A Nightmare in the Matrix
By Andrew Ohning
Based on characters created by Wes Craven and the Wachowski brothers.
Zagan ran like mad. He could still hear the.whatever-the-hell-it-was cackling in the distance behind him. Every shadow around him seemed to take on the form of the fiend's clawed hand. Such surreal things kept happening that Zagan began to wonder if this was perhaps some new kind of Upgrade.As he rounded the corner at the end of the street, he glanced absently up at the street sign. The sight stopped him in his tracks. Somehow he was back at the other end of the street.
"Hell no," he said under his breath. He pulled his phone out and dialed his operator. The line clicked as the other end was picked up. "Moloch, get me the hell out of-"
"There is no 'out' anymore," crowed the voice of the whatever-the-hell-it- was over the line.
Zagan threw the phone aside and started to run again. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw that the phone was melting into the pavement. From the puddle of black rose the whatever-the-hell-it-was, laughing. Zagan turned back and suddenly found himself inside a house.
"What the hell is going on here?" he shouted.
"I'll tell you," the fiend's voice growled behind him. Zagan turned around to stare straight into the wild green eyes of the monster's burn-scarred face. "You're one of my children now."
There was a flash of light on metal and a tearing pain in Zagan's chest, and then there was nothing.
***
"Where is he, Moloch?" Maegera demanded. Zagan had been missing in the Matrix for almost an hour. Moloch spent that hour running a search for him, but found no trace. The only thing that gave them any clue as to how Zagan was doing was his bio-monitors. Zagan's heart rate was elevated, as was his breathing. All of a sudden, Zagan jerked in his chair, and his bio-monitor started screeching warnings. Maegera rushed over to him when four deep gashes suddenly opened up in his chest. It was if a quartet of invisible razors had just dug their way into Zagan's body. Needless to say, Zagan's heart stopped and he was gone.
"What the hell did this?" Maegera said. She'd seen dozes of people die in the Matrix, but never had she seen the injuries manifest in reality. Moloch still never managed to find Zagan in the Matrix.What was happening?
***One Week Earlier in the Matrix***
Sandra Glistan woke with a start. It was still nighttime and she'd had the nightmare again. The same hideously burn-scarred man with the same clawed glove in the same dark boiler room. She'd told her parents about the nightmares. They suggested that it was stress. Sandra, however, could sense that they were keeping something from her. Her friends had been having similar nightmares.
At school that morning, Sandra told her friend Christa about her latest nightmare.
"I had another one too," Christa said. "Only there was also a little girl singing a jump rope rhyme or something. I can't remember all of it.One, two.someone's coming for you."
"Freddy," said Shawn as he walked up to them. "I heard it too. 'One, two, Freddy's coming for you.' There were three little girls jumping rope and singing outside the old abandoned house on Elm Street. Y'know, 1428."
"Man, I had the weirdest dream last night," Burton said walking up to them. "Some nut with knives for fingers was chasing me around a boiler room while some little girls were singing something about crucifixes and never sleeping again."
"You too?" Christa said.
"What do you mean, me too?"
"We've all been having nightmares about the same guy," Sandra said.
"What does that mean?" said Shawn.
"I don't know."
"Hey, wait a minute. Has anyone seen Michelle?" Christa said.
Before anyone could answer, a teacher hollered at them from down the hall to get to class. The friends separated and went off to their classes. Sandra walked past the teacher's lounge on her way to class. She heard scared and hushed voices talking within.
"Did they tell you about that Michelle Anstrol girl?" one voice said.
"Yeah, her parents found her cut to ribbons in her bed this morning," the other voice replied. "Do you suppose it could be Krue-"
"Shut up!" the first voice snapped. "Don't even say his name."
"Sorry. You know, Bill Glistan told me his daughter's been having strange nightmares."
The first voice sighed. "I pray to God it's not him. Just the same, don't breathe a word about this to any students."
"Right."
Sandra hurried on to class so as not to be caught eavesdropping. Michelle was dead? What was happening?
***Five Days Later***
The body count had reached two dozen. All those dead were children that had fallen asleep. Those who were still alive were staying awake by any means necessary. The parents had, on the most part, come clean with the children about the child murderer Fred Krueger. It was growing ever more dangerous for the kids to stay awake with caffeine pills and the like.
Springville's mayor Rupert Brigandi was overwhelmed with the stress of the situation. The town refused to seek help from outside agencies, but keeping so many deaths under wraps was going to be hard. Now that Krueger had a hold of the children, there was no place they could sleep safely. Suddenly, Brigandi's secretary entered his office.
"Mayor Brigandi," she said, "there's someone here to see you."
"Send him in," Brigandi replied.
"But sir, he-"
"I said send him in."
The secretary nodded and stepped out. A moment later, balding man in a black suit with sunglasses and a radio earpiece stepped in. He took a seat in front of Brigandi's desk.
"Welcome to Springville," Brigandi said. "How can I help you mister."
"Erickson, Agent Erickson," the man said. "We've received reports of numerous mysterious deaths in the area."
"How.Strange deaths? What strange deaths?"
"Do not attempt to feign ignorance, Brigandi. At least twenty four persons have died in Springville in the last week. All of them were children, and all of them were asleep when they died."
"I'm afraid I don't-"
"I told you not to pretend not to know what I'm talking about. If you withhold any information that may be of use to our investigation-"
"How could you possibly know all this?" Brigandi shouted, standing up. "No one outside of this town has ever been told! Not ever!"
"How we know is not important," Erickson said. "What is important is that we bring an end to this."
"You don't understand," Brigandi sighed, returning to his seat. "You can't stop him. Never. Every time he comes back, they try to stop him. Sometimes they do, but he always finds a way back." Brigandi opened a drawer in his desk and reached inside.
"Who?" the Agent asked. "Who can't be stopped? What are you talking about?"
"One, two Freddy's coming for you." Brigandi's eyes stared blankly through Erickson. "Nine, ten." He pulled a pistol from the drawer and put it under his chin. "Never sleep again."
"No!" Erickson shouted.
Brigandi pulled the trigger before Erickson could try to stop him.
***
Burton wandered through the darkened house. How did he get here? I the last few days, his lack of sleep made it hard to keep his thoughts straight, but this was ridiculous. He suddenly recognized where he was. It was the old abandoned house on Elm Street. Lots of kids went there on dares, but it was mostly a nice, secluded, if slightly foreboding, make-out spot. Now knowing that all this Freddy business had started in 1428 Elm, this was the last place he wanted to be. He suddenly heard Freddy's sinister laughter echo through the empty house.
"Oh shit," Burton said, "I fell asleep!" He ran for the door but didn't make any ground. He suddenly felt a hand grab the back of his head and four metal blades along the top of his scalp. "No!"
Freddy's hand squeezed and Burton's head caved in like an overripe melon.
***
Burton was dead. Sandra had walked into the room just as Freddy killed him. She'd turned to run and found herself in the boiler room. When Freddy sprang out from behind some pipes, she'd gotten her hands on his hat and fallen back onto some hot pipes. The pain woke her up. Sandra showed the hat to Christa and Shawn who were both shocked to see it.
"How?" Christa gasped.
"I had a hold of his hat when I woke up, and there it was," Sandra said.
"Maybe we can beat him then," Shawn said.
"What are you talking about?" said Sandra.
"Look, you brought the hat out of your dream, right?"
Sandra nodded.
"Here's what we do," Shawn explained. "One of us goes to sleep and gets a hold of him. When the rest of us see them struggling, we wake them up."
"Freddy becomes real, and we can kill him," Christa said.
"Then it'll be over," Sandra said.
They all agreed. They would draw lots for who was going to sleep. This was going to work. It just had to.
***The Next Night***
Sandra drew the short straw; she was the one who was going to sleep. Shawn had his dad's shotgun loaded and ready. Despite her fear, four days without sleep made it fairly easy for Sandra to fall asleep. Shawn and Christa waited patiently for the right moment to wake her up.
In her dream, Sandra found herself in Freddy's boiler room once again. She wandered about in the dark for several long minutes before she heard Krueger's knives scratching on the pipes. She screwed up her courage and walked on.
"Come on Freddy," she said. "I'm tired of this. I'm tired of never sleeping, never dreaming. If I had to choose between that and dying.Just come kill me already."
"All right," Freddy laughed.
Sandra was suddenly struck to the floor by a powerful blow to the side of her head. She rolled onto her back as Freddy came down on top of her. He knelt straddling her stomach and raised his claws for the kill. Sandra grabbed his arms and started trying to hold his blades back.
"Die, bitch!" Freddy yelled.
Suddenly, a harsh blaring sound filled the room. It resonated off the pipes and assaulted both Freddy and Sandra's ears. The next thing they knew, they were in the same position only on a bed in Sandra's room.
"Go to Hell, Freddy," Shawn said. He cocked the shotgun and unloaded both barrels into Krueger's chest. The blast threw him off Sandra and crashing through the thin closet door. Shawn stepped around the bed and delivered the other two shells into Freddy's head.
Sandra sat up and grabbed both Christa and Shawn in a relieved embrace. It was over. It was finally over. They'd done it. They'd brought and end to Freddy Krueger once and for all.
"Excuse me," a cold voice said behind them. "You don't seem to be awake yet." Sandra, Christa, and Shawn all looked up to see Freddy standing before them, seemingly uninjured.
"How-" Christa started but never got to finish. A quick slash from Freddy's knives silenced her forever.
Sandra and Shawn scrambled across the bed and up against the wall. Shawn reloaded the shotgun and fired at Krueger again. This time, the monster simply sidestepped the blast and drove his claws into Shawn's chest and out his back. Shawn's body fell to the floor, and Sandra retreated to a corner. Freddy loomed over her.
"Time to die, bitch," Freddy crowed.
Suddenly, Sandra's body started convulsing and shifting. The next thing Freddy knew he was no longer facing a terrified teenaged girl, but a full grown man in a black suit.
"What the hell," Krueger said. "I'm the one who does the weird-ass shit. Who do you think you are?"
"Erickson, Agent Erickson," the man in black replied.
"Well, whoever you are," Freddy sneered, "you're one of my children now!"
***To be continued.
Zagan ran like mad. He could still hear the.whatever-the-hell-it-was cackling in the distance behind him. Every shadow around him seemed to take on the form of the fiend's clawed hand. Such surreal things kept happening that Zagan began to wonder if this was perhaps some new kind of Upgrade.As he rounded the corner at the end of the street, he glanced absently up at the street sign. The sight stopped him in his tracks. Somehow he was back at the other end of the street.
"Hell no," he said under his breath. He pulled his phone out and dialed his operator. The line clicked as the other end was picked up. "Moloch, get me the hell out of-"
"There is no 'out' anymore," crowed the voice of the whatever-the-hell-it- was over the line.
Zagan threw the phone aside and started to run again. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw that the phone was melting into the pavement. From the puddle of black rose the whatever-the-hell-it-was, laughing. Zagan turned back and suddenly found himself inside a house.
"What the hell is going on here?" he shouted.
"I'll tell you," the fiend's voice growled behind him. Zagan turned around to stare straight into the wild green eyes of the monster's burn-scarred face. "You're one of my children now."
There was a flash of light on metal and a tearing pain in Zagan's chest, and then there was nothing.
***
"Where is he, Moloch?" Maegera demanded. Zagan had been missing in the Matrix for almost an hour. Moloch spent that hour running a search for him, but found no trace. The only thing that gave them any clue as to how Zagan was doing was his bio-monitors. Zagan's heart rate was elevated, as was his breathing. All of a sudden, Zagan jerked in his chair, and his bio-monitor started screeching warnings. Maegera rushed over to him when four deep gashes suddenly opened up in his chest. It was if a quartet of invisible razors had just dug their way into Zagan's body. Needless to say, Zagan's heart stopped and he was gone.
"What the hell did this?" Maegera said. She'd seen dozes of people die in the Matrix, but never had she seen the injuries manifest in reality. Moloch still never managed to find Zagan in the Matrix.What was happening?
***One Week Earlier in the Matrix***
Sandra Glistan woke with a start. It was still nighttime and she'd had the nightmare again. The same hideously burn-scarred man with the same clawed glove in the same dark boiler room. She'd told her parents about the nightmares. They suggested that it was stress. Sandra, however, could sense that they were keeping something from her. Her friends had been having similar nightmares.
At school that morning, Sandra told her friend Christa about her latest nightmare.
"I had another one too," Christa said. "Only there was also a little girl singing a jump rope rhyme or something. I can't remember all of it.One, two.someone's coming for you."
"Freddy," said Shawn as he walked up to them. "I heard it too. 'One, two, Freddy's coming for you.' There were three little girls jumping rope and singing outside the old abandoned house on Elm Street. Y'know, 1428."
"Man, I had the weirdest dream last night," Burton said walking up to them. "Some nut with knives for fingers was chasing me around a boiler room while some little girls were singing something about crucifixes and never sleeping again."
"You too?" Christa said.
"What do you mean, me too?"
"We've all been having nightmares about the same guy," Sandra said.
"What does that mean?" said Shawn.
"I don't know."
"Hey, wait a minute. Has anyone seen Michelle?" Christa said.
Before anyone could answer, a teacher hollered at them from down the hall to get to class. The friends separated and went off to their classes. Sandra walked past the teacher's lounge on her way to class. She heard scared and hushed voices talking within.
"Did they tell you about that Michelle Anstrol girl?" one voice said.
"Yeah, her parents found her cut to ribbons in her bed this morning," the other voice replied. "Do you suppose it could be Krue-"
"Shut up!" the first voice snapped. "Don't even say his name."
"Sorry. You know, Bill Glistan told me his daughter's been having strange nightmares."
The first voice sighed. "I pray to God it's not him. Just the same, don't breathe a word about this to any students."
"Right."
Sandra hurried on to class so as not to be caught eavesdropping. Michelle was dead? What was happening?
***Five Days Later***
The body count had reached two dozen. All those dead were children that had fallen asleep. Those who were still alive were staying awake by any means necessary. The parents had, on the most part, come clean with the children about the child murderer Fred Krueger. It was growing ever more dangerous for the kids to stay awake with caffeine pills and the like.
Springville's mayor Rupert Brigandi was overwhelmed with the stress of the situation. The town refused to seek help from outside agencies, but keeping so many deaths under wraps was going to be hard. Now that Krueger had a hold of the children, there was no place they could sleep safely. Suddenly, Brigandi's secretary entered his office.
"Mayor Brigandi," she said, "there's someone here to see you."
"Send him in," Brigandi replied.
"But sir, he-"
"I said send him in."
The secretary nodded and stepped out. A moment later, balding man in a black suit with sunglasses and a radio earpiece stepped in. He took a seat in front of Brigandi's desk.
"Welcome to Springville," Brigandi said. "How can I help you mister."
"Erickson, Agent Erickson," the man said. "We've received reports of numerous mysterious deaths in the area."
"How.Strange deaths? What strange deaths?"
"Do not attempt to feign ignorance, Brigandi. At least twenty four persons have died in Springville in the last week. All of them were children, and all of them were asleep when they died."
"I'm afraid I don't-"
"I told you not to pretend not to know what I'm talking about. If you withhold any information that may be of use to our investigation-"
"How could you possibly know all this?" Brigandi shouted, standing up. "No one outside of this town has ever been told! Not ever!"
"How we know is not important," Erickson said. "What is important is that we bring an end to this."
"You don't understand," Brigandi sighed, returning to his seat. "You can't stop him. Never. Every time he comes back, they try to stop him. Sometimes they do, but he always finds a way back." Brigandi opened a drawer in his desk and reached inside.
"Who?" the Agent asked. "Who can't be stopped? What are you talking about?"
"One, two Freddy's coming for you." Brigandi's eyes stared blankly through Erickson. "Nine, ten." He pulled a pistol from the drawer and put it under his chin. "Never sleep again."
"No!" Erickson shouted.
Brigandi pulled the trigger before Erickson could try to stop him.
***
Burton wandered through the darkened house. How did he get here? I the last few days, his lack of sleep made it hard to keep his thoughts straight, but this was ridiculous. He suddenly recognized where he was. It was the old abandoned house on Elm Street. Lots of kids went there on dares, but it was mostly a nice, secluded, if slightly foreboding, make-out spot. Now knowing that all this Freddy business had started in 1428 Elm, this was the last place he wanted to be. He suddenly heard Freddy's sinister laughter echo through the empty house.
"Oh shit," Burton said, "I fell asleep!" He ran for the door but didn't make any ground. He suddenly felt a hand grab the back of his head and four metal blades along the top of his scalp. "No!"
Freddy's hand squeezed and Burton's head caved in like an overripe melon.
***
Burton was dead. Sandra had walked into the room just as Freddy killed him. She'd turned to run and found herself in the boiler room. When Freddy sprang out from behind some pipes, she'd gotten her hands on his hat and fallen back onto some hot pipes. The pain woke her up. Sandra showed the hat to Christa and Shawn who were both shocked to see it.
"How?" Christa gasped.
"I had a hold of his hat when I woke up, and there it was," Sandra said.
"Maybe we can beat him then," Shawn said.
"What are you talking about?" said Sandra.
"Look, you brought the hat out of your dream, right?"
Sandra nodded.
"Here's what we do," Shawn explained. "One of us goes to sleep and gets a hold of him. When the rest of us see them struggling, we wake them up."
"Freddy becomes real, and we can kill him," Christa said.
"Then it'll be over," Sandra said.
They all agreed. They would draw lots for who was going to sleep. This was going to work. It just had to.
***The Next Night***
Sandra drew the short straw; she was the one who was going to sleep. Shawn had his dad's shotgun loaded and ready. Despite her fear, four days without sleep made it fairly easy for Sandra to fall asleep. Shawn and Christa waited patiently for the right moment to wake her up.
In her dream, Sandra found herself in Freddy's boiler room once again. She wandered about in the dark for several long minutes before she heard Krueger's knives scratching on the pipes. She screwed up her courage and walked on.
"Come on Freddy," she said. "I'm tired of this. I'm tired of never sleeping, never dreaming. If I had to choose between that and dying.Just come kill me already."
"All right," Freddy laughed.
Sandra was suddenly struck to the floor by a powerful blow to the side of her head. She rolled onto her back as Freddy came down on top of her. He knelt straddling her stomach and raised his claws for the kill. Sandra grabbed his arms and started trying to hold his blades back.
"Die, bitch!" Freddy yelled.
Suddenly, a harsh blaring sound filled the room. It resonated off the pipes and assaulted both Freddy and Sandra's ears. The next thing they knew, they were in the same position only on a bed in Sandra's room.
"Go to Hell, Freddy," Shawn said. He cocked the shotgun and unloaded both barrels into Krueger's chest. The blast threw him off Sandra and crashing through the thin closet door. Shawn stepped around the bed and delivered the other two shells into Freddy's head.
Sandra sat up and grabbed both Christa and Shawn in a relieved embrace. It was over. It was finally over. They'd done it. They'd brought and end to Freddy Krueger once and for all.
"Excuse me," a cold voice said behind them. "You don't seem to be awake yet." Sandra, Christa, and Shawn all looked up to see Freddy standing before them, seemingly uninjured.
"How-" Christa started but never got to finish. A quick slash from Freddy's knives silenced her forever.
Sandra and Shawn scrambled across the bed and up against the wall. Shawn reloaded the shotgun and fired at Krueger again. This time, the monster simply sidestepped the blast and drove his claws into Shawn's chest and out his back. Shawn's body fell to the floor, and Sandra retreated to a corner. Freddy loomed over her.
"Time to die, bitch," Freddy crowed.
Suddenly, Sandra's body started convulsing and shifting. The next thing Freddy knew he was no longer facing a terrified teenaged girl, but a full grown man in a black suit.
"What the hell," Krueger said. "I'm the one who does the weird-ass shit. Who do you think you are?"
"Erickson, Agent Erickson," the man in black replied.
"Well, whoever you are," Freddy sneered, "you're one of my children now!"
***To be continued.