A Little Piece of Heaven, an a nightmare on elm street fanfic

A/N: This one-shot is based on the song "A Little Piece of Heaven" by Avenged Sevenfold, and as nasty as it is, I couldn't resist writing it. The song is both disgusting and beautiful - give it a listen if you have the time (eight minutes, to be exact. It's very looooong). Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own A Nightmare on Elm Street or any of its characters. I also don't own the lyrics to "A Little Piece of Heaven" in italics.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING STORY CONTAINS GRAPHIC VIOLENCE AND GROTESQUE SEXUAL IMAGERY. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

For Wes.

A Little Piece of Heaven

Before the story begins, is it such a sin,
For me to take what's mine, until the end of time?
We were more than friends, before the story ends,
And I will take what's mine, create what God would never design

It wasn't his fault she was such a nosey bitch. He'd given her every possible warning. And really, how many busted lips and black eyes did it take for this woman to get the hint? Stay out.

"Please, Fred." He watched her beg him with those watery brown eyes, so full of fear, "I won't tell."

In the course of his twenty-seven years, Freddy Krueger had learned two things beyond questioning: one, if someone gives him the chance to fuck them over, he will, and two, if he gives someone the chance to fuck him over, they will. There was no way this whore would be able to keep her mouth shut.

"I told you never to go in there," he snarled as she broke down sobbing. Tears streaked her flushed face.

Freddy thought she looked pathetic with her quivering bottom lip and frumpy summer dress. Why should he settle for this boring cunt? He could have any sweet little fuck-hole in Springwood. He knew he wasn't going to miss Loretta as he reached up to close his hands around her throat.

Our love had been so strong for far too long,
I was weak with fear that something would go wrong,
Before the possibilities came true,
I took all possibility from you

Katherine was an afterthought. He hoped she'd gone inside like he'd told her, but he couldn't bring himself to look away from Loretta. Tiny red flecks of blood were appearing over the whites of her eyes - first a few, then more and more, until they burned pink. A net of veins strained to surface through her skin as he squeezed harder to cut off her sputtering gags. And then she was mute, eyes thrashing wildly around a few moments more before rolling up into her skull. Even as her body went limp, he continued throttling her and seething into her face.

Almost laughed myself to tears,
(Ha hahahahaha)
Conjuring her deepest fears
(COME HERE YOU FUCKING BITCH!)

It was dark by the time he'd gotten to the power plant. After hauling Loretta's dead weight through a series of darkened corridors, he let her drop from off his shoulder and tumble onto the grimy concrete floor of his boiler room. Her neck bent off to the side, jutting out from the tangle of torso and limbs. He stooped beside her and leaned back on his haunches with his forearms resting on his knees. Brushing aside the mat of her knotted hair, he examined the clustered ring of purple and black bruises staining her throat. The indents his fingers had left were still fairly deep, and it gave her flesh a lumpy appearance as if it were putty that had been molded out of shape.

A faint smirk curled his lips as he slid his hand down to the first button at the collar of her dress. One by one, the buttons popped out of their holes, exposing a strip of cold skin from between her breasts to her navel. Freddy let his tongue slither out for just a second before pulling it back in and biting onto his lower lip. Death had colored her unnaturally pale, almost pearlescent. He tugged the sleeves off her shoulders, leaving her arms stretched above her head as he rolled the garment to her hips.

His itchy fingers reached around to his back pocket for his glove. Merely touching the broken-in leather and long, smooth razors excited him. Like a greedy little boy poised to stick a fork in his birthday cake, Freddy sheathed his hand into the claw.

Must have stabbed her fifty fucking times,
I can't believe it,
Ripped her heart out right before her eyes,
Eyes over easy, eat it, eat it, eat it!

The first slice was always the sweetest. Without the gush of blood that would smear his live victims, he was able to appreciate how the layers of skin and fat split apart as his blade glided between them. He smirked to himself, carving up her chest. It reminded him of the frog he'd dissected in his ninth grade biology class, only this was much better; frogs didn't have tits.

He cupped the ice-cold mound of flesh and began kneading it. The tip of his index blade scratched at the colorless nipple. There was no cry of pain, no struggle, no begging for mercy: only a hundred pounds of woman-shaped meat that he could use however he wanted. It was a different kind of treat for him, but a treat nonetheless.

He straddled the corpse and slashed at the dress bundled around her legs until it was in shreds. After tossing the ruined garment to the side, he ripped off her underwear. She'd always kept herself shaved because that was the way he liked it, and today was no exception. He plunged two fingers inside her. It wasn't warm or wet, but he figured some friction ought to heat things up. The pumps grew more vigorous and sloppy until his arm was tired.

"Not doing it for you, sweetheart?" he asked, removing his hand from between her legs. "How about some moans for daddy?"

He bit onto his knuckles and canted his head back in a cheap imitation of his young wife, letting his eyes glaze with phony lust. "Oh, Freddy," he tried to make his voice high and feminine, "don't touch me there. Please, it's embarrassing-oh! Nngh. Ahh."

He gave her face a wake-up slap.

"Hello?" he said. Then he rubbed his chin and thought for a moment. "Maybe you need a little something special to get the juices flowing."

He slid down her legs until his face was hovering above her pale slit. Scooping up a leg in each hand, he buried his face between her thighs. It was bizarre without the pink flush of heat and her pulsing twitches, but he continued regardless, feeling his own rhythm of throbs beginning in his trousers. After a few laves of his tongue, he took her tiny, dead nub between his teeth. He licked the bundle only once before jerking his head back to rip it out. A thin trail of fibrous nerves came with it. It hung out over his bottom lip, and he sucked it down like a piece of spaghetti.

"You won't be needing that little button anymore," he said after swallowing. "You're fun's all done. Now it's my turn."

He unzipped his fly and crawled up over her, pushing himself all the way inside. The body lay unresponsive, with one eye open, and the lid of the other stuck halfway down over the iris. The eyes themselves were no longer windows to any soul, only a dull mirror that reflected Freddy's sweating, grunting face. Her jaw was slacked off to one side, jiggling with each hard thrust. He rode the body, kissed it, groped it, knowing fully well that it felt nothing.

But he felt everything. Every second of mounting pleasure was all for him, and none of it was for her. He smirked at the thought. If he could have enjoyed her this much when she was alive, he might never have had to kill any of those little brats.

He spread her legs wider, pumping his hips at a frantic pace.

She was never this good in bed even when she was sleeping
Now she's just so perfect I've never been quite so fucking deep in
It goes on and on and on,
I can keep you looking young and preserved forever,
With a fountain spray on your youth whenever

He stilled, legs going tense as a shot of semen filled her. It trickled out milky-white on the cement when he removed himself. He collapsed on top of her, and his panting was the only sound in the boiler room.

Once he'd collected himself, he set to work, gathering up the torn remains of her clothing, socks and shoes. The furnace door screeched as he pulled it open and dumped the armload inside. The box of matches was resting right where he'd left it, on top of the black dome. He tapped one out and struck it on the flint strip, dropping the tiny spark of flame onto the pile of evidence. The fire crawled over the fabric until only a vague outline was visible beneath a harsh flare of red and orange. It ate away at his wife's belongings, and he left the door open to watch.

'Cause I really always knew that my little crime
Would be cold, that's why I got a heater for your thighs
And I know, I know it's not your time
But bye, bye
And a word to the wise when the fire dies
You think it's over but it's just begun
But baby don't cry

The wave of heat warmed his face as he felt his body slowly coming down from the high of another kill. But his usual satisfaction was undermined by a single, solemn thought in the very back of his mind. It only lasted a second, but for that second he saw Loretta's shy, downcast smile on their wedding day, and one of her slender hands releasing the cheap flower bouquet so he could slip on the ring. Just a flicker, and then it was gone. Maybe he did love her once, a long time ago. Or maybe he'd only imagined it.

He stood there until the fire smoldered away, having reduced everything in the furnace to ash.

You had my heart, at least for the most part
'Cause everybody's gotta die sometime,
We fell apart, let's make a new start
'Cause everybody's gotta die sometime, yeah, yeah
But baby don't cry

Stepping over the naked corpse that was still sprawled out on the floor, Freddy crossed the boiler room to settle on his workbench. There he sat facing the wall well into the night, hunched over his glove as he cleaned and maintained it. From the open toolbox at his feet, he lifted a tiny screwdriver and began tightening a loose hinge at one of the glove's finger joints, and he stopped only once every few minutes for a swig from the flask of bourbon perched on the table.

The foot-powered sharpening wheel sat forgotten beside him, collecting a sheet of dust over its tarnished redwood frame from weeks of nonuse. He found that on nights like these, when he was too restless to sleep, manually sharpening his toys did wonders to relieve the knots of tension that tightened between his shoulder blades.

He let the tool clatter back into the box, and took out a smooth whet stone. It glided from the base of the first blade to the tip, over and over. When he could knick the back of his finger with minimal effort, he moved to the next one. The metallic sounds echoed off the concrete walls, between dripping copper pipes and grated stairs and catwalks.

Shnng.

He sat beneath the only light in the building, coming from a small lamp on his hefty worktable. The echoes went out, high into the ceiling and all around the shadowy boiler room as he continued sharpening his knives.

Shnng.

It echoed over the stillness of Loretta's body, still lying discarded on the floor. Like waves breaking on the shoreline, the sound of stone on metal washed over the corpse, and the white tips of its fingers twitched.

Shnng.

Something began to stir it from deep within, rousing it from its slumber. One side of its shoulder jerked forward, and an arm curled in. Its hand clenched and relaxed and clenched again, as if the body were gripped by an electrical pulse.

Shnng.

Its head snapped off to one side, eyelids spreading open unevenly to reveal dull, dead eyes with something dark behind them. The mutilated flesh across its torso jerked and wrenched as it sat up. Black sludge bubbled from the mouth of each long laceration.

Shnng.

Life, or something like it, infused its legs with strength enough for the corpse to rise to its feet. Knees bent and shaky, it began its slow march toward the pool of light.

Shnng.

Now possibilities I'd never considered,
Are occurring the likes of which I'd never heard,
Now an angry soul comes back from beyond the grave,
To repossess a body with which I'd misbehaved

The corpse lurched forward on bare feet, closing in on Freddy as he sat facing away. The bands of color on his sweater were stretched wide over his hunched back; each time he leaned forward into his work, the tiny holes between knits opened up like breathing pores. He focused on the glove in his lap, and didn't look up until an icy, mangled hand dropped onto his shoulder.

His back stiffened, glove and whet stone falling to the floor. He craned his neck, and was met with the sight of two decimated, discolored breasts, one of which had begun peeling away under its own weight from a nasty gash above the nipple. Parts of the rib cage were visible from beneath the thick black slime that coursed from her wounds.

Freddy fell backwards off the bench, flipping it over onto its side in the process. He crawled on his elbows until he felt the low drawers of the worktable against his back.

"Holy fuck," he breathed, eyes frozen wide. Loretta's corpse towered over him as he sat on the floor, staring up at her. When her mouth split into a grin, he tried to run.

He tried.

Smiling right from ear to ear
Almost laughed herself to tears

With a surge of strength, she leapt onto him and picked up his glove. He screamed as she slashed a single blade across his chest, tearing through the stripes of his red and green sweater.

"Do you want to see what hell looks like?" she rasped into his petrified face, taking the whet stone in her other hand. He felt it strike the side of his head. His vision swam, making doubles of the monster sitting on top of him. Loretta embedded two of the finger blades below his collar bone, and Freddy couldn't bite back the howl of pain.

After a few more hard blows to the temple with the stone, she climbed off him and stood up. He was just conscious enough to beg her to stop as she took the flask of bourbon from the table and started dousing him with it. The splashes of alcohol burned his fresh cuts.

She emptied the bottle out and dropped it before she dragged out the large, foot-powered sharpening machine from beside the worktable.

"What are you doing?" he asked, no more able to move his body than he was able to lift his own truck.

Loretta placed the contraption a few meters in front of him, and sat on it, slipping her deathly white feet into the pedals. Her knees rose and fell alternately as she worked the machine like a bicycle. The thick stone wheel began to turn. She pedaled harder, bringing the glove's blade against the rotating whet stone. A small fountain of sparks sprayed out onto the floor.

"Wait," he murmured, finding the will to put up a single hand. But she only stared into him with sunken eyes and pedaled faster. The arch of the glittering red stream grew higher, spitting sparks dangerously close to Freddy's feet. They singed the cement where they fell, like searing hot snow flakes.

A thread of slimy, black drool dribbled onto its chest from the bottom lip of an inhuman grin. The naked corpse leaned forward to work the pedals even harder, until a few tiny sparks hit Freddy's saturated trousers. Both legs exploded into flame, and in the blink of a withering, dead eye, his entire body was engulfed. Still, she pedaled, continuing to feed the fire and her husband's strangled screams.

Must have stabbed him fifty fucking times
I can't believe it
Ripped his heart out right before his eyes
Eyes over easy, eat it, eat it, eat it

Freddy convulsed on his side, feeling the fire eat away at him until his skin turned to ash. The floor beneath him opened up wide like a mouth and he fell through. All around him was darkness, and as he dropped farther into the abyss, all concept of direction slipped his grasp. It felt like he were falling down and up and sideways all at once. And then he smack-landed onto the ground of a place he'd never seen before. The black, volcanic earth against the side of his face was fissured throughout with a root-like network of glowing orange cracks, revealing a sub-layer of fire.

And then he noticed the screaming. Millions of screams, coming from nowhere and everywhere, echoed around inside his skull. He clutched his ears to block it out and felt the scarred, knotted flesh stretched across his bald head. He found on examination that his hands were the same. Their flesh was charred, and it split open all over the surface. He could feel the heat radiating from beneath them - from his very bones.

"I'm in hell," he said under his breath, staring up into the endless black sky above him.

"Not quite."

He spun around to where the voice was coming from. A few yards away, a young woman sat on the lowest branch of a dead tree, with her hand draped around the trunk and her legs swinging under her. She hopped off, and the branch she'd been on crumbled away into charcoal. It was then, as she came towards him, that he recognized her. Her steps were lithe, like a cat's, and her body was whole again. There was a certain allure to her that she'd never had before, but he knew it was Loretta.

She stopped in front of him. "You're right above it."

He looked down through a wide fissure and saw the countless hordes of bodies packed together, faces twisting and bodies rotting. Each soul held a look of despair as if it were alone in its suffering. He could only watch for a second, and even the glimpse he got seemed far too long.

"Doesn't it look like fun, Fred? I was having such a good time down there, I almost didn't want to leave," she purred. "You can go too, if you want to see what it's like for yourself."

As she spoke, the crevice opened wider, and Freddy scrambled back from the edge. Loretta giggled at his frightened expression.

Now that it's done I realize the error of my ways
I must venture back to apologize from somewhere far beyond the grave
I gotta make up for what I've done
'Cause I was all up in a piece of heaven
While you burned in hell, no peace forever

"How did you get out?" he asked.

Before she had a chance to speak, they were interrupted.

"We let her out," came the echo of three voices speaking in unison. Each had a distinguished pitch that blended with the others to create an otherworldly sound. "And she brought you back to us."

"Who the fuck are you?" Freddy snarled, recovering from the initial shock of the situation to find that his patience was wearing thin. He stood up as three beings flew around him. Their faces were nothing more than deformed skulls with hollow eyes, and each body was a black shape that tapered off to a swishing tail. They swam through the air, examining him from every angle as he tried to keep tabs on all of them at once. They circled him faster, and he felt a hot breeze fluttering his sweater and trousers. Standing off to the side, Loretta watched them. Her simple dress billowed around her knees, and the hot cracks in the ground glowed brighter.

"We want you, Krueger. You've done good work, but it could be so much better with our help," the smallest one said.

Freddy followed it with his eyes. "I don't understand."

"Take our power, and you will be immortal. You will reach every human through the one door they can never keep closed.

"And what the hell is that?"

The demons were flying past him so quickly that all he saw were streaks of black as the winds picked up. Their voices were now indistinguishable to him from where he stood in the center of the forming vortex. "Their dreams."

They continued to speak as Freddy considered their proposition. "Their minds will be defenseless before you; you will have the power to bring their worst fears to life," the demons said. "And their souls will belong to you."

"What's the catch?" Freddy asked, narrowing his eyes.

Their consolidated voice was tinged with annoyance. "There is no catch. Only a union based on common interests. If you refuse, we will offer ourselves to someone else, Krueger. There's no shortage of evil amongst you filthy humans."

"No," Freddy assured them, "go on. I'm listening."

"We have nothing more to say: You've claimed dozens of children, but with us, you will claim thousands."

"Thousands," he echoed. The notion made his blood boil with lust.

"Will you accept us, or not?" they said, laying down their ultimatum.

Freddy's charred lips cracked into a grin as he began to laugh, already drunk on their promises. "Yes," he shouted up through the eye of the twister. "I want it. All of it."

"Good choice," they replied before spiraling higher. The twister climbed into the desolate sky and thinned at the top, converging to a closed peak. Then the whole chaotic tower of wind bent off to one side and down, like a curling finger.

Freddy roared with laughter, his head thrown back and his mouth open wide. The lower half of the whirlwind dissipated while the top half looped around and plunged into his throat. Within seconds, all three forms had vanished inside him, along with the noise and the winds. The air was stagnate once again.

He didn't need to ask them what he was supposed to do next. He sensed his purpose through the power surging inside him; it gave him knowledge and direction at the same time as it blacked out any humanity that might have been hiding in his soul.

And that was when he understood what had changed in Loretta. They locked gazes, each searching in the other for where the darkness ended. And a slow smile tugged at their lips as each saw that it didn't.

Loretta crossed the molten earth and stood at his side. Nothing compelled her to do it: not their marital bond, which had been nullified by death, and not an ache for revenge, which she'd already satisfied. No reason existed for him to accept her, either. The only thing drawing them together was familiarity. While neither recognized the other for who they were that morning, they both saw the same hatred brewing in their rotted hearts.

They were no longer husband and wife, but for the first time ever, they were one and the same. Loretta glanced up at him as they vanished from the underworld, bound for their new home.

Freddy rolled his shoulder and stretched his head off to one side. He noticed the weight on the end of his right arm and glanced down. The plated glove was fitted around his hand, snug and familiar. He flexed each finger and looked up to see the boiler room. It seemed different, like it stretched out infinitely in all directions, yet every bit of it was in the palm of his hand. He heard a rustling sound behind him and turned.

Loretta wasn't concerned with her surroundings at all as she stood next to the round furnace. She was staring through the open door, as if she saw an afterimage of her belongings still burning inside. With a flick of his wrist, Freddy made the door slam shut and raised a fire within it. He stalked towards her. His rough hand cupped the side of her face as he leaned in to kiss her with a tilted head, but he earned nothing but a slap across the cheek.

Loretta smirked afterwards, and seized the back of his head. "You know what that was for," she said before pulling his mouth down against hers.

You had my heart, at least for the most part
'Cause everybody's gotta die sometime,
We fell apart, let's make a new start
'Cause everybody's gotta die sometime, yeah yeah
But baby don't cry

She pushed him away a few moments later, leaving him panting and hungry for more. He wiped his bottom lip and watched her half in suspicion, half in lust.

"Don't you have something that belongs to me?" she asked. When he didn't respond, she stepped towards him and placed her fingertip on his lower stomach. He didn't object, too curious to see what she intended to do.

She began to slide her finger up his chest, and he felt his stomach tighten, like she were drawing something up from its pit. The gentle fingertip glided higher as he wrenched against the sensation and started to gag. He could feel something small rising up through his esophagus. When it reached his throat, she released him and he started coughing.

He parted his lips and tugged out a long, thin tendril of dull flesh with a small round bud on the end.

"That's mine," she said.

He cocked a brow ridge. "And you want it back?"

"Give it to me."

He held it out to her, but she shook her head. "No," she said, glancing down to the lower parts of her body. "You do it. Fix what you broke. Unless you don't think you can."

At that last remark, his nostrils flared with poorly concealed irritation.

"Of course I can do it. I can do anything I want here, bitch," he snapped.

She looked unimpressed, even as he yanked her close and pulled up her skirt hem. At first she felt nothing but the numb pressure of his hand, but moments later, her most sensitive bits of flesh were restored to her.

"How's that?" he asked.

"Good," she replied, her voice low and aloof.

Freddy left his fingers where they were and began stroking her. "And how's this?"

He smirked down at Loretta, expecting a sudden gasp, but she kept her composure. Her hand settled on his shoulder.

"Down," she said, pushing him onto his knees. He let himself kneel without the slightest resistance. She lifted her leg to set her foot on his other shoulder, toes nestling the scratchy wool sweater. A silent dialogue passed between them, and Freddy knew what she wanted. His face disappeared between her thighs, with a curtain of bunched, floral fabric draped on either side of his head.

I will suffer
(What will you do?)
For so long
(Not long enough)
To make it up to you
(I pray to God that you do)
I'll do whatever you want me to do
(Well then, I'll grant you one chance)
And if it's not enough
(If it's not enough)
If it's not enough
(Not enough)
Try again
(Try again)
And again
(And again)
Over and over again

He wiped his bottom lip clean when he was finished with her. While she had calmed her shuddering, her chest still heaved and her face still flushed red beneath a thin sheet of sweat. She panted up into the endlessly high ceiling of the boiler room. Freddy stood up, licking his fingertips. As much as he would have like to revel in this moment, something stole his attention. It was a presence, here in his world.

A human presence.

And he could tell that Loretta sensed it, too. She stared off in their guest's direction, as if she could see the person from there. He flexed his glove before he spoke, splaying the blades so quickly they seemed to slice the air itself.

"Let's go say hi."

We're coming back, coming back
We'll live forever, live forever
Let's have a wedding, have a wedding
Let's start the killing, start the killing
(You fucking bitch)

Ed Lantz gave a short grunt as he squatted his heavy frame down to sit on the couch. It creaked under him, and he adjusted his trousers at the crotch. Come to think of it, he didn't remember buying a green couch, yet here it was. Maybe his wife picked it up off the curb somewhere; that cheap pain in the ass was always garbage picking furniture, and then expecting him to fix the crap up.

He reached for the TV remote that was always on the little end table, but his hand merely swiped through the air. There was no remote. Or table. He lifted his eyes to the other side of the room in front of him. There was no television, either. Because this wasn't his house.

Before he could get up, he saw a woman enter the room through the arched doorway to his right. It took a few moments for him to register who it was, as there seemed to be something off about her.

"How are you, Ed?" she asked in a hushed purr.

"I'm fine, Loretta. You?" he managed to say, already feeling self-conscious as beads of sweat formed at his hairline. His gaze lingered over the collar of her dress; he'd never known Loretta to wear her clothes with so many of the top buttons undone. The swell of her breasts peaked out, teasing his imagination.

"Much better, now that you're here," she replied. "But you look a little tense. Are you alright?"

She was standing right beside him now, and he hoped she didn't notice him swallow. His mouth hung agape as he watched her lift the hem of her dress and climb onto the couch behind him. She sat up on her knees, with a leg at each side of the man. He felt her chest press against his sweaty back.

"You look like you could use a back rub," she said as she started massaging his meaty shoulders. "You know, Eddy, I've always thought that Samantha doesn't treat you right. A hardworking man like you deserves a woman who'll take care of you." She rubbed deeper, putting her back into it. "Relieve your stress, not add to it."

Loretta leaned forward, pulling her soft brown hair off to one side and letting it fall in wisps over his arm. His head rolled back, eyes closed, as she ghosted her lips over the side of his neck. With the crotch of his pants growing tighter every second, he turned half around and grabbed onto Loretta. She only stared at him with a heated gaze while he laid her on her back and straddled her, careful not to crush her under his weight. After undoing the remaining dress buttons with his clumsy fingers, he spread the two sides of the garment apart and pulled it off her shoulders. Close to drooling at the sight of her flawless, bare chest, he wet his pursed lips and tried to kiss her.

She put a hand to his chest, which was now soaked through his grey polo shirt.

"Wait," she said. "I don't think you want to do that."

He seemed more confused than upset as he tried again to meet her lips. But again, she refused him.

"Come on, Loretta," he urged. "What are you afraid of?"

She smiled faintly. "Me? I'm not afraid of anything. But you should be."

"What are you talking about? Why?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw thin red stripes stretching over the worn green fabric of the couch, like Christmas gift wrap. The wall they were against was now grimy cement fitted with a maze of pipes and valves. Where the hell was he?

"Because," she murmured, looking up at him with sultry bedroom eyes, "my husband's coming home."

He turned towards the front door only to find total darkness. All he could see was the red and green couch he was lying on, the wall behind him, and the woman beneath him. Then he heard a click, and a long, slow creak. Far in the distance, a doorway opened up. It was filled with a harsh yellow light, except for the black silhouette standing within its frame. It was a lean man, and the outline of his hat was familiar to Ed, but what really held his attention were the huge black claws extending from each finger on the shadow's hand.

The figure took a step onto the path of light that the open doorway had thrown across the dark floor. Ed turned back to Loretta, about to demand an explanation, but he never got out anything more than a whimper. Before his eyes, Loretta's healthy, youthful flesh corroded away as she turned again into a living corpse. Her lips shriveled back and she grinned at him maniacally.

"Still want that kiss?" she asked, gnashing her rotted teeth. When he saw the worms tunneling in and out of her breasts, he finally screamed and leapt off the couch.

"What's wrong, piggy?" came a deep, gravelly voice behind him. "Is she not good enough for ya?"

Ed turned to see over his shoulder. A charred face smirked back at him, skin melted away completely in some places, showing thick red muscles underneath. Only the monster's eyes were the same as they'd been in life, and Ed knew them well.

"Fred," he said through a shuddering breath.

And that was the last breath he took. Freddy drove his claw through the man's chest, breaking though the other side. His forearm was lost deep in the bloody hole. All around the boiler room echoed nasty, triumphant laughter, with a faint giggle trailing after it.

"Do you take this man in death for the rest of your unnatural life?"
"Yes, I do"
"Do you take this woman in death for the rest of your unnatural life?"
"I do"
"I now pronounce you..."

~o0o~

The sky had begun to lighten to a pale grey as the early hours of the morning dawned on the outskirts of Springwood. Sheriff Thompson took a sip of his coffee before setting the mug on the hood of his police cruiser. The chill in the air was dissipating along with the darkness, and the first rays of sunlight cracked on the horizon behind the power plant. Unzipping his dark blue windbreaker, Thompson surveyed the decimated building. The walls, inside and out, had been blackened by the fire, and the few windows that were visible had been blown out by small gas explosions. The fire trucks had gotten there before him, but since there was nothing but dusty earth in all directions, they'd decided to let the whole thing burn out through the night. It was better to keep their distance rather than risk losing some good men. Especially for a scumbag like Krueger.

He still couldn't believe that through all the years he'd been hunting the Springwood Slasher - all the endless nights hunched over case files with Lieutenant Garcia, all the times he'd had to stand in front of sobbing parent and explain to them that he'd failed to bring their children home safe, all the hours he'd spent begging the air in an empty room for help - through it all, the man he'd been looking for had been right in front of him.

Fred Krueger.

Fred Krueger, who would stroll down the sidewalk and bring his daughter over for play dates with Nancy.

He felt like such a blind fool. But what really made him feel stupid was that even when little Katherine was telling him what her daddy had done to her mommy in their backyard yesterday morning, part of him had still refused the idea. It wasn't possible. He'd crouched there in front of her in that kindergarten classroom, and listened to her tell the story through sobs and hiccups, and still it took him a while to accept that he'd been so ignorant. But he knew she was telling the truth; the suffering in her eyes wasn't something a six-year-old child could fake.

He stared ahead at the thin white smoke rising into the sky as flashing red and blue lights glared in his peripherals.

~o0o~

The clock on the wall ticked away the seconds. Katherine listened from where she lay, curled up on an armchair in one of the rooms in Springwood's police station. Scattered all around her were crumpled tissues, and on the coffee table sat three bowls of chicken soup, each one having gone untouched. Every few hours, a young officer would bring her a new one and try to get her to take a sip, but she just couldn't stomach it. Or the plate of chocolate chip cookies he'd left her. There was only one thing she wanted right now.

She wanted her mommy to hold her, and her daddy to bounce her on his knee. But instead, all she had was an uneasiness in her gut from guilt and loneliness, and many other feelings that she was too young to understand. She curled up on her side, drawing in her small legs to hold herself. Hours passed by until eventually, with messy pigtails falling out of their ties and snot smeared onto her dress collar from crying, she rocked herself to sleep.

The first thing she heard was chirping. It was musical, like a duet between birds, and it ended with the flutter of wings as she sat up and looked around. Fluffy white clouds floated across the blue sky, and the sunlight warmed the grass she sat on. She stood to her feet and smiled to see her backyard, bright and safe. The velvet petals on the rose bushes rustled in a sweet breeze.

Her smile grew when she saw what was waiting for her at the other side of the yard. Beneath a shady oak, her parents were talking and laughing. Freddy was leaning against the tree trunk, but he straightened up when he noticed Katherine. Loretta fell silent too, and turned towards her daughter.

As quickly as her stubby legs would allow, Katherine ran to them. She never slowed down the whole way, throwing her tiny body into Loretta and hugging her mother's legs. Then she pulled herself away and latched onto Freddy. He chuckled, patting her head.

"Settle down, baby. What's the matter?" he cooed.

"I missed you!" Katherine said, tilting her head all the way back to look up at him, "And mommy, too."

Loretta stepped behind her to rub her back. "We're right here, sweetheart."

"So now I can come back home?" Katherine asked with wide, hopeful eyes. "We can all go back, and I don't have to stay with strangers anymore?"

A tentative silence followed her question as the smiles faded from her parent's faces.

"Katherine, we have to tell you something," Loretta said.

With the gentlest nudge from Freddy, Katherine let go of him. He knelt down to her level.

"Your mommy and I have some very special work to do. We have to go," he explained.

"Go?" she asked, her brow knotting in confusion. "Go where?"

"I wish I could tell you, baby. I really do." He placed a hand on her shoulder.

"I'll come with you, then," she said.

"No, Katherine," Loretta spoke up. "You can't come with us."

Fresh tears swelled on the rims of Katherine's eyes. "But why not?"

"It wouldn't be good for you," Freddy said. He wiped at her cheeks with his thumb as she sniffled.

"That's not fair," she cried.

He offered her a sad smile. "I know it isn't. But someday, when you're big enough, we'll come back for you."

Loretta bent down to kiss her forehead. "Then we can be a family again," she added.

It was all Katherine could do to hold in the sobs, but they still came out in short bursts. She bit her lip to keep it from quivering.

Freddy held her gaze. "I promise," he said.

Then he stood back up, and Loretta went to take his hand. She turned her face to the white picket fence, with its gate hanging wide open. Beyond it waited all of Springwood, and all the people who would scream, bleed and die.

"Goodbye, baby girl," Freddy said.

They left Katherine standing under the swaying green tree, and walked together across the lawn. The urge to chase after them was dead inside her as she watched them get farther and farther away. Their silhouettes thinned, disappearing through the brilliant light on the other side of the fence. And as quickly as they'd come back to her, they were gone.

You had my heart, at least for the most part
'Cause everybody's gotta die sometime,
We fell apart, let's make a new start, oh,
'Cause everybody's gotta die sometime, yeah, yeah
But baby don't cry

A/N: Thanks for reading! Please feel more than welcomed to leave a review. I'm curious to see what OTHER humans think of this story.