THE DREAM STALKERS
A Nightmare on Elm Street short story
-Sequel to THE DIARY-
Note from Cyberwolf10: this work is entirely fiction.
A Darkened room, close to midnight. The only light is the flickering static screen of a small black and white television in the corner of the room. The sound of creaking can be heard but the sleeper in his bed is oblivious. There is a white china mask above the bed; it moves to look down at the dreamer. Behind the thin strip of reality that is the dreamer's consciousness, Death himself waits; his name is Freddy Krueger.
The wallpaper of the room turns dead blood red and dirty slim greenish/black, the colours of Krueger's sweater. From behind the wall that the bed is against Freddy reaches out for the sleeper. Finger-razor knives reach out from the wall and the mask melts and becomes Freddy Krueger's face. Freddy leans out of the wall and with his deadly right hand, looms in for the vital kill that will empower him with a soul. Just then, Jeremy awakes and the dream dissipates.
He is safe for another night. Sick and sticky and covered in terror sweat, he gasps and reaches out for his glass of water. Jeremy tips the glass in his haste and curses under his breath.
"Krueger… again. That son of a bitch! Why me, out of all the kids in Springwood?" asks Jeremy of an empty room. "I'm just here to pay my respects and leave."
Jeremy pondered on why Krueger had been trespassing on his dreams that night. Jeremy was hardly a 'kid' anymore and everyone knew that Krueger only went after children.
Jeremy had come to Elm Street in the town of Springwood because his cousin Rebecca had just died. When they were young they were close but had lost touch over the years. It was a freak encounter with Rebecca's diary that first introduced Jeremy to the maddening world of dreamland killer, Freddy Krueger. But Krueger was no ordinary boggy-man, the twist in dreams with him in is that if he killed you in the dream, that was it…the big game over, you died in real life. That was how Rebecca died. But Jeremy wasn't going to take this, (pardon the pun), lying down. For weeks now he'd been working on a plan to get Krueger back, ever since he first came to him in his dreams and left him with a very disfiguring scar across Jeremy's nose from just above his right eye and going down beneath his left eye.
It was a shame that it took that much to convince Jeremy that Freddy Krueger was real. Rebecca's diary hadn't done it. The first few Krueger dreams hadn't done it. The childless residents of Elm St. hadn't done it with all their crazy talk of a dream demon and a haunted house and the fact that everyone knew the urban legends surrounding Krueger. But that one painful razor, that one agonising slice, those torturous seconds, minutes (?), hours (?)…lifetimes that the razor-finger took to complete its path across his face. His skin was on fire, the flame of one thousand fires burned inside however now, the flame of anger. Freddy Krueger would pay.
The next night…
A sleeper stirs. He is having a nightmare, perhaps one from which he will never awake. For this is the dark world of Freddy Krueger and dreams can kill.
Devin (the dreamer in question) is a lover of music and right now is on stage with top rock/metal band 'Velocity Shogun'. Devin is playing guitar until…'snap' a string breaks. Oh my god! How can this happen now? He thinks to himself as the hundreds of fans begin to boo and hiss. The hundreds of fans become thousands and they into millions and soon all Devin can hear is a chorus of boos and hisses. Devin begins to sweat so much that his tattoos begin to run (oh no! shock and horror) they are fake! The crowd laughs at Devin and then it happens. Devin's fear is great enough for the evil magic to begin.
Evil sounding guitar music makes Devin put his hands to his ears. He turns to see Freddy Krueger on a left-handed Bass sliding his finger razors up and down the fret board. Devin's broken string whips up and around his left hand while another string busts and whips around Devin's right. The guitar strings pull Devin's hands down to his sides. Krueger shouts out over the laughter of the crowd, "You'll listen to my song now, bitch!"
"I don't think so, Krueger." from out of the crowd comes the voice of Jeremy. "You!" points Krueger. "Well if it isn't little Becky's cousin. I've had it up to here with you scar-boy." Mocks Freddy. "Your days as a dream demon are over!" shouts Jeremy as he gets up on the stage with Freddy and Devin. Jeremy dips his hand into a pocket and pulls out a small dream catcher pendant. "What's that? Some sort of left-over Christmas cracker toy!" Krueger mocks once again. "Freddy, this boy's room is full of these dream catchers. They capture nightmares and let a sleeper get a good night's rest." "Well, I am what nightmares are made of and I'm here already. Doesn't look like they work…does it chief?" mocks Krueger yet again. "Think again monster!" shouts Jeremy. Jeremy throws the pendant around Freddy's neck in an expert volley. Freddy laughs an ugly belly laugh and then stops suddenly as he can feel the power of the dream catcher at work. "Now I lay me down to sleep…" begins Jeremy of the old Dream Master rhyme when Freddy is sucked into the pendant.
Devin wakes up screaming, alone in a darkened room. His bedroom: a single sweat-soaked bed and numerous posters of rock n' roll and heavy metal bands. Devin expects his parents to come rushing in to see what is the matter. Like he needs looking after anymore, he is 16 now. Hardly the age to be tucked in after a stupid nightmare. Even if that nightmare was about Freddy 'kill you in your dreams' Krueger. No one came. They must finally be treating me like an adult, thinks Devin.
Devin was glad he'd met Jeremy two weeks earlier. Jeremy was confident that he had found a way to kill Krueger off once and for all. You see Jeremy had some 'special' weapons at his disposal. Ever since Krueger killed his cousin, Jeremy had dedicated his life to the myth of the dream demon and had found out thus: a child killer in the 60s, Krueger was nicknamed 'The Springwood Slasher' because of his choice of weapon, blades. Fred Krueger built tons of gloved-weapons but preferred to use finger razors. Anyway he killed his wife, Amanda and had his own little girl taken from him. Then he was put on trial but freed because some dumb cop neglected to read him his rights. So the parents of Springwood tracked him down to his hideout (some say his old workplace, a boiler-room in an old factory while others say it was his house's basement) and burned him alive. Krueger must have made a deal with the devil because he found that he could come back in the dreams of others. He decided to continue his reign of bloody terror by killing the children of those who killed him.
One person, Dr. Nancy Thomson (a former resident of Freddy Krueger's house) found a way to defeat Krueger. According to her published journals on her life on Elm Street, she took back the power that her fear gave Freddy. Jeremy had an idea based on this but had to learn more. Jesse Walsh (another resident of the Krueger house) also found a way to take his power back but his journal, found by Jeremy's cousin Rebecca, said this was down to his girlfriend and nothing more. Not much help there. The town then blacked out all knowledge of Freddy Krueger. Jeremy did research into everyone who ever lived at 1428 Elm St. and found that one person was able to turn Freddy's power on him and take Freddy into the real world where he battled another killer named Jason Voorhees aka The Crystal Lake Killer.
Everyone thought that it was over years ago but somehow he's back in the dream world. I mean everyone has a bogeyman but this guy is off the fucking charts of horror. Burnt skin, razor knifes on his right hand and dirty clothes. It made Devin sweat bullets just thinking about him. His only saving grace was Jeremy because he had a plan. Jeremy had found out how to come into other people's dreams.
The next night…
It is hot, damn hot. Hotter than the fires of Hades and there seems like there's no release. Hot enough to make heat melt, hot enough to make the body scorch and sticky but not like terror sweat that is unto itself a wholly different creature. Anise has both. In reality, naked in bed because of the heat…but in the dream world, terrorised by an unseen dreamland stalker. Anise wakes with a start; she is alone in her room, (as usual). Anise didn't live in Springwood; she lived just outside in Weston Hills, an asylum for the infirm of mind.
Weston was the kind of place that you got into for saying that you saw someone kill your best friend in cold blood. Someone horridly burnt and wearing finger-knives. That's no reason to be committed, you say? Not if you saw it in your dreams every day for a month before it happened in real life. Anise was special and that's what attracted her case to Jeremy. He found her on the Internet, she wrote about her power to see other people's dreams. Anise also wrote that she could predict whom Krueger would massacre next. This was a perfect weapon to use against Freddy.
Jeremy had to get in touch with her. He tried the forwarding address her parents gave for her at Weston Hills but she never wrote back and when he did finally get an audience with her, she said it was because the staff at Weston were screening her mail for evidence of knowledge of Fred Krueger. She said that she hardly ever dreamed anymore thanks to a wonder drug named Hypnocil. It was a low dose however and didn't stop the occasional nightmare. But we all have those… right? Jeremy had her parents sign the papers to get her out of Weston Hills and a week later they met up with Devin.
A week later…
Devin, Anise and Jeremy aka 'The Dream Stalkers' got together. Jeremy recommended to Anise that she stop taking Hypnocil so she could track Freddy again. He taught her a way to unlock her 'dream powers' and make her able to fight back the dream demon. Jeremy had learnt how to go in to other's dreams and would go in to whomever's dream Freddy was in & save them by fighting with Anise on his side and Devin was the bait. Living on Elm Street made him a prime target for Krueger but being the last child on Elm made him irresistible to the burnt-face killer.
That night…
The final confrontation was at hand. Anise had tracked Freddy Krueger through five different dreams until he arrived in Devin's mind. The room was decorated with relaxing scented candles; mood music was playing in the background. Jeremy had all sorts of dream catchers up around the small bedroom. It was time…
Again Devin slips past the veil of sleep and glides into Freddy's world of dreams and nightmares. A dirty boiler-room (who knows where). It's big, too big to just be in Krueger's basement. Is this where Freddy worked when he was alive? Devin walks alone up a cold metal stairs. "Freddy", he calls out "Yo, pussy, where are you?" suddenly the stairs that he is on become hot or maybe they'd been heating up for some time and Devin hadn't noticed…anyway more to the point, the stairs are hot now causing Devin's feet to blister. Devin is only a fraction of the way up the stairs and so decides to turn back.
To his horror and surprise the floor has been replaced with a lake of molten metal. Boiling hot- -bubbling orange- -smelling of sulphur- -molten metal. Devin rushes up the stairs but keeps looking back at the bubbling lake. He rushes right into the waiting arms of the nightmare prince himself, Freddy Krueger.
Anise begins to describe Devin's dream aloud so Jeremy knows when it is time to go in and bring Freddy out. In his hands he held a ritualistic knife, hoping that this would be the key to Krueger's death once in the real world. Anise describes the stairs and the molten metal; Freddy is acting quickly tonight. When she actually sees Freddy she screams and goes quiet. Jeremy knows it is time to act. "Now I lay me down to sleep…I pray the lord my soul will keep." Begins Jeremy of the old prayer. Soon he is in Devin's dream.
Devin screams and Krueger laughs. Devin turns to run down the stairs, he'd rather take his chances with the molten metal than Freddy. The stairs turn into a nightmare slide and Devin slip-slides down onto his stomach and down the slide. "Jeremy, where are you?" shouts Devin. Right on queue, Jeremy appears at the top of the stairs behind Freddy. "Krueger, this is for Rebecca…you fucker!" Freddy turns and looks at Jeremy. "You, again!" Freddy flicks out his tongue and at the same time he flicks out his razor-knives. Jeremy makes to stab Freddy with his ritualistic knife but he doesn't have it. "Oh crap!" he swears.
In desperation he pushes Freddy down the nightmare slide and into the waiting, hungry seething metal. "Jeremy!" screams Devin from the slide/stairs. Jeremy stretches himself out as far as possible while maintaining a good grip himself and reaches for Devin. Soon in a fireman's grip Jeremy pulls Devin up. "Dude, that was close but you did it!" "No, I didn't. Just because you kill Freddy in a dream doesn't mean he's gone for good. So be alert." Says Jeremy confidently. "Couldn't have said it better myself, chief." Says Devin with Krueger's voice.
Anise is screaming out to Jeremy that Devin is Freddy Krueger. Devin died on the slide. His burning body on the bed is a testament to that. "Look out Jeremy" she screams.
Devin turns to Jeremy and morphs into Freddy with glove and all. Jeremy bear hugs Freddy and shouts to Anise to wake him up. She does so…
Anise has been watching the whole thing while in a trance-like state. She saw Devin die, saw Freddy versus Jeremy. But now she is awake and so is Jeremy. "Where is Krueger?" he asks before anything else. He looks into his hand; he dropped the knife, his sacred ritualistic blade. In his other hand he has Freddy's hat. "I know I brought Freddy out with me so be careful." "I didn't see anyone come out with you." Says Anise quietly. "But that's impossible…isn't it?" he grabs Anise by her collar. "Jeremy, you're hurting me." Says Anise as quiet as a mouse.
Suddenly from behind Freddy's glove come right through Anise's stomach. "No!" screams Jeremy. "Freddy, you fucker!" Jeremy lunges forward with his knife and plunges it into Freddy's side. "Argh!" screams the demon. Anise's body falls to the bed and atop of Devin's smouldering cadaver.
Freddy drops to his knees and pleads for his life. "Please Jeremy, don't kill me. I'm only human." Then he begins to laugh the laugh that only the damned know, a lunatic's cackle that rattles Jeremy's mind and tests his nerves. Freddy gets to his feet and offers Jeremy a freebie. "Come on chief, one free blow. But make it count 'cuz you only get one." Too good an opportunity to pass up, Jeremy drives his blade into Krueger's torso and pushes up into his heart. "Fuck you, Freddy!" "Not quite…'Jez'. See ya!"
Jeremy wakes up. He is in a metal-framed single bed in what looks like some sort of dorm room full of sleeping kids. How long had he been asleep? How did he get here? Questions soon answered as two people rush into the room.
"Jeremy, your awake!?" exclaims the male person. He is tall and wearing a white coat, maybe a doctor (?). "Yes" squeaks Jeremy as if he hadn't used his vocal cords in a while. "Where am I?" "You're in a special care unit of Weston Hills." Explains the female doctor. "You've been here since you cousin's funeral nearly three years ago." "What, no that can't be… what about Devin Taylor and Anise Archer?" "Who?" asks the male doctor of the female. "Two of our other patients." "What?! No! What about Freddy Krueger?" "Look at me boy, there is no Freddy Krueger. He died years ago. End of story." Explains the male doctor very slowly. "No, he's in my dreams, I mean my nightmares. He's real and alive, feeding off the fear of others." "Send him to the lock-up. I prescribe Hypnocil to stop him dreaming. We'll keep this thing contained if it kills me."
"What. No. You can't do this!" they cart Jeremy off to the 'rubber room'. In the very distance, a dream ago, Jeremy can hear Freddy laughing a maniacal laugh. "NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooo!!!!!!"
"We all have nightmares…don't we?" says Freddy.
THE END