(Hello, Dear Readers! I'm back with more nightmares! Sorry for the long wait; but oh my gosh, guys, I met him! I met Robert Englund and the man is such a sweetheart. I went to Wizardcon in January and got to have my picture taken with him. I had brought a pillow with me that I'd written on in red ink, "Sweet Dreams, Michael!" It's a joke between me and my younger brother; he's terrified of Freddy Krueger, so me being the amazing big sister that I am decided it would be hilarious if I got a picture of Robert Englund wishing my brother a good night.
When I told Robert a more detailed version of the meaning behind the pillow's message, he straight up laughed and said, "Oh I got this." He and I posed with the pillow and just as the photographer counted down to "one", Robert let out a Freddy cackle and I kid you not, he's still got it! It seriously tested my ability to hold a smile for the picture because he'd startled me but at the same time I was thinking, Holy crap, yaaaas! Afterwards, I thanked him and got a hug and didn't realize my hands were trembling until I tried to pick up my picture from the print station. At Wizardcon I'd met and had a quick chat with James Marsters (Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and while I was in line to meet Robert Englund I had a very amusing conversation with Michael Rooker (Merle Dixon from The Walking Dead and Yondu Udonta from Guardians of the Galaxy), which ended up with the two of us pulling a prank/joke on my friend, but through all of those interactions I hadn't been nervous. Meeting my favorite horror actor had my hands shaking and I couldn't stop grinning. It. Was. Awesome! Anyways, enough rambling; let's get this show on the road; shall we?)
[Song Suggestions: for the beginning of this chapter, I suggest listening to 'Sleepsong' by Bastille. The opening notes of this song paired up with the movie-like scenes that play out in my head give me shivers. I suggest you listen to the instrumental music 'The Dream Child' by Jay Ferguson or 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)' by Emily Browning when Valerie faints.]
Chapter Nine
When Nightmares Bleed Into Reality
"You can plant a dream."
~ Anne Campbell
Friday Morning
It had been hard, but Valerie managed to stay awake through the night. She doubted if she even would have been able to fall back asleep if she'd wanted to; not after what she'd dreamed, but Valerie kept herself caffeinated until time to wake up. A noise behind the shared bathroom door alerted Valerie. She curled up in bed and closed her eyes just in time. She sensed Isabelle enter the room. Valerie faked being woken from a deep sleep when Isabelle gently nudged her awake in time for the two to get to their first class of the day.
Now Valerie sat fidgeting in her psychology class. Her mind wasn't on the subject though. Mostly, she was seeing those nightmare images play over and over again in her head. Her mother's body becoming ash and the ashes blowing away. The ballroom becoming a party of dancing corpses…
"I'm hoping the vacant look in your eyes is due to thinking of an answer and not because you're daydreaming."
Valerie gave a start and focused her gaze on the figure standing before her desk. Professor James patiently smiled at her.
Trust me; I won't be dreaming day or night for as long as possible.
"I'm sorry, Prof. James."
"Just come back down to earth, 'kay?"
Valerie nodded sheepishly. "Sure."
"Now, as I was saying-,"
"Excuse me; this is Prof. James' class, right?"
All heads turned to the door. Two people were standing in the door way, one man, one woman, both in business suits. The woman stood in front of the man, her hand on the doorknob and ready to close if she was informed that she was in the wrong room. Valerie caught a brief glimpse of something metallic attached to the woman's belt. Her business suit's jacket blocked it from Valerie getting a better look.
"Um, yes. I'm Prof. James."
The red-headed woman managed a small smile. "I'm sorry to trouble you, but may we speak with your students Isabelle Dupree and Valerie Snider? I'm afraid they'll have to miss the rest of your lecture."
Valerie and Isabelle looked from the woman to Prof. James with uncertainty. Prof. James glanced at his two students then back at the woman. "May I ask what this is all about?"
"Perhaps if you stepped outside with us for a moment?" the man behind the woman said, stepping further into the room. He had dark brown hair and high cheekbones.
Prof. James complied and the door was shut behind them.
"What the heck?" Isabelle mumbled under her breath, just audible for Valerie to hear.
"I'm right there with you," Valerie admitted. "They looked like detectives."
"If I called them Scully and Mulder, do you think they'd get it?" Isabelle whispered to Valerie.
"Don't you dare."
The door opened again and Prof. James, along with the two strangers, came back into the class room. The professor's expression was difficult to read but Valerie thought he looked disturbed. "Valerie, Isabelle, uh…" He trailed off, unsure of what to say next and ended up just gesturing at the man and woman. Valerie and Isabelle gathered up their things as the murmurs of the other students began to be heard and the girls followed the strangers out.
"Um, so like, what gives?" Isabelle asked the moment Prof. James closed the door so he could continue his lecture.
"I'm Detective Hamilton," the woman said, "and this is my partner, Detective Rogers. We're here to question you about Marv Baldwin. Is there somewhere we could discuss this in private?"
Valerie felt herself bristle at the mention of Marv. "Is this about the fight he got into with Kevin?"
Isabelle jumped right in, her face filled with indignant anger. "Did that jerk file an assault charge on Kevin? Marv threw the first punch!"
"We're not here about an assault charge and up until now we were unaware of an altercation between Marv Baldwin and this Kevin guy," Detective Rogers told them. He put his hands on his waist, causing his suit jacket to part and reveal the detective badge he wore clipped at his belt. Valerie suspected the flash of metal she'd seen in class on Detective Hamilton was from a matching badge.
"Well me and my big mouth," Isabelle muttered.
"We're here on a different matter and we'd rather talk about it somewhere private," Rogers went on.
"Um, room 203 is usually empty at this time," Valerie suggested. She pointed to a room a couple of doors down.
Rogers glanced at the door's small window. No lights were on. "It'll have to do, I guess."
Once inside, the detectives motioned for them to sit at the desks. Rogers leaned his tall frame against the back of lecture stage while Hamilton remained standing straight and flipped open a notepad. "Which one of you is Isabelle Dupree?" she asked.
"'I'm Spartacus,'" Isabelle declared dramatically.
Rogers chuckled and pretended to cough when Hamilton craned her neck to look back at him and lifted a disapproving eyebrow.
"So, Special Agents Scully and Mulder –,"
The only indication that Valerie gave of her mortification at Isabelle was that she very briefly closed her eyes and silently counted to three. She dared. Isabelle didn't notice so she continued talking.
"If you're not here about Marv and Kevin's fight then what's this all about?"
"You and Marv Baldwin were dating, correct?" Hamilton asked.
"Yeah, for about a year, I ended it yesterday."
"And how did that go?"
Isabelle cast a glance at Valerie, her expression easily readable to her. What the heck is going on? Valerie shrugged and gestured for her to go ahead and answer the detectives. Isabelle sighed and faced them again. "It didn't go so well. Marv showed up on campus around the time that he knew I usually have lunch with my friends."
"What did he want?"
"He wanted to talk about us but I wasn't having any of it. He's a lazy slug and I'm done with that."
Valerie caught the shared looks between Rogers and Hamilton after Isabelle's comment. It seemed as though there had been something significant to them in what she'd said, but Valerie couldn't see just what it was.
"Did the conversation turn violent?"
Isabelle snickered and tried to smother it quick. "Um, yeah, you could say that, Scully," she said sarcastically. "He like freakin' took a swing at Kevin. Kevin only fought back to defend himself. Then Charlie got involved to get Marv off of Kevin and –,"
Rogers straightened up, his brow furrowed. "Whoa, whoa; how many people were with you?"
"Just me, Valerie, Bianca, Kevin and Charlie. Oh, and I guess you could count Marv as a person."
Valerie nudged Isabelle with her elbow, a silent message to knock off her blasé attitude. Something was up, she could feel it, and it made her nervous that the detectives weren't being upfront about why they had pulled her and Isabelle from class.
Valerie spoke up. "Detectives, with all due respect, I think we should know why we're being questioned and having to miss a lecture when Finals are just around the corner."
Hamilton glanced back at Rogers and a silent conversation passed between them. When they returned their gazes to the girls, he was the one to speak. "Marv was murdered in his uncle's garage last night."
A tiny gasp emitted from Isabelle. Valerie's knuckles went white from her tight grip on the desk's edge. "W-what happened? I-I mean…" Valerie licked her suddenly dry lips and tried again. "Who did it?"
Rogers folded his arms. "That's what we're trying to find out."
Isabelle's mouth fell open. "Oh crap…" Her eyes began to fill with tears. "Oh crap," she whimpered. Valerie reached over and took her hand, giving it a comforting squeeze.
"I'm assuming you're questioning us to find out if we did it?" she asked calmly. "Well, Isabelle was with me last night in my dorm room. I'd had a – a nightmare and she was there helping me calm down." Isabelle said nothing to confirm this, just turned her head to the right to avoid looking at anyone while tears trailed down her cheeks. Valerie went on. "As for confirming my alibi you can ask the students who live on the same floor as us. I'd been screaming in my sleep and it brought almost everybody to our door to find out what was going on. Even the security officer had been brought up to investigate the noise, his name's Officer Dalton."
As she spoke, Hamilton wrote in her notepad and finished a few seconds after Valerie stopped talking. "We'll still have to check that out, but for now we'll say you have a plausible alibi. What about your friends?"
"I don't know where they were last night but they would never –,"
"We'll need their last names and a number. If we can't get in touch with them by phone then would you be so good as to tell us where we might find them today?" Hamilton asked.
"They didn't do it," Isabelle barely managed to say. Her voice was so tremulous that Valerie almost didn't understand what it was she'd said.
"Either way, we still have to question them," Rogers replied.
"Hey, Charlie, toss me that remote will ya?" A few seconds passed and no remote presented itself. "Charlie, could you hand me the remote?" Kevin asked a little louder. Nothing. "Charlie?" Kevin stuck his head around the corner of his cubicle to see Charlie asleep in the other chair.
During this time of the day, he and Charlie usually had the tech. room of the Media Department to themselves and so Kevin didn't have to worry about disturbing any other students when he shouted, "Yo, Charlie!"
Charlie jerked awake with a snort. "Wha?"
Kevin 'tsked'. "Man, you stayed up all night playing video games again, didn't you? We were up late last night working on this film, why didn't you go to bed?"
"The siren song of the game called to me," Charlie mumbled sleepily.
"Does it ever get laryngitis? You do this all the time."
"Do not."
"I need you awake and alert so we don't fall behind with this project. Remember, this is a grade for the both of us."
"Noted," Charlie yawned.
Kevin shook his head and withdrew to his side of the cubicle. He reached into the travel-sized lunch cooler he'd brought in with him and pulled out an ice cold Monster energy drink. He leaned back out and whistled to get Charlie's attention. When Charlie leaned out as well Kevin tossed the canned drink to him. "Drink it up."
Charlie caught it and tapped the top of the container a moment before pulling the tab. He took a long swig.
"Better?" Kevin asked.
"Aaah," Charlie sounded, holding up the can as if to toast him. "I feel my body reviving as we speak."
"Good." Kevin heaved a role of cable off the floor and unceremoniously dropped it in Charlie's lap. Charlie 'oofed' and looked up at Kevin in confusion. "You can start loading up the equipment."
Aaaw, maaan." Charlie reluctantly pushed out of the chair and walked to the department's camera equipment they'd signed up for.
A phone rang. It was Kevin's. He didn't recognize the number on the display screen. "Hello?" he answered.
Valerie and Isabelle were taken downtown for further questioning. Isabelle was in the interrogation room with Hamilton when Bianca showed up. She spotted Valerie sitting in a hard-backed chair, eyes trained downward, her foot rapidly tapping the floor.
"Val?"
Her head shot up. "Bee!" She leapt from the chair and hurried towards her. "What do you know?"
"I got a call telling me to come here for questions about Marv; what is going on?"
"Marv was murdered last night."
Bianca's blue eyes went wide. "Holy f –,"
"I think Kevin and Charlie are being questioned together by one of the detectives right now and Isabelle is getting grilled too."
Bianca rubbed her temples. "This is insane," she said breathlessly.
"Bee," Valerie snapped, shaking her. "Do you have an alibi for last night – for all of last night?"
"Um – um, yeah, yeah, I do."
"Good. I didn't get a chance to talk to Charlie or Kevin; they were here before Izzy and me."
"Miss Cates?"
Both girls turned to see Rogers at the hall entrance to the interrogation rooms. "If you'll come with me?"
Bianca's eyebrows rose as she looked him up and down appreciatively. "No need to ask twice," she mumbled slyly.
Valerie narrowed her eyes at Bianca. "Not now, Bee," she hissed.
Bianca shook herself and nodded. "You're right, sorry."
Charlie emerged from behind Rogers and stiffly walked past him and Bianca until he slumped in a chair next to the one Valerie had previously occupied. He bent over and rested his elbows on his knees, hands covering his face. "Where's Kevin?" Valerie asked.
"Still questioning him. They wanted us to be questioned separately."
"What for?"
"Different lines of questioning us. They want to question me about a family matter."
Valerie's brow furrowed in confusion. "What has your family got to do with Marv?"
Charlie sighed and leaned back, slouching in the chair. "I guess since you're not from around here you don't know about my family history." At the blank look on her face, he went on. "Yeah, I figured as much." He gestured at the chair next to him. "You might want to sit down."
When she was seated, Charlie's gaze slid to his interlocked hands and remained there. "Two members of my family were murdered back in the 80s. They were cousins of some sort, I don't know, I never met them 'cause they were both killed before I was even born."
"So why do they want to question you about it?" Valerie caught the reluctance in Charlie's demeanor. "Look, you don't have to tell me anything –," she began, but he waved her off.
"No, no. I think you should know. Kevin knows and the Gray family name is going to be hot news again anyway just because I knew Marv."
Valerie shook her head. "Help me understand why the police are so fascinated with your family's past."
"From what that Rogers guy told me, there were some similarities the forensics team found with Marv's murder and my cousins' murders. When I say my cousins' were murdered, it's just a nicer way of saying they were butchered."
"Butchered?"
"I only know what my family's told me about it. Back in 1984, my cousin Tina was killed in her bedroom. Her boyfriend was in the room with her and he was arrested but he swore that he witnessed her body being dragged all over the place and being cut again and again by some invisible attacker. The police think it was guilt that made him snap. He hung himself in his cell a few days later."
Valerie felt her palms go clammy. An invisible attacker and knife wounds?
"Then my other cousin Mark, he was killed in 1989. The police say it was a warehouse accident 'cause he was crushed by an over-stacked shelf. But a friend of his claimed he'd been murdered, but no evidence was found of another person being with him at his death."
Valerie licked her lips. "Charlie," her voice shook and she cleared her throat. "Did the detectives tell you how Marv was killed?"
Charlie nodded, his eyes still trained on the floor. "His uncle found him in the break room. He'd been decapitated by some sort of sharp object."
The edges of Valerie's vision went dark and she heard Charlie calling her name, only it sounded like he was very far away. She vaguely sensed herself falling to the floor just as her vision went completely dark.
"Psst! Valerie!"
Valerie's eyes snapped open. Blurs of red swam before her.
"Vaaaleriiiie…"
She sat up and put a hand to her aching head. She was still in the police station, but it was so quiet and her eyes seemed to be playing tricks on her color-wise. Blinking a couple of times, she realized that it wasn't her eyes that were at fault, everything was tinged in red. No one was around but she could have sworn she heard someone call her name.
"Hey, Valerie!"
The harsh, guttural tone shot Valerie's nerves full of ice. No…She jumped to her feet. There'd be no toying with her this time, he'd promised her that. He was going to kill her.
"Hey, doll face."
She felt his hot breath against her neck and she took off running down the hall. The echoes of Krueger's laughter trailed after her.
(Sorry to leave you on another cliff hanger like that, but the next chapter needs to be rewritten, so hang in there, kitty! Thanks so much to those of you who have followed and favorited this story, it means so much to me. Please let me know what you thought of this chapter and your thoughts in general of the story. I appreciate all feedback! Until then my dears!)
