A Nightmare Reborn: FVJ 02

"You're both so beautiful," he whispered, opening his arms to them. And then Lori was on top of Loomis, her head thrown back and mouth open as she cried out. Loomis watched her rhythmically sway and undulate, hypnotized and entranced. He fought to keep up with her vigorous lovemaking as he grasped her hips and gritted his teeth. He looked to his left and then noticed Tessa was standing up, facing the shadowed corner of the living room.

"Tessa," Loomis breathed, "Are you okay?"

Tessa cocked her head to one side, her dark hair changing before his very eyes. It became a lighter shade of brown and began to shorten. The hair seemed to retract into her scalp and feather into a windswept coif. Loomis felt his nipples harden and his stomach suddenly feel ill as he looked at Tessa, her backside toned and her ass curved in the dim storm light. Her exotic skin seemed to ripple for a moment as she turned and faced him.

***

"Just like that," Alice smiled at Sean as he worked his way inside her, an odd smile spreading across her lips, "Just like that..."

***

Loomis was not ready for what he saw.

Where there had once been kind and beautiful features, there was now a white mask. It mimicked the look of Michael Myers mask, only this seemed to be real flesh. The chalky white of the face melted into the dark skin of her neck gradually. Where Tessa's eyes should have been were two cut holes revealing infinite blackness. Loomis struggled to process the information as he looked at her.

"Tessa," he managed as this bizarre hybrid of Michael Myers and Tessa Alexander reached behind her back and then pulled a long, eighteen-inch kitchen knife from nowhere. It gleamed in the light as she held it between her breasts, the cold steel pressed against her skin. On her wrist he noticed a tattoo. A thorn tattoo.

"Lori," Loomis whispered and then fell silent.

Like Tessa, Lori was there and yet she wasn't. Loomis recognized her voluptuous figure and the heavy milky orbs of her breasts, and yet from her neck up she wasn't herself anymore. The battered hockey mask of Jason Voorhees glared down at him. He watched, completely awestruck and dumbfounded as Lori's blonde hair withered and fell away from her scalp. The skin of her body mottled into a sickly gray as her sex became cold around him. Loomis gasped as his lungs seized up. The meat between her legs was icy and forbidding now.

"Oh my God," Loomis whispered.

The Lori/ Jason hybrid reached down beside Loomis and then pulled a long, scarred machete into view. The weathered metal blade was chipped and rough, a relic of many slaughters and kills. Loomis struggled underneath the monstrosity pinning him down and then saw another figure standing beside Tessa. He shouted, "No!"

"You fucked my wife," the rotting corpse of Will Rollins leered at him. Half of Will's face was gone, seemingly peeled back and decayed from the gleaming skull. He could see the enamel of Will's teeth glimmering at him from the churned red meat as the corpse ambled towards him, a hand stretch out in accusation from beyond the grave. Maggots, both large and small spilled from Will's mouth as he spoke. They rolled on the floor, fat and moist, as he approached.

"No, Will please," Loomis shoved at Lori/ Jason frantically, "No, I never meant to! I-"

"You fucked up, Doc," Will bellowed as maggots fell onto Loomis's face and squirmed wetly.

Lori/ Jason raised the machete high into the air as dead eyes peered out from behind the hockey mask. Tessa/ Michael stood above his head, the kitchen knife poised and ready to strike.

Loomis screamed.

"Wake me up!" he cried out to the real world, "Wake me up!"

***

Alice was now on her back, lying on the couch with her legs draped over Sean's powerful shoulders. She unabashedly moaned and cooed and groaned as he mercilessly performed his oral machinations.

"You like that?" Sean asked.

"Fuck yeah," she managed as she tried to catch her breath, "It's been so long."

If Sean had been able to see her eyes, he would have seen them turn yellow.

***

Lori/ Jason's legs clamped tight around Loomis as Tessa/ Michael stabbed her knife down. Loomis jerked his head to the left and the blade sank into the floor at least three inches. He began hitting Lori/ Jason's thighs as hard as he could. He could feel her skin rotting out as she worked to keep her hold on him. Layers of necrotic flesh were sloughing off the once beautiful Lori Rollins as she transformed into something entirely. Loomis forced himself to keep control.

'That's not Lori,' he screamed in his mind, 'That's not Will or Tessa! It's Freddy!'

Lori/ Jason slammed the machete down and Loomis had barely shifted his head back the other way. His skull hit the broad side of the kitchen knife embedded in the floor as the machete rocketed down. He felt his right cheek flare in agony as the huge blade shaved part of his cheek off. Loomis screamed and found his head was caught between the knife of Michael Myers and the blade of Jason Voorhees.

"Somebody wake me up!" he screamed, "Please!"

***

Tessa looked at Sean.

He had been sleeping for at least ten minutes now. A stupid grin was stretched across his face, broad and oddly reminiscent of the one Loomis wore. She looked over at the doctor. He was no longer smiling though. His face was pinched and white, eyebrows furrowed with deep lines of concern. Tessa nudged Sean.

"Hey," she whispered, "I think the Doc is having a nightmare."

Sean didn't reply.

"Sean?" Tessa tried to sit him up, but Sean only fell back against the stairs. His head hit the wood hard and rebounded. Tessa hissed through her teeth as she waited for him to wake up pissed. Instead, he remained out like a light and smiling.

"Sean?" Tessa shook him as Loomis began mumbling something inaudible and yet clearly panicked.

"Loomis?" she shouted. The doctor only shook his head and cried out a yelp of pain. On his right cheek the skin opened up and began trickling blood down into his beard and to the collar of his shirt.

"Fuck!" Tessa struggled to stand up. Her ankle was still throbbing from the fall she had taken in the police station a few hours ago. She bit her lip and hobbled up the stairs, looking back at Sean, "Wake the fuck up, Sean! Loomis is in trouble!"

Sean didn't say anything.

"Help me!" Tessa screamed and slapped her hand against the windowpane as she limped to Loomis.

***

"Oh my God," Alice huffed and leaned her head back, "Oh my God..."

Sean smiled at her, feeling like he had just run a marathon.

"How can I ever repay you?" Alice looked at him, completely satisfied.

"Just keep up your end of the deal," he breathed, "You show us how to beat Freddy Krueger."

"You can't beat him," Alice chuckled, only it wasn't the soft feminine voice he had become used to. The chuckle was deep and demonic, filled with hate and genuine amusement.

"What?"

Alice held her right hand up and from her fingers sprang long knifes. Blood spattered Sean as he staggered back. Her fingers spread out at an impossibly wide reach, the bone crackling and knuckles popping. Alice leapt up and swiped at him, tearing long horrific gashes into Sean's stomach and chest. He fell backwards to the floor, clutching at his wounds. The knife from her pinky just barely missed slicing his penis from his body, scrawling an angry red line from his right hip to his left inner thigh.

"And you were worried about me scratching up your back?" the naked illusion of Alice Johnson melted away and revealed the form of Freddy Krueger. He brushed his tattered sweater off and pulled his fedora out from behind his back. He looked down at the muscular black man on the floor and shook his head.

"I've always had a thing for dark meat, Sean," Freddy frowned as he pulled a large clear plastic bottle from his pants pocket marked "Listerine." The green fluid splashed in the large container as he unscrewed the cap, "But for Christ's sake this is the fucking grossest thing I've ever had to do. You and Loomis... ech!"

Krueger upended the bottle of mouthwash and drank it down as the fluid splashed down over his clothes. Sean couldn't think as the minty smell of mouthwash filled his nose and burned there acidically. His blood was pooling on the floor as he hugged his wounded torso. Krueger had fucked him. That mother-fucking dead fuck had tricked him into fucking. Sean wanted to puke as he realized he had just fucked Freddy Krueger.

"If it's any consolation," Krueger spit the mouthwash out onto Sean, "I've had better."

Krueger bellowed with laughter as he tossed the empty bottle away.

"But you know what?" the dream killer knelt down beside him, "I think I'm going to enjoy Tessa a lot more. She's so... tasty."

Sean screamed at Krueger, not in fear or in desperation but in pure rage.

"I just prefer women, that's all," Krueger laughed, "It was a good try though, Sean."

Krueger drew his hand back, blades dripping with Sean's blood.

***

"What is it?" Lori shouted as she and Alice ran onto the front porch. The screen door slammed open and smashed against the wall as they sprinted to Tessa.

"Krueger's got him!" she slapped Loomis hard on his good cheek as blood gushed from his wound.

"Doctor Loomis!" Lori grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and shook him, "Doctor Loomis wake up!"

"You let him go to sleep?" Alice asked incredulously and then looked over at Sean. The big man arched his back as he laid on the steps and let out a searing howl of agony. His uniform opened up in four long slashes and blood misted into the air. Sean began having a seizure as his boots kicked against the steps. Tessa looked back and saw him flailing as Alice ran to his side.

"Sean!" she screamed.

Alice put her hands over the wounds and Sean convulsed. She had seen this before, and knew Krueger's handiwork. She slapped the policeman hard across the face and then began screaming in his ear, "Sean Renaud! Wake up now!"

"Help him!" Tessa cried as she shook Loomis, "Fuck!"

Lori pushed Tessa aside and positioned herself between Loomis legs. She took a deep breath and drew her fist back. After a silent prayer, she punched with all her weight and slammed her fist into Loomis nose. Blood gushed up from his nostrils. The chains supporting the swing groaned and the then the hooks embedded in the wood began to give way. The wood splintered and the swing fell to the ground, taking Loomis, Tessa and Lori with it.

***

Loomis cried out as his nose broke under an invisible force.

Blood splashed across his chest and suddenly the world began to fade. He saw the two creatures that had been Lori and Tessa bringing their weapons down to him. He felt the knife pass through his head and dig into the wood beneath as the machete cleaved the floorboards in two. His body vanished from the dream and Loomis thought he might be dead. But as the dream cleared and the pain from his nose brought him back to reality, he saw the Lori looking down at him.

"Loomis!" she cried out.

The doctor looked around, his eyes wide and bewildered.

"You punched me!"

Lori hugged him.

***

Sean felt the skin on his left shoulder open up and bleed as Krueger took another swipe at him. He couldn't move fast enough to counter him. He knew if the stories he had heard about Krueger were true, then his chances of surviving this were slim anyway. Sean focused and saw the dusty boots of Freddy Krueger coming up alongside him, tracking in pools of his own blood.

'At least it was a dream,' he thought incoherently. The idea of cheating on Tessa had convicted him to his very core. Now, he could at least die with a clean conscience.

"So long Sean," Freddy laughed.

"Fuck you," he spit on Krueger's boot.

"Oh," Freddy frowned, "You never would have called anyway."

The dream killer howled with manic laughter.

Sean looked at Krueger's feet. He was standing in front of Sean's legs.

"Face it Sean," Freddy mocked him, "I'm strong enough for a man, but made for a woman."

Sean swiped his leg out and dropped Krueger to the floor. Freddy screamed in rage as he hit hard, completely surprised. He growled and cursed as he hopped to his feet, his fedora rolling across the carpet on the edge of the hat's brim.

"Famous last words," he smiled to himself as Krueger glared down at him.

"Die, you little fuck," Freddy spat and jutted his bladed fingers down with a fury he rarely let himself experience. And then Sean was gone, only a pool of blood left on the floor as Freddy's knives lodged in the floor. The dream killed yanked the blades out and screamed into the corners of the dream world. He unleashed all his fury into that single yell and then vanished from the empty space of the spent dream.

It was time now.

"No more fucking around," Krueger growled from the shadows.

***

Tessa straddled Sean and drew her fist back. She slammed it into Sean's face as hard as she could. Sean jerked upright and cupped his nose, his eyes wide and filled with surprise and pain as he looked at Tessa. Blood was gushing from his nose as he managed to say, "What the fuck was that for!?"

"You stupid asshole!" Tessa screamed and slapped him upside the head.

"You went to sleep!" Alice shouted and put her hands over his bloody shirt, "Jesus, he got you good."

Sean felt his chest and found that the slashes Freddy had given him were just as wicked here in the real world as they had been in the dream. He cringed at the pain in his chest and shoulder, but the flaring heat in his nose made his eyes water. Tessa got off him as he stood up on legs that shook badly. Alice escorted him over to the broken swing and sat him down by Loomis.

"You okay?" Alice asked Sean.

He looked up at her and remembered the dream. For a moment, he didn't know what to say. Finally, he said, "I'm good, Alice. Thanks."

"You two," Lori shook her head, "You gotta be more careful."

Loomis felt incredibly stupid, the look on Sean's face a perfect expression of their mutual foolishness. The doctor looked at the policeman and said, "Bad dream?"

"Yeah," Sean sniffled through his throbbing nose, "Something like that."

"Me too," Loomis wiped away the blood from his mustache and lips with the back of his hand.

"What did you dream about?" Tessa asked.

"Nothing," both men said simultaneously. Sean and Loomis looked at each other and a silent understanding passed between them.

"Right," Tessa said.

***

Later that night, Alice Johnson stood on the porch of her house as the rain began to let up from a constant downpour to a light drizzle. In the dark sky, she could see the clouds illuminated to the south in fiery oranges and reds. Adding to the cloud cover were thick billows of black smoke. A soupy haze was defiantly swirling through rain. She could feel Springwood burning as she listened to the sounds of fire engines wailing in the night. Alice shivered and breathed deeply. The smell of scorched wood was still thick in the air.

"Hey," Lori said quietly from behind her.

"How are Loomis and Officer Renaud?" Alice asked.

"They'll live," Lori said, "They're both shaken up, but they'll be ready to roll tomorrow."

"You're still going to go through with this?" Alice looked at Lori. The older woman wanted to say so many things to her, but could not find words. Lori had some idea of the madness she was about to walk into, but like Alice she would never know what it was truly like until she actually went there.

"Yes," Lori nodded and looked out at the burning sky, "My God..."

"Springwood is on fire," she said, "Even the rain won't kill the flames."

"Fire purifies, right?" Lori hugged herself and felt a sudden jolt of déjà vu.

"When do you leave?" Alice asked.

"Early," she replied, "The sooner the better. We have all the guns and ammunition we'll need for Michael and Jason, but Loomis and Sean need rest. So does Tessa."

"All of us do," Alice said, "If we're going to be any good against them tomorrow."

"Does that mean you're in?" Lori asked.

"I'm in," Alice smiled, but the expression did not meet her eyes.

"Thank you," Lori put a hand on her shoulder.

"Thank me if you live though it," Alice told her, "Trapping Jason and the other guy is one thing. Freddy Krueger, that's something else."

Lori looked at the older woman.

"Mind over matter," Alice said and allowed herself a secret smile.

"Can I ask you something?"

Alice leaned against the railing of her porch. "Sure."

"You said something my father mentioned earlier," Lori looked at her, "You talked about balance. Freddy is one end of the equation. Does that make you the other?"

Alice smiled sadly. "At one time I was. But that was before, when I had power. I don't have power anymore."

"So the equation has been unbalanced since you left Springwood?"

"Since the father of my child died," Alice looked down, "That's why I couldn't beat him that last time. It was my son Jacob who defeated him really. Not me."

Lori thought for a minute, "So since there was no Dream Master, there was no one to keep him in check. That's why he has been able to come back again and again."

Alice nodded. He eyes were filled with guilty tears.

"So how do we balance the equation?"

Alice wiped her eyes, "There has to be a Dream Master."

"And that's you, right?"

There was a long silence as Alice looked out across the front yard, her eyes not really seeing the grass or the trees beyond or even the fiery dramatic sky. She was seeing the past and remembering the moment she had lost her confidence as the Dream Master. When Dan Jordan had been killed, not more than fifty feet from where she was waiting for him to pick her up, she had felt the power slip from her. It had been so insidious she hadn't even been able to notice it at the time. Seeing the burning wreckage and seeing his dead body had been a dagger through her heart.

For a long time, she thought maybe Freddy killed Dan because he just wanted another soul, another victim. But now she realized that Dan had been killed because Freddy knew his loss would weaken her. Freddy knew that as long as Alice was around, as long as there was a Dream Master, he would never be able to carry on with his murderous ways. And if Dan weren't enough, then certainly being reborn in the form of Jacob Johnson would have broken her.

'It didn't break me,' Alice remembered, 'He failed, but he won anyway.'

Discovering her unborn son was under attack from Freddy Krueger in his innocent dreamlike state for so long had been a terrifying revelation for her. No one was safe, not even an innocent baby in the womb. Jacob had come only that close to being Krueger's pawn. She had saved him, but she had not been able to save herself. Jacob had found the power within to save her. He had found the way to save her and send Freddy back to his dark beginnings. And there was peace for a time.

After her interview with Neil Gordon, she had left Springwood. She knew she would not be able to stop Freddy if he came back again. By then, Jacob was getting sick and she would not risk him being exposed again. It was her love for her family, it was her compassion that Freddy twisted into a weapon against her. When she began doubting herself, she lost her ability to fight as the Dream Master.

And here she had remained, alone and isolated and only a fraction of the woman she had been. She looked at Lori and saw the same grief in her eyes. The pain of losing Dan was equal to the pain Lori felt over losing Will. Alice knew the power was within her, and she had seen this happening in her dreams many times before. She sighed and said, "Only the Dream Master can put Freddy in his place."

Lori asked again, "That's you right?"

"Not anymore."

Lori looked at her, "Then who?"

Alice returned her gaze to the angry clouds in the distance, "I think if Jacob had lived, he would be the one..."