Fan Boy

After all the months of anticipation, the numerous Facebook messages, the long wait for school to finish, and of course the long flight, Louisa finally arrived in America.

Her aunt Emma met her at the airport, with an accent that was still very close to her own Scottish one and a hug similar to that of Louisa's mother. Sam was waiting in the car excitedly. They were born only seven months apart, yet this was only the second time that the cousins had met in person, the first being eight years ago, when they were only nine and seemed pretty similar.

Sam's Facebook page had shown Louisa that they were no longer quite so similar. The perfect photos of her cousin with shiny blonde hair and a perfect dental smile gave her the impression that she was the stereotypical American cheerleader she had come across in her TV programmes at home. She wondered what Sam had thought of her own Facebook profile, the photo taken on the park bench, where she wore all black, except for her bright pink bracelets that matched the highlights in her dyed black hair. Despite all these differences, the cousins were still dying to meet.

Sam came running out of the car when she seen them approaching. It was getting dark, but still ridiculously hot. The small slim figure came running out of the car, her pretty white dress moving in the breeze as she approached Louisa for a hug.

"Did you bring your drawings?" she asked in her American accent, as they climbed into the backseat of the car, Emma forcing Louisa's suitcase into the boot. Louisa nodded, patting the large black bag that hung over her shoulder. Inside there was a plastic folder containing all of the drawings that Louisa spent her spare time doing.

It was one of the common interests that the girls had continued to share over the years, that and their love of horror films. When Sam had visited that summer all those years ago, they had stumbled across "A Nightmare on Elm Street" on TV, one night long after they should have been asleep. They had watched, terrified and fascinated. Neither admitted to the other that if they'd been alone they'd have turned it off. They didn't sleep well at all that night; every creak in the house sent them into a state of hysteria. Yet, the fascination remained. A few nights later, they actively went looking through the channels for another film like it, looking for the thrill in the terror.

It seemed to have created some sort of a bond between the two. Sam had seen some of Louisa's drawings on Facebook, and insisted she bring them over with her. There was no need for her to bring any art supplies though, she had plenty. She promised to introduce her to her neighbour Alex, who had been her friend even when they were nine. He'd like the drawings.

After arriving at the apartment, phoning her mother to let her know she'd arrived safely and eating Emma's spaghetti and meatballs, the two girls went to Sam's room. The large room was painted a cream colour, with pretty posters of puppies and other animals around the walls. Her bedding and most of the accessories in the room were a pale pink colour. Cushions of different sizes and shades of pink covered the top half of the bed, a small brown teddy bear seated in the centre.

On the bedside table, there lay a drawing, done in pencil. It was a Labrador puppy, leaning on the outline of a cushion. The puppy looked complete, shaded lightly in grey pencil with some darker patches around its eyes. Some detail had been done on the large cushion, but it was more detailed at the top than the bottom. Louisa lifted the drawing. Her art teacher would love it. She didn't encourage Louisa to submit her favourite drawings as coursework. They were "inappropriate". There was nothing inappropriate about this. A poster lay under the drawing, of the puppy, leaning upon a pile of cushions.

"It's really good," she told Sam.

"I have more," she said, opening her desk drawer. "Can I see yours?"

Louisa's bag sat at the foot of the bed. She lifted out her plastic folder. It was like a child to her. She placed the folder on the bed as she sat down, the first drawing clearly visible. Sam sat opposite her, looking at the front drawing with the same morbid fascination she'd expressed when they'd first seen this character.

It had been copied from the front of the DVD, Freddy stood behind the film title, in front of Nancy, brandishing his steel claws. Beneath the logo, there was his silhouette in the boiler room. It had been drawn in chalk, taking Louisa hours to complete paying attention to every detail. She'd stayed late at school that day, and gone through a great deal of red chalk. Miss Atkins had liked it, she said as Louisa finally left, but the examiner might not.

"It's brilliant," Sam said, as Louisa took it from the folder, letting her see it more closely. "I'm not good at people."

She had the same fascination with the other drawings, some paintings, some just pencil. The first few she'd done were copied, then she made some more on her own. The very last one showed Freddy brandishing extra large claws in front of a red haired girl, and Louisa showed it to Sam free of the fear that she'd recognise the victim as Amy Rowling, who'd called Louisa a freak a few hours before art class one day.

"Can we show Alex?" Sam asked. "He loves Freddy too, has all the figurines." Louisa nodded, proud of how impressed Sam was. It scared a lot of people. Her mother often commented on how she wished she'd just draw landscapes. "We could go now, if he's in."

Louisa nodded again. Sam took her phone from her jeans pocket, scrolled down a list and touched the screen to make a call. Louisa could hear the faint sound of the phone ringing. After three rings, a voice answered.

"Hello."

"Alex, are you home?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," the muffled voice replied.

"My cousin's here. We were going to come in show you some of her drawings, and she could see some of your Freddy stuff?"

The next sentence was muffled, but Louisa heard enough of it to understand that the speaker was okay with them dropping by.

Alex's collection was by all means impressive. A whole bookshelf contained artefacts. There were many figures of Freddy, different sizes and poses. There was a figure of Nancy in the bath as a large claw reached out from the water. Original film posters were framed and lined up along the wall, seven Freddy's looking down on their collection. A hat sat on top on the bookshelf, beside a large set of claws.

Alex was sat on the bed beside Sam, admiring Louisa's artwork, laughing about what the art teacher at their school would say about it.

"Can I try them on?" Louisa asked, interrupting the friends' conversation.

Alex looked up at her with large brown eyes, his dark fringe sat just above them. His eyes then went to the glove and hat, realising what Louisa was asking. "Sure you can," he responded. He seemed even more American than Sam.

His teeth were just perfect like hers, as he smiled, getting up to help Louisa with the glove. It was slightly heavy as she lifted it, but the claws when she touched them were not sharp. She could smell his aftershave as he stood beside her, helping to slide her hand into the glove. Sam giggled, watching them.

Alex strapped the glove at Louisa's wrist. She had worn one last Halloween, but it was cheap and the claws were bent. This was just like the real one. She stretched the claws out as her free hand lifted the hat.

"You look way too happy," Sam laughed.

Louisa laughed too, placing the hat on her head. She couldn't fix it properly with the glove on. Sam moved to help but Alex was already fixing it, pulling down on the hat at either side.

He grinned, looking down at Louisa, and she grinned back. He didn't look like the other friends she'd seen in photos. He wore loose jeans and a baggy black t-shirt bearing a shiny white skull. She wondered if there had ever been anything other than friendship between him and Sam, and found herself hoping there hadn't.

She looked around the room for a mirror, and found one on the far wall. It was small, and rectangular, the kind only good for combing your hair with. To see herself properly, she had to keep slightly far back from it. She stretched the claw out in front of her, a pose she'd seen Freddy do in many photos. She was still smiling. Her striped top was at home, she wished she had it to match her look. They didn't quite match her purple vest top.

"I love these," she said, loosening the strap on the glove. "They're like the real thing."

"You know he's real though, don't you?"

"No, he isn't." Louisa placed the items carefully back on the shelf. "How gullible do you think I am?"

"He is." Alex sat down on his computer chair, spinning to face the bed as Louisa sat across from Sam, gathering up her drawings.

"He is not!" she argued. "I've looked at every website, every Wikipedia page."

"That's 'cause the real guy's not called Freddy Krueger. And the film's not really based on him. He based himself on the films, if you get me."

Louisa looked at him, frowning slightly, looking for a grin, some sign that she was not about to make a fool of her. She looked to Sam then, who wasn't laughing either.

"So someone tried to copy him?" she asked. "Is this true, or is it one of those stories?"

"It's true!" Alex insisted. Sam shrugged, and Louisa could tell that she had heard this story before. She looked to Alex to continue the story.

"Few years ago, young guy called Josh Handelman, was sixteen. He was a typical nerd apparently. Went to science club, chess club, all that kinda stuff, got bullied by the cool kids. Anyway, he was quite into Freddy, like us, owned all the films. He spent most of his weekends in the basement, used it as a kind of lab. His family never bothered him there; they never expected he'd be up to no good.

Anyway, he got back from school one day quite badly beaten; group of kids from his school had attacked him. His parents did the typical 'going to see the teacher' thing that never helps. All the kids were named; think they got a detention or something like that. It took him a few weeks, and things had calmed a bit at school, but he made himself a glove, a real one."

Louisa glanced at the glove she'd replaced on the shelf. The claws looked sharp, like they'd slice her in two, but they were soft to touch.

"Did he kill them?" she asked Alex, knowing the answer.

He nodded, swinging slightly in his chair.

"Was he caught?"

"Not at first. The kids who had attacked him were killed one by one, but no one suspected Josh. He was the kind of kid you just forgot about. Then he killed some more people. No one knows if they did anything, or if he'd just decided he liked to kill people by then. Anyway, it was about a month after the first murders that he killed his dad after some argument. When the police went to his house, they found the glove."

"Where did this happen?" Louisa asked after a silence.

"Manhattan, apparently."

"If it's true," Sam said. "Alex doesn't know that."

"I do too, my uncle told me!"

Sam raised her eyebrows. "It doesn't make it true."

Louisa walked back over to the shelf where she touched the blades of the glove again. They were soft, didn't even scratch her skin when she touched them.

"Guy just snapped," Alex said, as she sat back down on the bed.

Louisa looked down at the drawing in front of her: Amy Rowling cowered in a fiery corner as Freddy approached.