Counselor Fred Krueger

Summary: Just a passing thought that came to me while I was sitting in my Psychology lecture this past September and was scribbled between notes on child development. What if Freddy had been at "Camp Blood" the day that Jason drowned? Would it change anything…anything at all…? ONESHOT

Warnings: Meh, mild morbidity, but that's about it. There's not even any swearing and only one reference to sex. I'd say that's…good? Or something. 0:-)

Buck Up

Fred Krueger, age 26, hated being a counselor at Camp Crystal Lake. The only reason why he was even there was because his wife had taken Katherine (the only child he would NEVER harm—unlike the others) to her mother's house and Fred begged off joining them. So of course his wife (meddlesome, but he couldn't help but care if only because she was the mother of his angel) signed him up for a counsellorship job "because it will keep you from being bored, and I know how much you like kids!"

He liked kids alright. As bloody and burned beings, crying in agony, begging for it to end. Music to Fred's ears…

But these kids…ugh! They were either bullies that he wanted to take to his boiler room or crying little wimps he sneered at and wanted to tell to buck up before they regretted it. There was almost no in-between, and it set his teeth on edge.

And these idiot teens he worked with most of the day—they were worse in some ways, breeding like freakin' rabbits without a care and leaving he and the cook (the only two there over the age of twenty-one) to do everything. It was frustrating, and there was nothing he could do about it!

A chorus of young voices distracted Fred from his thoughts and, frowning, he traced them to the dock. He came upon a sight that brought him back to his own childhood: a group of kids, bullies, circled around a single child, chanting.

"Freak!" "Monster!" "Freak!" ("Son of a hundred maniacs~!") "Freak!" ("Unwanted hell-spawn!") "Free(eeak!)"

But there was a huge difference between the two situations.

Fred Krueger had fought back against his tormenters.

Young Jason Voorhees let them shove him into the lake.

So Fred watched the child as he struggled, shouted, cried for help he never got. Fred reasoned, his gaze free of such emotions as pity or anger or anything other than bland interest, that it was survival of the fittest. As the child's struggles began to weaken, Fred locked eyes with the boy—
and turned away.

The child slipped under the water one last time as Fred mused on what would happen to the camp with a death on its record. He gave no further thought to the now-dead Jason.

The kid didn't buck up.

Eventually he, and everyone else who dared to sin, would regret it…