

Sean smiled, "It'll be a big boat."

"I know how to tie knots."

He looked at her knowingly, "I know you do."

Tessa winked at him.

"What about you?" he asked.

"Me?" Tessa pointed at herself, "I'm going to retire and bug the shit out of you for the rest of our lives."

"Sounds like commitment," Sean said wearily.

"After a few months of being stuck at sea with each other, we'll both be committed," she laughed and then added, "Hell, after what I've been seeing the last few days I may need to be committed anyway."

A long silence passed between them and Sean knew better than to fool himself about the odds. Surviving another hour seemed to be a highly unlikely prospect, let alone living long enough to buy a boat. The fantasy of sailing with Tessa across the Pacific was a wonderful idea, and he held on to it with a stubborn resolve. Sunny days and quiet relaxation appealed to him. And even thinking of Tessa Alexander in a skimpy two-piece made him sweat.

But he wasn't a man who clung to fantasies over the truth.

Watching all his friends fall and die so easily had put a lot into perspective for him. While he wanted to believe that the crazy-ass plan Loomis had cooked up would work there was a part of him that was too grounded in reality to accept it. He was a cop. He was an officer of the law and he dealt in the truth and in practicality. For a good cop, as his father had told him many times, the truth is the only reliable thing in life. You can always count on the truth.

"You think his idea will work?" Sean looked at Loomis.

Tessa replied, "Sometimes I think a plan is better than no plan at all."

"That's not what I asked."

Tessa thought for a moment and then held her eyes on his, both serious and yet oddly accepting. She said, "I think even if we pull this off, we're dead anyway."

Sean watched the clouds roll and thunder overhead as he silently agreed with her assessment. The rain was falling still though sunlight had begun to streak through small breaks in the clouds. The water lit up and fell like hot drops of liquid fire to the ground. He held her hand in his and simply sat there on the old wooden porch as the doctor napped. Lightning flashed overhead and Sean sighed.

"Usually the calm before the storm is calm," he mused.

"Not in Springwood, baby," Tessa said, "Not ever."