DREAM WARRIOR
1
She was walking barefoot down a neighborhood sidewalk at night. The pale midnight moon hung overhead. She could hear sprinklers tapping diligently back and forth across verdant, clean cut lawns. All the houses were darkened accept for their glowing porch lights. Allison looked down at herself to see why she was barefoot. She was dressed in her usual nightclothes-- a big t- shirt and soft cotton shorts. She wiggled her toes on the cool sidewalk pavement.
"One, two- Freddy's coming for you
Three, four- better lock your door
Five, six- grab your crucifix
Seven , eight,- better stay up late
Nine, ten- never sleep again"
Allison heard children's voices singing some strange riddle, and her turned towards the sound and walked across the street to the corner. There, beneath the tall electric street light she could hear insects buzzing. Crickets chirped invitingly along the length of the street behind her. She glanced up at the street sign--where was this place?
"Elm Street?" Allison said out loud.
Suddenly the pleasant sound of children singing changed to an eerie silence. The crickets were quiet and the busy sprinkler sounds vanished. A creeping fog swirled along the pavement , snaking around Allison's naked ankles. Allison felt her pulse quicken. Something was wrong. She hastened down the sidewalk.
The House caught her eye at once. It was a dormered windowed affair with elegant cream-colored columns framing the door. A quaint rose-covered trellis leaned against one side of the house, reaching up to the second story window. The door was wide open, and Allison strained to hear voices inside.
"Mommy?" the voice said.
Allison felt her stomach go cold inside. She undoubtedly knew this was one of her dreams, but the voice inside was so like--
"Ariel?" Allison exclaimed cautiously as she walked up to the front porch, "Ariel, is that you?'
"Mommy!" the voice cried out.
Allison rushed into the house, her mother instincts blotting out any vestiges of fear. A door slammed upstairs, and Allison grabbed the staircase railing and bounded up the steps two at a time. At the top of the stairs, she caught her breath, and bolted into the bedroom where the sound of Ariel's voice had trailed.
The bedroom was oddly familiar. The bed was covered with a quilted, plaid comforter. Eighties rock posters hung on the wall. Briar horses were arranged neatly along a corner shelf. A hot pink telephone was on the dresser drawer next to a small black and white TV set. The vanity mirror held Polaroid snapshots in its rim. Alison slowly approached the mirror in rapt fascination.
"This is my old room!"
Her hand reached out to touch the photo's--a teenage blond Allison stared back at her, smiling. Puzzled, Allison stood breathless, transported back to her high school days in a place so vivid that it did not feel like a dream anymore….it felt real.
Before Allison could ponder this, a figure arose behind her. A strong, sinewy arm seized her around the waist, and a leather-gloved hand with long sharp-blades braced her neck. A horrible, burn-scarred man looked at her in the mirror, his gruesome, leering face pressed against her check.
"Kristen…"
In horror, Allison felt herself immobilized as the ghoulish fiend licked her face with a thick, greenish tongue. The arm around her hips tightened like a vice, and she felt herself being lifted off the floor. She let out a cat-like scream and twisted violently. The man growled and tightened his grip, his hands flexing for control of his prey. Desperately, she swung herself away, crashing into the vanity mirror and shattering cut-glass across the room.
2
Allison woke up--screaming.
"Allison!" Joe was shaking her awake, "Allison, whoa…you're awake now."
Allison kicked herself free of the tangled bed sheets and stumbled across the floor to her dresser mirror. Joe had turned on the bed-lamp and sat up in bed with a look of worry and confusion.
"Allison, what is it?" he asked.
Mute with shock, Allison touched her cheek frantically, wiping away a gruesome wetness there.
"Oh my God," she whispered.
"Allison, you're scaring me," Joe said, "You were thrashing around like you were fighting for your life."
His wife turned to look at him, her sapphire blue eyes wide with fear, "I was."
Allison sat at her kitchen table, glumly staring into her coffee cup. Ariel and Bridget, her two blond daughters, watched her quietly.
Joe hurried into the kitchen, looking bleary-eyed but dressed for work.
"Girls, go wait in the car for me, okay?" he asked firmly, "I'm taking you to school this morning."
"But dad, I haven't finished my Fruit Loops yet!" Bridget protested.
"Then take them with you--I'll be there in a minute"
The two girls got the hint and left their parents alone in the kitchen.
Joe crossed his arms, his stance reflecting a little annoyance, "You okay?"
"No, Joe, I'm not okay. You don't seem to understand that someone tried to kill me last night---"
"In your dream--"
"It was real, Joe, it was more than a dream. I felt--"
"You thought you felt."
"I saw something on my face, not felt--I touched it!"
Joe hesitated, "Whatever it was could have come from anywhere. A spider, maybe."
Allison slammed both her hands down flat on the kitchen table, and the smacking sound make Joe jump back.
"A spider?" she said.
"Maybe you touched something before you went to bed. Maybe something dripped off the ceiling. I don't see how any of this makes you think someone, or something, was trying to kill you last night!"
Allison lowered her eyes, "I didn't tell you everything."
Joe shrugged nonchalantly, "You told me you were in a strange house, in your old bedroom, and a man with a knife grabbed you, licked your face, then you jumped through a mirror and woke up. What am I missing here?"
Allison felt foolish suddenly and ran her fingers through the long strands of blond hair that framed her face, "I saw the name of the street I was on…It was Elm Street."
Joe remained nonplussed, "Is that supposed to mean something to me?"
Allison sighed, "And the man who grabbed me….well…he looked like. No. He was…Freddy Krueger."
Joe blinked, "You're joking, right?"
Allison shock her head, her bright blue eyes dazed. Joe turned and left for work without another word.
Allison went to the D.A.'s office that afternoon cautiously, trying to figure out if her dream had truly been a bad 'movie' hallucination, or if she really had grappled with Freddy Krueger in her sleep. D.A. Devalos watched her with mild concern throughout the day--especially when he caught Allison in the break room guzzling down what seemed to be her third cup of strong coffee.
"I thought you hated that coffee, " he joked with a smile.
Allison looked up, as if caught with something forbidden in her hand. She wiped her mouth dry and avoided Devalos' hard stare.
"Just trying to keep up my energy for the last…." Allison looked at her watch, as if dreading the fact that the day had gone by faster than expected , 'Half hour."
"Why don't you cut out a little early today. I think we've about wrapped it up pretty much. You look like you could use a little rest."
Allison smiled wearily, "Can I ask you a silly question?"
Devalos looked puzzled, but he was always intrigued by Allison--even when she did take him by surprise sometimes, "Sure, as long as it has nothing to do with a possible serial killer you just brushed past in the elevator."
"Nothing like that--but it does involve a killer."
Devalos sighed, "That's the curse of being a D.A., I suppose."
"Not a real killer--but a movie killer. Have you even seen the movie Nightmare on Elm Street?"
Devalos shook his head, "I think I caught it on TV once many years ago. The guy with the hat and the stripped shirt, with the long razor blades for fingers, right? Wasn't Johnny Depp in that movie too?"
Allison nodded, "Yes, you do remember. Did they ever explain if he…did Freddy ever get done in? Did he die?"
"You are asking the wrong movie guy---I usually only watch the Discovery Channel. But I think Lee can help you out. He's a horror movie enthusiast --kind of fits him, doesn't it?"
Allison shrugged shyly, peering across the break room as Detective Lee Scanlon turned his ear towards the conversation.
"Did I hear something about horror movies?"
Devalos chuckled, "Allison needs to know what happened to Freddy Krueger--in the movie series."
Detective Lee Scanlon looked at Allison closely as he approached, making her squirm. His serious, overtly masculine demeanor, as well as his good looks, always made Allison a little edgy. There was something about his brash over-confidence that she liked--even if he was trying to hide his own vulnerabilities.
"You mean you didn't see all 10 movies, Allison? What's wrong with you?" Scanlon joked.
Allison tried to maintain her composure, "Well since you have, can you tell me what happened to the character…in the movies? Does he die? And how does he die?
Lee crossed his arms and cocked his head to one side, "Why do you need to know?"
Allison felt flustered again, having Scanlon examine her so closely--as if she was one of his parole violators, "I have a silly bet with a friend of mine. Just a silly thing, you know."
D.A. Devalos turned to leave, "Well, Allison, I'll see you tomorrow. Get a bit more sleep tonight--it does wonders!"
As Devalos left, Allison tried to inch away from Scanlon, who was now staring at her with a somewhat intimate concern that made her burst out laughing.
"What are you staring at? It's just a silly question."
Lee Scanlon looked down at her coffee cup, putting his detective mind to work, "Did you actually have a dream…about Freddy Krueger?"
Allison could feel the blood rush out of her face, "I thought I was the one with the psychic ability."
Lee spoke quietly, "I can see it the way you were drinking that coffee--you really don't want to go back home and go to sleep, do you?"
Allison sensed innumerable connotations in Scanlon's words, even if it was partly her own imagination running wild. She remembered feeling guilty having to leave Joe one night to meet Scanlon at a downtown café during a case. She edged away hurriedly, finding the trash-can for her coffee cup. She hoped to make a quick exit out of the break room, but Scanlon caught her arm.
"Allison I can help you. Just remember this---the whole theme of the movie was about conquering your own fear. That's all Freddy really is--he is a manifestation of fear. Don't forget that."
Allison smiled, letting her hand rest just for a moment on Scanlon's, "Thank you, Detective."
Allison scrubbed her teeth, washed her face, and pulled on her nightshirt as if she was preparing for battle. Joe watched her inconspicuously as he lay in bed reading a science magazine. They had not spoken about the dream since he came home. Allison had acted as if everything was normal. She put the children to bed after dinner, watched some TV briefly, and then a silence overcame her as the late hours approached.
Joe put his magazine aside as Allison slipped into bed.
"You okay? You didn't have any coffee tonight. You wanna tell me why?"
"I want to get a good night rest--and I had enough coffee at work to last me until next month."
She looked over a her husband with a sweet smile.
Joe smiled back, "Love you, dear."
"Love you too, Joe," she answered, "If you hear me having a bad dream tonight--please wake me up."
Joe leaned over to kiss her, "You bet ya."
3
Dry leaves swirled around her face in a maddening flutter. Allison brushed them aside lazily at first, until she realized that she was in another dream. With a gasp of fear she sat upright. She could see her naked legs, sprawled out on a cold, concrete basement floor. Above her towered tall, silver metal beams and walkways and gangplanks--as if she was at the bottom of same vast, industrial complex. Stream hissed and howled from various pipes. And around her, everywhere, there was a dim red glow.
Underneath the hissing sound, she could hear something else. It was a chuckle, rising into a hideous laugh. It chilled her blood and made her feel somehow violated and humiliated all at the same time.
Rising to her feet, Allison looked across the room--and there he was again.
"Freddy Krueger," she spoke out loud.
Freddy flinched at the sound of his own name. He was a rampant maniac of destruction, an infernal devil spreading fear and chaos--but the sound of his own name, and the recognition it brought, irked his ego.
"That's right, bitch," he answered.
Allison quaked as Freddy moved through the think steam and stood before her, swaggering with a confident shift of his broad shoulders. He snapped his hand open and waggled his long, bladed fingers in delight. The red, lurid light reflected on his hideously scarred face and tiny, black eyes. Allison grimaced, but held her ground. She would not retreat.
"I'm not afraid of you. My dreams are my life. My dreams give me pain, but they also help me to help others. I live with that pain, and I deal with it. But I refuse to have my dreams invaded by the likes you. You are nothing but a coward who preys on children, because it's easy to scare children. I am not a child--and I will not be afraid of you!"
As Allison spoke, a whirlwind of trash and leaves picked up around her like a mini-tornado, drowning out her words in a howl that deafened her. She raised her hands to cover her ears, and closed her eyes as the biting bits of dirt and dust cut at her eyes and skin. She stood fixated for a long moment until the wind stopped .
"Dream on, then, "Freddy rattled in a cold laugh close to her ear. A sharp stabbing pain sliced across Allison's legs and arms as Freddy attacked her. Allison opened her eyes and stumbled back, noticing that blood was rushing from her now. Disbelief made her paralyzed more than the pain as she fell to the ground. Freddy stood over her now with a triumphant leer on his face. Then he moved in for the kill.
Allison finally found the scream in her throat, and she let it out.
Joe jumped up with his heart racing at the sound of her scream, and at the same time he heard the door bell ringing. He looked over to see Allison twisted on their bed, her hands clenched, her legs taut and kicking. Blood was splattered on the sheets.
"Oh my God, Allison! Allison" Joe tried to shake her awake, but her eyes had rolled back into her head, and she seemed trapped in a dream-stupor.
The front door bell rang again, this time accompanied by a loud knocking. Stumbling his way out of the bedroom, Joe raced to the front door. He opened it to find a man standing there, a solemn looking Lee Scanlon.
"Where is Allison? Is she…?"
Joe barely had time to open his mouth when Allison's scream made both of the men turn and rush towards the bedroom together.
Freddy lay across Allison as she squirmed, holding her throat.. His other gloved hand with the deadly knives he held back in abeyance while she twisted and writhed to escape his grasp. Like any killer, Freddy thrilled at the chase and would hold back just to suspend his own thrill. After a few more moments he would plunge the deadly blades up into Allison's belly with a violent thrust, and then lay across her body until her life had choked itself away in agony.
Allison screamed again, "I'm not afraid of you! You're just a dream! You're nothing!"
Freddy growled at those words, feeling the power of his muscles weaken, "No, no! Not yet!"
Allison took advantage of this momentary hesitation and she used both of her hands to push up against Freddy's bony ribcage. This gave her just enough room to slip away from his body weight, and shuffle across the concrete floor, her legs kicking frantically. Freddy took a quick swipe at her with his long knives, but scrapped concrete instead.
It was now Allison who felt a bit triumphant as she stood shakily to her feet. Freddy crawled to his feet, however, reinvigorated to sate his blood-thirst again.
Allison remained standing, "I am not afraid of a dream."
Lee Scanlon and Joe had dragged Allison out of bed, and held her up against the bathroom doorframe. With one sharp smack across the face, Joe had woken her up. She stared at both men in confused bewilderment, then gasped as she looked down at herself. Three sharp cuts ran across both of her legs and arms, and blood had seeped into her night shirt and shorts. Lee Scanlon grabbed a bathroom towel and started to dab away at the blood, as if he was cleaning up a crime scene. Allison caught his eye, "I took your advise--and it was working. I don't think he'll be back."
Lee Scanlon nodded, and have her a wink.
Joe took Allison in his arms and sighed, "I'm sorry I doubted you."
Allison took Joe's face in her hands, "Believe me, this time, I even doubted myself. "
Joe and Lee stared at each other for a moment, a little disconcerted at the awkward circumstances they found themselves in.
Allison brushed her hair back and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, literally drenched in blood.
"Well, now that we've all been introduced properly, who's up for taking me to the emergency room now?"
End