Author's Note: The first part of this story was originally intended to be a one-shot, but the ending wasn't very satisfying. So, at Darkness Takes Over's request, I wrote up a concluding part. It's not as long as the first one, but that's because all this was meant to be implied.

A few warnings before we go on...

WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC ADULT CONTENT INCLUDING VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED. AGAIN.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own A nightmare on elm street or any of its characters.

Red Apples: Part Two

Nancy crouched lower into the shadows beneath the metal stair case. The heat in the boiler room, even this far from the furnace, was producing a mist of sweat at her hairline. The whites of her eyes flashed between blinks as she turned every which way to make sure Freddy wasn't sneaking up on her. She tried to control her breathing, but her lungs never seemed to get enough oxygen to support the erratic pounding in her tiny chest. She didn't know what to do. He was going to get her.

She flinched at the distant clanging of metal followed by a hush of steam from one of the pipes. As she was considering where to begin looking for an exit, she froze.

There were footsteps on the stairs above her, coming down.

Clang. Clang. Clang. The grated stairs rattled beneath his feet.

Then everything was silent. She stopped breathing as she waited, huddled on the filthy cement.

After a few seconds, she heard the footsteps going back up. She exhaled.

The whole stairway shook violently, and Freddy dropped straight to the ground in front of her. His body was obscured by the darkness as he stretched his neck off to one side and rolled his right shoulder. He moved forward, towering over the child.

With a scream, she shot past him and ran as fast as she could.

But she didn't get very far. What she thought would lead her to an exit, brought her instead to a dead end. She turned around just as Freddy stepped into view. She shifted from foot to foot, unsure if she should try to run.

All the while, he was coming closer. Spreading his arms wide, he smirked down at her.

"Come to Freddy." He licked his bottom lip as she started to tremble. She backed up until she hit the hard wall. A hanging chain rattled beside her.

He tilted his head in mock concern. "What's the matter?"

Looking past him, she spotted a ladder of thin, rusted metal rungs that led up to a long catwalk. But it was far away.

Freddy continued, reaching down to touch her cheek, "This isn't gonna hurt so bad. You might even like it."

His growing grin contorted into an expression of pain and anger when Nancy bit down on his hand. He ripped it away, growling through gritted teeth to keep from yelling out.

Nancy bolted around him, heading for the ladder. Her fingers wrapped around the first rung, but only for a moment. She was pulled backwards and dragged along the damp, dirty floor. Freddy was seething as he brought her back to the dead end and threw her into the wall. She whimpered, folding over onto the ground. He crouched and grabbed her jaw as he leaned back on his haunches.

"Kids just don't have any respect for adults anymore." He shook his head in disappointment, "You know what would have happened to me if I'd done that when I was six years old?"

After a brief pause, he answered his own question with a hard smack across Nancy's face. She squealed as tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. Her cheek began to swell.

"That, bitch." He concluded.

When he saw that she was still trying to crawl away, he laughed.

"You're slow to catch on. I'll bet you usually learn things the hard way, don't you?"

He pulled her back by her ankles, climbing on top of her.

"That's good, because I like teaching the hard way."

The tips of his razors twisted into the fabric of the pretty dress he loved so much. Time to see if those red apples taste as good as they look.

With his bare hand at her throat to keep her down, his glove pushed the hem of her skirt up to her slightly protruding tummy. Her bare legs wriggled.

He touched her soft, plump flesh with the tips of his knives and paused, canting his head back with a low groan - the unholy prayer of thanks for the food, before The Feast begins.

The knives pushed through her skin. The way her scream broke down into violent sobs, the way her body shook, wracked with pain. It was enough to make him shudder. He slashed from the collar of the dress diagonally across the chaotic rise and fall of her chest, tearing away at the neat line of plastic buttons that held the clothing together. It wasn't his intention to cut her there yet, but in the excitement, he'd left four shallow slices in her skin. The gaps that the wounds opened up filled with blood in mere seconds. Placing a razor under her chin, he tilted her head up to see the fear all over her face. Dried and fresh tear tracks ran over her pudgy cheeks. The left cheek was turning a deep shade of purple, the beginnings of a nasty bruise.

Freddy was almost impressed that she was still struggling. By now, most of his other piglets would be begging for mercy. She was more stubborn than he would have guessed. But in the end, she was a child, and he was the boogeyman. It was no contest.

He leaned down as she started whimpering, his mouth only centimeters from hers.

"Hush, Nancy." He whispered.

And The Feast began.

Sixteen-year-old Nancy Thompson jolted upright from under her blankets. She stared straight ahead with wide blue eyes, a hand flying to her chest, as if to contain the heavy pounding of her heart. The night shirt she wore was soaked with sweat; her fingers rubbed over it to find the cuts. She murmured something, trying to sooth herself, but felt none of the relief that usually came when you escaped a nightmare. Because it wasn't a nightmare.

It was a memory.

The End

Author's Note: Just so no one's confused about how you were able to see Freddy's thoughts if it was Nancy's dream, the answer is simple: I wanted you, the reader, to see the event from both their perspectives, but Nancy only dreamed from her own perspective. And if you want to know HOW she escaped Freddy, well, that part I leave to you.

Make sense? I hope so. It's never a good sign when you have to write a paragraph-long explanation at the end of a story. Oh, well.

Thanks for reading, and please review!