Ash had been deep into the void of sleep when he'd first started being shaken awake. As he rose from the depths of sleep and was on the verge of opening his eyes, he felt a hand on him. With his eyes still closed, he smiled. "Need a bit of the early morning boomstick, Janey? Yeah, I know you like starting your day off with a bang." Still vaguely asleep, he smiled.
A voice that was not Jane's said, "Actually I was just here to take your temperature." It was a low, female voice. A voice dripping with sarcasm, and maybe...Just a hint of lust? But...Mainly sarcasm. Not Jane. It was not Jane.
, SHIT!
Ash's eyes sprung open. Nurse Sally had her hand on his shoulder, where she had been shaking him awake. He could see sunlight through the doorway of the room. It was morning. Jake was once again sitting in the chair next to Amanda's bed. He smiled Ash's way. "I was going to wake you, but I thought Sally should do it, since you two have developed such a...Unique friendship." He grinned at Ash like a cat which has caught a canary.
Sally was also smiling at him, the sort of smile reserved for a man who the woman views as a bit of a simpleton. "And of course I couldn't resist the opportunity to see your terrified face when I spoke. Dr. Carter is preparing for her second treatment. I thought you'd want to be awake for it."
Christ, in the old days, fighting Deadites, Sally wouldn't have gotten within 10 feet of him before he'd either have heard her footfalls or sensed her presence and woken up. He MUST be getting old."Jeez," Ash said, yawning, twisting his neck, which he felt and heard make popping sounds. "How long was I out? I don't think I've ever slept so long in one night here, ever."
Sally's eyes darted to a clock on the wall. "It says 11:30. After you passed by last night, I did a check in shortly after on Amanda, and the clock read 1 a.m., so I'm sure a man as sure as you are of yourself can figure it out from there." Sally's smile was as sweet as could be.
He shot Sally a look, then counted. He didn't even have to use any of his toes. Holy toledo. Unarmed, in a bed, two killers roaming the halls, and he'd had a full night of unbroken sleep. He felt like he'd just spent the night at a Holiday Inn. If he still ate, he'd likely be asking Sally where he could find the spread for the continental breakfast.
He looked over to Amanda's bed. Again, to his surprise, he'd slept through the activity of Carter and Sally's entrance. He was surprised to see that Carter had gotten most of the equipment hooked up to Amanda already, without any of the noise managing to wake him. Jake looked tired still. Dark circles were visible around his eyes. Ash wondered how long he'd been able to sleep before his anxiety over Amanda's situation had woken him back up, and made him unable to sleep any more.
He felt a little bad. He'd not have minded being woken by Jake if that had happened. He had a lot on his mind, and Ash would have happily given up sleep to keep him company and try to keep his mind off of the situation. Too late now, though. Ash climbed over the bed rail and stood beside Jake who was staring at Amanda anxiously.
When Ash dropped a hand on his shoulder, Ash could feel how rigid Jake's muscles were. The poor guy was terrified. Despite the reassurance from the doc yesterday, it was still eating at Jake something fierce. Ash wasn't sure how much longer Jake could hold out.
But he didn't blame him, not at all. He wondered what he would do if it was his Janey on the bed, rather than Amanda. It would have been completely terrifying. People weren't supposed to just...Shut down like that. Unable to move, unable to speak. It was...Unnatural, terrifying. It was made all the more terrifying because there wasn't a magic pill that could be given. No matter how effective, and no matter how careful Carter was being, the machine was still firing electricity into Amanda's brain. How could that not be terrifying, whether it be Amanda, or Janey, getting the charge?
Carter finally sat back in his chair and settled in, his preparations on Amanda complete. "Nurse Smithson, I'm going to be making a slight increase in the current. I'll be issuing a pulse of 950." He looked at Jake. "800 is a baseline for any patient undergoing this type of treatment. It's a minimal dose, and always what we use for the first treatment to see how it is handled by the patient."
Carter took her wrist in one of his large hands and counted her heartbeats as he glanced at his watch. "800 barely seemed to affect her yesterday, and because 950 is still well below the maximum, I'm going to give it a try. She's perfectly healthy and strong otherwise. Since we saw positive results from 800 yesterday, I'm hoping that this will create the jump start she needs to get over the barrier. I truly think it will be."
Jake nodded with understanding. "It's going to be crazy to hear me say it, but I trust you. You haven't done anything so far to make me not trust you. Ash and I were both kind of at your mercy last night, and you didn't do anything, even though you could have. Do it. I trust your opinion."
Carter smiled at the praise before once again seting his pocket watch in front of him. "Starting electrical pulse." He turned the dial, then glanced at his watch for a few seconds. "Ceasing pulse." The EGG machine attached to Amanda's head started printing. Sally gave Carter Amanda's heart rate. Amanda's foot twitched more strongly. Sally waited until she had a long strip of the readings of Amanda's brain activity, then ripped off the paper and passed it to Carter before he even had the chance to ask for it, like he had yesterday.
"More stimuli in the brain. Of course that's in part due to the stronger charge, but the news is even more encouraging. It's definitely served as a proper trigger to generate an even larger response in Amanda's brain." He looked at Jake. "Time will tell, but I think this might be it."
He slipped the electrodes and cuff off of Amanda and departed from the room with Sally. Jake once again took Amanda's limp hand in his own and held it as he and Ash chatted, waiting for a full hour to pass. They didn't have to. When they were barely a half-hour in, Jake suddenly stopped mid-sentence in his statement to Ash, and his eyes widened.
'What is it?" Ash asked him. Ash Williams' heart was pumping fast with excitement. Something was happening.
"She squeezed my hand. I felt it. She squeezed my hand." Jake was staring at her, looking for some sort of response, seemingly making sure, needing one other sign. Then he looked at the hand he held Amanda's with and said, "She DID squeeze it. She just squeezed it again." Jake shot to his feet leaning over her, and Ash walked over to the other side of her bed, leaning as well.
Amanda's eyes started blinking rapidly, then they started moving around. She looked at Jake, looked at Ash, and there was a flash of fear. "Who are you? Where am I?" Jake and Ash both shared a look. Hadn't Carter said he was doing the treatment a special way to prevent memory loss? This was a wrinkle that neither of them were expecting.
As the panic rose in both of them, Jake suddenly turned to the door. "Dr. Carter!" Jake yelled. There was a sound of running feet approaching in the distance and Carter hustled in with Sally once again right behind him. "She's awake," Jake told him. "But she doesn't know who we are."
At the news, Carter beamed. "Nothing to worry about at all, Jake. That sort of a reaction is perfectly normal after a treatment such as this, and after the patient has been in the state she was in," Carter said. "It will only be temporary, you have my word on that."
Carter removed a small penlight from the pocket of his white coat and Ash got out of his way as he took the spot and leaned over her, shining the light in his eyes. He snapped his fingers and she looked at him. "Can you tell me your name?"
Amanda remained fearful, her eyes darting between Carter, Ash, and Jake, seemingly undecided on which one of them to stare at. As she continuously looked at each one of them in turn, she said, "Amanda."
"Correct," said Carter. He looked at Jake. "She immediately remembered her own name, which proves that she doesn't have long-term memory loss, but it may take a bit of time before everything comes back to her. However, as I mentioned before, it may take a little bit of time."
He shifted his gaze back to Amanda and flashed her a reassuring smile. "I'm Dr. Carter. You had a rather nasty event that caused your brain to, shall we say, shut down, and it slipped you into a catatonic state. This is Nurse Smithson. We've been treating you with electroconvulsive therapy. This is your husband, Jake, and your friend, Ash," Carter informed her, pointing at one, and then the other.
She still wasn't entirely there, but Carter's words had calmed her down and she relaxed on the bed. "No one means you any harm, of course. Jake, you should start to see progress in her memory within the next hour. Now some of the short term memories of the most recent few weeks may not return, that is a side effect, but everything else will begin to recover shortly, and soon, almost completely."
But actually, her memories returned to her head even much quicker than that, because no matter how much expertise Dr. Herman Carter had, A being with the powers of a God was firmly in her corner and looking for a quick recovery to correct its earlier faults.
As Jake had reacted to Amanda's had squeezes, the Entity had noted the suddenly flurry of activity. It had started a trial, but now had a brief moment of indecision, after what happened the last time it had taken its eyes away. However, the killer in this trial was the Trapper, which always remained in line and possessed no magical abilities.
It made its decision, and massed itself in Amanda's room, watching Carter speak to her. As Carter begin talking with Jake, the Entity quietly slipped into her head, and readied the very small portion of its powers that it would need to use.
It would never know how the brain worked on a human, it reasoned. But after lucking into it, it knew where and how to access the memories of the human brain. It knew what it needed to do, and did so. It touched that portion of the brain where all of Amanda's memories were stored, and the invisible barrier that had blocked them from flowing freely disappeared. It was about to exit, but then entered her memories for one more brief moment to wipe the leftover remnants of Kruger's nightmare from her head. Satisfied with its efforts, even though they were completely beneath its true power, the Entity departed Amanda's head.
Amanda's eyes shifted to Jake. Her Jake. Her man. He was looking at her with eyes that were both confused and full of love. "Jake...Fuck...What happened?" Jake simply burst into tears. He pulled her in his arms and kissed her deeply while Amanda's eyes darted to Ash. Her eyes were filled with a happy glow, but Ash could still see she was pretty goddamn confused.
Carter clapped the back of his hand against Ash's chest and grinned. "See? Already they return." He was very pleased with himself. And Ash couldn't help but smile right along with him. He clapped Carter on the back in return and said, "Great stuff. You know what? The next time we're in a trial together, as a thank-you, I'm not even going to run."
Carter looked at him stone faced for a brief moment before he burst into laughter. "You hardly run anyway in any trial. I can hit you with my ground surge repeatedly, making you scream, and you just stand there. You not running from me is not much of a reward." Carter resumed a healthy belly laugh.
Ash started chuckling as well. "Well, instead of just standing there, I'll actually lay down on the ground."
Carter's eyes widened, seeming to get a mental image of Ash just lying on the ground and playing dead when Carter approached him in the next trial, and it ended up making Carter laugh even more deeply.
While the relief and mirth was being shared in the room, Amanda shifted her thoughts to the one thing that she knew was celebrating her recovery, but could not be seen. Amanda thought, "What happened. I felt you in my head."
She felt it return, a gentle, full feeling in her mind. It said, warmly. "You had a nasty experience with Kruger. I'll let Jake fill you in on the details, but it was truly the worst experience you could have had. I removed the leftover side effects from the treatment I provided to heal you, and I also eliminated the remnants of what Kruger did to you. It was a nightmare, the worst you could have ever expected."
She suddenly found herself wanting to know what it was. A small section of her memories, beyond the nightmare, were simply gone. She had little to no recollection of the past few weeks. "What was it? How horrible was it?"
The Entity was silent for a moment. "No Amanda, Even a brief description of it I do not feel is necessary. That is how brutalizing it was to your brain. It's gone. I will simply say this. A large part of it played off your guilt, the guilt you still carry, from your time long before."
Amanda's brow furrowed. She definitely didn't like to imagine how the nightmare used her guilt against her, but she was also feeling a bit stubborn, knowing that a killer had used its abilities to attack her in one of the most vital parts of her, Amanda's own mind. "You can't tell me anything more than that?
The Entity sighed. "I will tell you one thing more, and then I believe you will be entirely satisfied. The nightmare also involved venomous snakes."
Yup, that settled it. The furrowed lines in Amanda's brow disappeared, as well as her stubbornness. "You are 100 percent right. I absolutely do not want to know the rest."
The Entity chuckled. "Because of the vast amount of intelligence I possess, I suspected that would be the case if I mentioned that snakes were also involved. I will return to you later, there is another matter that I wish to seek your input on, before the matter is put to rest entirely. I am...Pleased that you have returned."
Amanda smiled. "Thank you. I can tell you've done a lot to help me, and I'm sure Jake will tell me about it. But...I definitely appreciate you doing so."
"Of course. The state you found yourself in, while it incenses me to no end to admit, was in part due to a lack of focus by me on your trial. I am of course appreciative of your gratitude, it only took an extremely small fraction of the powers at my disposal in order to put into place."
"No matter how much or how little effort it took," Amanda told it. "It was an effort that you made, for me. It may sound completely crazy based on what goes on here, and based on the number of times I've been Moried, but...I truly feel a sense of safety here knowing that you're always around, and watching. I haven't ever put it into words, but I will now. It means a lot...To know that in a situation like this, I have made myself worthy enough in your...Eyes...For you to have my back, and I promise to remain worthy."
Had human emotions been possible, the Entity possibly would have been touched by the words. But even so, they swelled its ego. "You're wecome, Amanda."
After remaining in bed for a full hour after the first sign of her memories returning, Carter declared her cured enough for travel, and for the first time in two days, Amanda rose to her feet, and would have landed on her face if Ash hadn't been fast enough to catch her. After being basically limp and immobile for 48 hours, once standing, Amanda felt as though she'd been stabbed by a million pins and needles as her circulation returned. After a few moments, the feeling subsided and her mobility returned. Jake traded spots with Ash, and she let him lead her out of the room.
Carter was waiting for her in the lobby. Now standing in front of him, she was once again reminded of what a short woman she was. "You've been an excellent patient, Amanda. It was a nice change of pace to be able to resume my, uh medical practice just one more time." He said nothing more. There was no real need to tell them he wasn't a licensed physician after all.
Amanda had heard Ash talking to Carter about a trial, and of course, even with the new paint job, she knew she was in Lery. So that meant that Dr. Carter, in actuality, was a restored human version of THE Doctor, of course. She remembered her trial with Zarina and said, "Thank you. And uh...I'll try not to rub it in the next time I escape in the trial."
Carter chuckled darkly, and despite his human appearance, a darkly evil look passed into his eyes. "You're making a lot of assumptions. How can you be sure you'll even HAVE the opportunity to escape me next time?" And then the dark look left his eyes. Pleased with himself at the brief look of fear that had flashed in Amanda's eyes at his threat, his smile became friendly again and he actually winked at her.
The bizarre situation she had found herself in hit her even more deeply, but she actually found herself amused. Her cure had been achieved thanks to the efforts of a man who made a great effort to kill her. Amanda couldn't help but laugh. She shook his hand, and also expressed her appreciation to Sally. She managed to deduce who Sally was as well. While she was uncertain why THE Nurse was there, she assumed it had something to do with her treatment. Jake would know the details, she was sure, and so she'd wait for Jake to tell her.
One minor leftover question, how she had gotten there, was answered as she walked to the doors leading out of the facility. In the early afternoon sunshine, Amanda saw the replica of her light blue Bug parked on the exit ramp. She was looking forward to being in, especially now that she would be conscious of it. She heard the sound of running feet behind her.
Before she could even turn, Ash passed her in a dead run, shouting "Shotgun!" Before anyone could make a move, he darted into the front seat, banged his knees on the dashboard, let out an angry yell of pain, slid the seat back as far as it would go, and slammed the door. She couldn't read lips, but she knew Ash was cursing his head off.
Amanda really wanted to drive, but after only recently having shock therapy, she decided it was safer that she did not. After all, if she drove the car into the brick columns on the way out, there was no guarantee it wouldn't cause damage that couldn't be repaired.
Instead, she let Jake help her into the back seat as Ash groaned from the front, rubbing his knees. "Why do they even make cars this small? I had a pedal car as a kid and I'm almost positive it was bigger than this tin can. Hey, I've got an idea. On our way back, let's drop this off at Father Campbell's Chapel. I'm pretty sure the Clown is missing his car."
'Shut yer face," Amanda retorted. "The Volkswagen is a national treasure."
"Oh yeah," Ash rolled his eyes. "If that treasure is fool's gold."
Amanda and Ash began to lightly argue back and forth on the merits and faults of the Volkswagen Beetle as Jake backed the car out of the exit ramp and into the field, shaking his head.
After they were out of sight, the Entity said, "You've completed your part of the bargain. Nurse Smithson, Dr. Carter would like for you to remain in his realm to keep him company. The decision is yours. You won't participate in any trials together, but other than that, you can do as you please in the areas available to you. The doctor is seeking a companion to speak with, and feels that your past histories in the medical profession in the real world, and your enjoyment of killing, would make you ideal."
Sally considered. "There is nothing to keep me in my other realm, and perhaps a speaking companion will have a more positive effect on my mood. I would like to stay. We discovered over the past two days that we made a good team. She looked at Carter and smiled. "I only thought about how fun it would be to slit the throats of the three of them about 40 times."
Carter returned the smile. "I speculate it was about 50 times for me thinking about how enjoyable it would be to attach the machine to their heads and shock them with the device at its maximum setting. There is nothing quite like the smell of electrically burned flesh. And the sizzles and pops it makes! Like frying bacon in a pan."
"Then it is settled. Sally, you may remain here," said the Entity. It readied itself to return everything to its normal, disused state.
"I have one question. not a request," Carter said. The Entity paused before making the final move with its powers.
"Based on your performance, you have earned the right to ask it. You may do so."
Carter said quickly, "The woman. There's something different about her. Now I'm aware that if this had happened to a survivor other than her, your actions would have been the same, but I don't think you'd have bothered with as many of the fine details as you did for her. The changes to the building, the changes to our appearances...That was, I believe. And extra effort on your part, for her. Also, I've seen her a number of times in the trials. She doesn't behave like the others. It's similar to the one they call Ash, but still, somehow very different. Why is she different?"
The Entity considered the Doctor's question. It decided that it didn't matter if it shared the information. Carter and Sally would both be rendered mute in the trials, and they likely wouldn't remember any of what took place over the past two days once their full killer status had been restored.
"Amanda was once a killer herself. A being known as the Pig. She was not as deeply murderous as the rest of you. She reached the point where she couldn't summon the rage to kill for me anymore. She also was beginning to have feelings for the meat named Jake. I could either try to bend her to my will, or let her join them. I chose the latter. Because of her past experience as a killer, she does not behave in the terror and fear like the others. She has experienced enough that very little ever scares her. When she sometimes makes choices that the others would not, it's because she wants to feel the pain of your blows and the sacrifices to atone for her past. Because she once possessed the powers of a killer, she is slightly faster than all of them, and has slightly better abilities of dodging and escaping. When coupled with her lack of fear in the trials, it makes her difficult to catch her, because she is not fearful, and because she does not make the mistakes of the other, more fearful survivors."
Sally and Carter shared a glance. The Entity said, "Dying, and then facing death again, has made her almost consciously immune to fear. "She's died, been resurrected here, gone back, prevented her death, but then caught an infection upon her return that almost killed her, and thus she returned here for a second time."
Carter couldn't believe it. "She voluntarily came back?"
"It was her husband's decision, as the infection had rendered her virtually comatose. But when she recovered, she was fully supportive of him making that decision for her, yes."
"I could imagine coming back here as a killer if I left," Sally said with a trace of wonder. "But not to be hunted. Not as a survivor."
"She's the only one here who has lived in both realms. She's appreciative, grateful, and respects me, despite the pain and death I cause her. If you are asking if I performed the extra tweaks to your appearances and the appearance of the building because she's somewhat special...I suppose she is. She killed for me. She was good at it. She has become even more skillful at being a survivor. Because I saw her as she once was, and have seen how she's grown, I'll never view her as I do the rest of the meat."
"Killer to victim," Carter said with astonishment. "Bring her back here. I should have sent her back to her survivor realm with a straight jacket." Sally giggled.
"Are you ready?"
Carter said, "Yes. Having a human appearance was fun for awhile, but I wouldn't want to live like it." Sally nodded her head in agreement.
In the blink of an eye, Lery once again turned completely abandoned and disused, and Carter and Sally returned to their monstrous appearances.
The Doctor turned, tapping his lethal stick in his hand as he started off in the direction of his large, disused office. "Come along, Nurse." The Nurse caught up to him quickly, in a terrifying voice replying, "YESSSS Doctor..." She floated beside him, head down, moaning.
The Doctor had his Nurse.
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As they made their way home, Jake and Ash had filled her in on the Entity's efforts to secure her treatment, and what had happened during the last two days that she'd been out of it. After hearing of all the things the Entity had done, she was glad that she had thought the words she did to it while it was in the room, and thanked it.
She didn't remember the Midwich trial at all. After knowing whatever Freddy had done to her with his nightmare involved snakes, she didn't want to.
"Speaking of Freddy," The Entity suddenly spoke in her mind as she leaned forward and looked out of the windshield, "I've been considering his punishment, and wanted to give you a chance to weigh in."
Amanda was silent before she thought, "As much as I'd like to say burn his ass, You've given me two chances. Granted, they were for different reasons, but you allowed me survivorship, and then you allowed me to return. As much as I don't like to say it, I guess if it were up to me, I'd give him one more chance, but not if he can do whatever he did to me to anyone else."
"Thank you," The Entity said, and was gone.
Jake parked the Bug, and before he could even turn off the ignition, it went dead. He looked at Amanda sheepishly. "Guess it's back to being a yard ornament."
"But what a yard ornament," Amanda said, running her fingers gently on the plastic upholstery of the back seat. Even though it wasn't a true Volkswagen, she loved this little car, even if it didn't run.
"Psh. Completely missed the opportunity while the engine worked. I still say we should have left the damn thing with the Clown," Ash grumbled before opening the door and painfully unfolding himself from the front seat.
Amanda knew Ash was attached to his old Delta, and also knew of its history. "It may be small, but at least it didn't become possessed and run my dad over," She called out at his from the back seat.
Ash feigned stabbing himself in the chest. "OUUUUUCH. Low blow." Amanda grinned at him wickedly, and he shot her a sarcastic one in return.
Amanda had no mobility problems exiting the vehicle, and as the trio came around from the rear of the cabin, the survivors around the campfire saw them, They started clapping and cheering as she blushed and approached with Jake and Ash by her side, before she sat down next to the flames.
God I love it here, she thought.
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The Entity pulled a moaning Freddy from the cage and dropped him to the ground in front of one of the deserted houses in the Haddonfield map. Without the constant stabbing from the cage, Freddy started healing himself.
"Last chance Krueger. And when I say last, I mean last. Were the decision mine alone, you would be gone from here."
It started to leave, and paused. Freddy managed to summon the strength to raise his eyes.
"I sense your frustration with her, and I know that is why you singled her out. I will explain something to you once time, so listen carefully and do not speak. She doesn't fear you because she used to be a killer. She's a survivor now, but she still retains that lack of fear. That is why you cannot terrify her like you do the others with your general abilities in the trials. It's not a lack of respect for you. She simply does not experience fear in the way of a normal human."
It paused, then lifted him with its powers. "I asked her what to do with you, though the final decision is mine alone. She said to give you another chance. You're one of my most prolific killers, so I am in agreement with her decision. But I promise you. If you do anything like what you did to any one of them ever again, there will be zero mercy."
"There is a balance here. You upset that balance. The survivors know what to expect from every trial, and you changed that. You damaged one of the survivors they believe is the most fearless, which only added to their confusion and anger. They knew it took something truly horrific to break her in that way. You are lucky I had a doctor at my disposal to undo the damage you did to her."
It squeezed him. "The damage you did to the grudging respect the survivors have for me will take much longer to heal. I'm going to have to make concessions in the trials of all the killers, making things slightly easier until they regain that respect and stop fearing a new outcome in the trials that will have long lasting effects, unlike the hooks and the Moris they've grown to accept and prepare for."
It twisted Freddy harder, as Freddy weakly groaned. "It took me effort to correct the condition you wrought on Amanda. Effort I should not have had to make. I'll have to use further effort to correct the balance that I should not have to make." It twisted Freddy as viciously as it could. "Amanda is the only one here who has lived between both realms. The one I selected to speak for me to the meat. The only one I respect enough myself to not consider meat. You damaged the worst possible survivor you could have with your little game. I am most displeased with you, and you have much work to do to return to my good graces."
The Entity dropped him to the ground. "I have removed that particular ability from you. I know you still have others, and I would expect the last two days have shown it will be in your best interest, and tantamount to your continued existence here, that you never use them, no matter how strong the urge. You are strong. But I will still snap you like a stick."
It was gone. Freddy started slowly dragging himself back to the basement of the low green house he'd come from.