Betrayed
The parents of a small group of Bedham Preschoolers sat huddled around a pair of tables at the local bar. One of the women looked nervous, as though she wanted to be anywhere but here. She cautiously put her hand on the shoulder of the leader of the group and spoke.
"Alan…we don't know that what the kids said was true. Fred Krueger doesn't seem like he'd do that kind of thing…" Gwen Holbrook whispered.
"Why the fuck would the kids make up something like that? Since day one, I thought there was something off about that goddamn gardener-" Alan Smith started. Gwen overrode him before he could get another word in.
"So we're going to hunt him down? And then what?"
Another woman, Nora Fowles, her eyes wet and red from the tears she'd shed for her daughter and the other children, rounded on Gwen.
"What do you think we do?" she snarled in a bitter voice. "We do what anyone else would with a monster like that."
A few parents, Alan included, nodded in a solemn agreement. Gwen shook her head, not wanting to believe that this was happening. They were becoming a lynch mob…
"Fred's gone, he skipped town! We—we don't even know where he is-"
The parents all turned at the sound of the jingling bell at the front door of the tavern. A man nodded grimly at them, loosening the scarf around his neck. There was a nervous light in his light green eyes and he scratched at his bearded cheek nervously.
"You're, uh…lookin' for Freddy Krueger aren't ya?" he asked, burying his hands in the pocket of his coat. The air in the bar suddenly became tense, everyone's attention focused on the old man. He swallowed his fear, forcing himself to continue.
God forgive me for this… he thought.
"I know where you can find him…"
Alan Smith motioned for the old man to join the group of parents. William Roth cleared his throat and Norman Braun moved from his seat to allow him to sit down as Alan pressed a tumbler of whiskey into his hand.
"Where is he, Willie? Where's the son of a bitch hiding?" Smith demanded. Roth stared hard into the glass of whiskey for a long moment. He drained it in one quick gulp, wincing. They didn't call it liquid courage for nothing.
"I've seen him around the old factory," he said. "Saw 'im just this morning when I was out doing some maintenance work on the electrical systems."
The men of the group all shared dark looks. Old Willie Roth was a childless widower and made a living doing maintenance work at an old factory a few miles outside of Springwood. Roth had befriended Fred Krueger when the gardener had simply appeared in Springwood the previous year. Freddy would occasionally help him out with repair work during the winter months when his services as a gardener were no longer needed.
"He…didn't seem like himself when I saw him," Roth went on. "He seemed scared. When I tried to talk to him, he wouldn't give me a straight answer. What exactly has he done to have all of ya lookin' for him?"
Alan Smith's face twisted into a sad, angry snarl.
"Fred Krueger is a pedophile, Willie. What do you think he's done to have us looking for him?"
Roth suddenly went very pale and blinked several times in surprise.
"He's a—? No, no…he doesn't seem like-" his voice faltered and Gwen out a hand on his shoulder.
"I know," she said quietly. She watched Alan speak in whispers to the other men, all of them nodding in agreement. Smith spoke up to the rest of the parents gathered.
"It's time to end this. Fred Kreuger will never touch our children again," he said. He pulled on his coat, the others around him following suit. The parents left the tavern in a single-file line, leaving the old widower alone, staring into an empty glass.
Roth sighed as he walked in the door of his house, stamping snow from his boots as he shut the front door behind him. He'd seen smoke and flames coming from the direction of the factory on the drive home. Freddy Krueger was dead—murdered by a lynch mob of angry parents. Roth unwound the scarf around his neck and collapsed into an armchair in exhaustion.
"Did I do the right thing?" he asked, speaking out loud to no one in particular as he shut his eyes.
"No…" said a raspy voice. "You sold me out…let them burn me…"
Willie's eyes snapped open at the voice.
"Fuh—Fred? I didn't…I didn't know that Alan and the others were gonna hurt you. Had I known, I never—"
Freddy Krueger's small, heavily scarred form materialized from the shadows. His right hand was different…he was wearing a glove of some kind, the fingers ending in a long, sharp points. Claws…?
"Hmmm…you're worse than they are, Willie. Betrayin' me like that. Thought you were my friend."
"I thought you were a good man, Fred," Roth whispered, feeling extremely uneasy as the metal claws twitched audibly. "Alan Smith told me what you were."
Freddy let out an angry snarl at that, swiping his claws across Roth's face.
"You had no proof!" the scarred man roared, punching his claws into the old man's gut. Roth looked at Freddy in a combination of pain and surprise. Krueger drove the metal razors deeper as he pressed his face very close to his betrayer's. "I'll get to the others eventually…but you're gonna help me send a message…"
Paramedics, police and gawkers all stood around the house that had belonged to Willie Roth. Cops pushed away bystanders while one of the paramedics, a man who'd seen nearly everything during his 15 year stint, raced outside and vomited behind the ambulance. Alan Smith and Gwen Holbrook were members of the crowd standing behind the yellow caution tape.
"What happened?" Gwen asked one of the policemen. The young cop shrugged.
"From what I've heard, it looks like a suicide."
The ill paramedic stumbled back from behind the ambulance, shaking.
"There's a 63 year old man in there hanging by his own intestines…" he muttered. "That's not suicide, that's the sickest murder I've ever seen."