(Due to some sort of technical glitch that happened when I uploaded Chapter 13 in October, many people were not able to read it for some time and others may have ignored their alert when I resubmitted it to fix the glitch. So, I got absolutely no reviews on the previous chapter. Which means I have no idea what you guys thought about the progression of the narrative and that makes me nervous. Did they like it? Did they hate it? Oh, geez, they hated it, didn't they!? Anyway, hopefully I'll have a better response with this chapter, but could you do me a favor and make sure you've read Chapter 13 just in case? Maybe leave a little review while you're at it before moving on to this chapter? Pleeeeeease?)

[Songs suggested, used, or mentioned in Chapter 14 – btw; if you're liking the music suggestions, I've made a Spotify playlist of all the music I use for this fanfic. Just look it up by the fic's title and the description will tell you that it's the one by me.]

~ "The Bad in Each Other" by Feist (Val & Izzy's research segment)

~ "Die Young" by Kesha (in Bianca's car)

~ "Daydream Believer" by Davy Jones (the music playing in the dentist waiting room)

~ "It's Hot In Here" by Steve Jablonsky (beginning of nightmare scene)

~ "Daydream" by Ruelle (nightmare scene continued)

~ "Stronger" by The Score (Freddy Krueger)

Chapter Fourteen

Toothaches

"I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I'm not. No one ever really gets used to nightmares." ~ Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

Upon awaking from their nightmares, Izzy and Valerie had immediately called Kevin and Charlie to check on them and alerted them about their close call with Krueger. Valerie then called Bianca, who hadn't been as appreciative of being woken up in the wee hours of the morning when she had just fallen asleep after returning home from a very long photoshoot. She stayed on the phone long enough to respond 'yes' to Valerie's persistent questioning on whether she'd taken the Hypnocil.

After the calls had been made, Valerie and Izzy made sure to take their doses of Hypnocil and by some miracle, were able to fall back asleep. Apparently running for your life in your dreams can be exhausting. It wasn't much of a restful slumber though. Valerie constantly started from her sleep, her heart beating rapidly. Isabelle had brought her bed's comforter and pillows into Valerie's room and slept on the floor, but she too appeared to sleep uneasily.

Valerie couldn't help but feel as though she'd wasted her dosage of Hypnocil when she awoke less than four hours later after her encounter with Krueger. Kevin and Marv were out filming for their project with some volunteer students in the theatre department. "Though how I'm going to be able to concentrate on this project when I'm dealing with a real-life horror movie," Kevin had grumbled. They promised to swing by Valerie's dorm room once they were done.

Isabelle woke to find Valerie already dressed for the day and engrossed in the articles from The Springwood's Voice newspaper articles concerning Krueger's trial. The one she was currently looking at covered Krueger's release and featured a partially blurry picture of him being led away from the courthouse. She'd yet to find a clear picture of him when he was alive. Adjusting her glasses and looking more closely at the image, Valerie felt disgusted to see that Krueger was giving the paparazzi a big thumbs up.

"Oh, Val," Izzy groaned. "You need to take a break."

Valerie removed the glasses and rubbed at her eyelids tiredly. "Krueger's not gonna afford us the luxury, Izzy. Last night proved that."

Isabelle sat up groggily and absently fiddled with the fibers of the floor rug. "How much of my dream did you see?" she asked hesitantly.

Valerie was quiet for a moment. "He made me watch."

Isabelle 'tsked' in anger. "Sick bastard." She stood and violently gathered her blanket and pillows into her arms. "I'm gonna make him pay for using Kevin against me – for using Marv –," her voice cracked. "Marv wasn't the best person in the world, but he wasn't terrible enough to deserve what happened to him."

Valerie stiffened. She hadn't told her friends what Krueger revealed to her about Marv. She'd never found the right moment. "Izzy…It's worse than you think."

Isabelle's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

Setting down the article, Valerie ran a hand over her face as she tried to find the words. "Krueger's…he's not just a boogeyman. That time I fainted in the police station; Krueger showed me something horrible. He doesn't just kill his victims. He…Izzy, he takes their souls. Fear and the souls of his victims are what makes him stronger."

Isabelle went very still. "…What did he show you?"

Tears brimmed in Valerie's eyes. "He showed me where he keeps them. And he made it a point to show me Marv."

The tight grip Isabelle had on her bundle went slack and it fell with a muffled thud onto the floor. The look on her face was difficult to describe. She swallowed and slowly made her way to the bathroom. Pausing in the doorway, she said over her shoulder, "I'm gonna…take a quick shower. Then I'll be right back out to help you." She shut the door and the sound of the showerhead could be heard turning on. The water was almost loud enough to drown out the sobs Valerie heard coming from the bathroom as she carried on her reading, waiting for Isabelle to join her.

Once Isabelle returned to Valerie's room, Isabelle took over looking at the articles that covered Krueger's trial while Valerie looked through the newspapers in the years 1960 and 1961. What she found caught her completely by surprise. "He was married," she murmured.

Isabelle quickly looked up from the article she was reading. "What?"

Valerie held up the page that displayed the small wedding announcement. "Fred Krueger was married!"

"Shut the hell up!" Isabelle exclaimed in disbelief, snatching the paper from Valerie's hands and rapidly scanning the words. "Loretta Krueger." Her eyes widened. "How does a creep like that get married?!"

"I'm assuming he didn't act like he does now when he met her," Valerie said, pointedly. "Who knows, maybe Fred was a bit of a looker before the town people turned him into a human barbeque?"

"Or she was just as freaky as him," Isabelle muttered. She sat up and looked worriedly at her friend. "Dude! You don't think she's a dream demon like him, do you?! One freakazoid is enough!"

Valerie gently took back the article. "Dr. Robert only talked about Freddy, so I think it's safe to assume we don't have to worry about her."

Isabelle sighed with relief, but it soon turned into a groan of frustration. "Val, there's sooo much to look through in the 60s decade alone. How on earth do we even narrow it down?"

"I figured I'd just look at the newspapers that had an article redacted in the copies on file at the library. As far as I know, the only things that were redacted involved Freddy."

Isabelle nodded. "Okay. Okay, yeah. That sounds doable. How do you know which ones had a redacted article if all these are copies of the non-touched originals?"

"I looked through the redacted copies when we were at the library last night and made notes of which ones were altered. I looked through the newspapers where we already knew dates of his activity and started making a little system to help you guys out." Valerie pointed to the red sticky tabs poking out from the edges of the newspapers stacked next to Isabelle's right elbow. "Those articles are about Krueger's killings when he was alive. The green one's deal with Krueger's trial, the blue one's are murders that happened after Krueger was killed – the ones that were blacked out in the newspapers. They started in the early 80s."

"I wonder why he came back in the 80s. Why not immediately after he was killed?"

Valerie thought about it a moment. "Maybe he wasn't strong enough to go after anyone yet? Maybe he needed to build up his powers or learn how to use the Dreamscape?"

"Dreamscape?" Isabelle repeated.

Valerie paused. "…That's what he called it."

Isabelle observed Valerie as she attempted to move on and resume reading. "How often does he just…talk to you?"

Valerie tried to laugh it off. "He's always talking. Mostly talks at you, doesn't really expect you to talk back."

"But he does talk to you?"

"…Yeah."

"Is it mostly threats?"

Valerie fiddled with her highlighter. "That's how it started out. …Lately though…"

Thinking back to her and Krueger's latest conversation brought up memories of what went on as he spoke to her. The touches, the caresses, the close proximity, those hungry looks he'd been giving her more and more, his fingers dipping into her jeans' waistband –

Valerie gave a visible shudder and gripped the edge of the table tightly.

Isabelle's face paled. "Val, did he do something to you –,"

"Let's talk about this later, okay?"

Isabelle nodded, concerned, and clearly scared for her friend, but not wanting to push too far. "Yeah, okay."

It was another couple of hours later that Valerie discovered another surprise about Fred Krueger in the birth announcement section of a newspaper in 1961. "Oh my god…He had a kid."

Isabelle stared at her, wide-eyed, unable to speak.

"A daughter. Katherine Krueger."

Isabelle shook her head as it began to sink in. "That monster really had the picture-perfect life, didn't he? Married, had a kid, 9 to 5 job, white picket fence house…"

"I didn't see anything about a wife or a daughter in his trial coverage," Valerie pointed out, rising to move over to where she'd stacked the articles reporting his trial. "The press would've eaten that up."

"Maybe Loretta dumped his butt before he got arrested and took the kid with her?"

"There still would have been some effort on the press' part to locate Loretta – ex-wife or not. Especially since her and Freddy had a kid together. My mom said stuff like that was a guaranteed sell out for newspaper stands." Valerie sighed as she looked over the stack of newspapers. "I haven't had time to thoroughly read each and every article yet. If I saw it involved Krueger, I tagged it and set it in a pile to read over later."

Isabelle helped Valerie go through the trial articles again, searching for anything they may have missed. "Wait, look!" Isabelle cried, pointing to a list of Krueger's victims typed out in the small column. It had first names typed out, but their surnames were only represented by an initial. There, among the nearly thirty names listed, was the name 'Loretta K'.

"He killed her," Isabelle murmured. Her eyes scanned the list once more and her brow wrinkled. "I don't see Katherine's name."

Valerie finished reading over an article dated in 1966 and closed her eyes in relief. "That's because he didn't kill her. Here," she said, handing Isabelle what she'd been reading. "According to this, Loretta discovered Freddy was the Springwood Slasher and he killed her, then he reported her as missing. Katherine was only six years old. She witnessed her father killing her mom. She kept quiet for several months before telling someone."

Isabelle reached the end of the article. "The article just says she was placed in protective custody."

"Krueger's trial didn't take place until 1968. That's two years where there was a chance he could escape or be released. Most likely, if Loretta didn't have any close kin, Katherine may have been put up for adoption and had her name changed."

Isabelle's brow furrowed in perplexity as she stared at the paper. "I don't get it. He kills his wife because she found out, even though Katherine says her mom, like, promised Freddy she wouldn't say anything. So – I mean – forgive me for being callous – but why didn't he kill Katherine too? She saw him kill her mom. Why didn't he do it?"

Valerie absently nibbled at her thumbnail as she thought it over. "Maybe Krueger actually couldn't bring himself to kill his own child?"

Isabelle frowned. "It makes no sense though. He kills his wife; he killed all those kids – why should he hesitate?"

Valerie gave a half-hearted shrug. "As far as I've been able to uncover, Krueger had no other family. Maybe…maybe he drew the line at his own blood."

Isabelle scoffed. "Hard believe a monster like that draws the line at anything."


Bianca failed to stifle the giant yawn that escaped her as she drove from the campus to her dentist appointment. She'd barely gotten any sleep after finishing her photoshoot. She made an exhausted mental note to never agree to do a night shoot again. She'd thought the gig would be a quick one, but there'd been a miscommunication somewhere and the night shoot that she'd thought would only be two or three hours long, stretched on into the early morning hours and found Bianca finally getting into bed at about 4am. Then Valerie called her in near hysterics, pestering her about those darn pills.

Bianca had been too tired to deal with that and told her 'yes' just so she could get off the phone sooner and get back to sleep.

Another yawn presented itself and Bianca turned up the music.

"Let's make the most of the night like we're gonna die young!"

She thought about stopping by Starbucks to pick up some coffee but realized she wouldn't have the time. She'd overslept, hadn't even heard her alarm going off. I'll just get some on my way back, she thought.

She felt her lids droop and could have sworn she heard a man's deep, guttural voice chuckle near her ear. It sounded kinda hot to be honest. Another noise drowned out the man's laugh – a horn blaring. Bianca sat up with a start and swerved to avoid the oncoming traffic of the lane she'd drifted into. Heart hammering in her chest, Bianca decided she'd stop at the first coffee shop she saw. She could afford to be a little late.


"Sorry, I'm late," Bianca apologized as she entered the dentist's waiting room. She threw away her empty coffee cup and approached the receptionist's desk. "Bianca Cates."

The receptionist looked her up and smiled. "You're fine, Miss Cates. Dr. Kay is actually running a little behind today. He had a client come in with an emergency about their braces. If you'll just take a seat over there, he'll call you when he's ready."

"Okay."

Bianca chose a corner seat and took out her phone to keep her occupied as she waited. The waiting room had music playing lowly on some speakers. Some cheesy, happy, old song was playing that Bianca didn't recognize and was quite honestly, becoming annoyed over its perky sound when she was feeling decidedly less than her best.

"Cheer up, sleepy Jean
Oh, what can it mean that
To a daydream believer
And a homecoming queen…"

Her eyelids began to flutter, and she found it difficult to keep her head up. Resting it against the corner of the wall, Bianca attempted to focus on her phone's screen, but the urge to close her eyes proved to be too strong.

"Miss Cates? The doctor will see you now…"

"Hm?" Bianca hummed sleepily.

"Miss Cates?" a hand gently jostled her shoulder.

Bianca woke with a start and found a man in a dentist's uniform standing over her. It surprised her to see someone standing so close that she flinched hard enough her phone flew out of her hands and whacked her on the mouth. She felt something come loose.

"Miss Cates?" the man repeated, this time in concern.

Bianca spat out something white into her hand and cried out in panic. Feeling along her teeth with her tongue, she felt an indention that hadn't been there before on her left front tooth. She'd chipped her tooth! "Oh my god! Oh my god!"

"Miss Cates, I am so sorry!" the man apologized. "I didn't mean to startle you!"

"My tooth!"

"Let me see. Open up," the dentist instructed. Bianca did so, fighting back tears. The dentist hummed to himself and smiled. "Oh, it's nothing. Easily fixable."

"R-really?"

"Suuure! No need to worry."

"I'm sorry, but…who are you?"

"Oh! I'm sorry. Dr. Kay is still working on his patient and asked if I'd see to you so you wouldn't have to be kept waiting. I hope that's okay?"

Bianca took in the man's appearance. If she had to guess, she'd say he was in his early thirties at most. He was cute in an odd sort of way. Could be described as handsome. Pale red curls that he'd attempted to brush straight and held back with hair gel, green eyes – really pretty green eyes in fact, with a kind of blue tint to them that made them appear teal in certain light, and a nice smile…. "Hm," Bianca replied with a flirtatious grin, briefly forgetting her chipped tooth. "I suppose it won't kill me to see you."

The dentist quirked an amused eyebrow. "Haven't had any complaints yet."

"Lead the way?" Bianca purred.

"Right this way."

As Bianca followed the dentist to the back, there was something about his appearance that kept niggling at her. He seemed almost familiar, but she knew she'd never seen him before. He had a sort of unique look about him. He had the kind of appearance that could easily be forgotten or remembered. Average, yet unaverage and decidedly cute.

He opened the door for her, and Bianca stepped inside the room. "Go ahead and sit in the chair." She did so. He turned his back to her as he closed the door after them. Bianca glanced at the stubborn gathering of pale red curls at the back of the dentist's neck, and it suddenly clicked. He was a dead ringer for Valerie's Dream Man!

"Oh. My. God!" Bianca burst. The dentist turned around in confusion. She couldn't contain the giant smile on her face as she took in his appearance more closely. "Oh my god!" she squealed again, happily.

"Um?" the dentist said, utterly lost at her behavior.

"Okay, this is gonna sound really weird, but do you believe in Fate?"

The dentist's other eyebrow rose in suspicion. "What?"

"Are you single?"

Bianca didn't know it was possible for a person's eyebrows to go so high, but an amused laugh escaped him. "Why do you ask?" He gestured for her to sit. She did so and he clicked on the overhead light, momentarily blinding her.

"Oh, I've got a friend who could use some drilling and filling if you know what I mean." She gave him a conspiratorial wink.

A slow smirk replaced the look of surprise on his face. "A friend, huh?"

"Mmh-hmm." Bianca was already pulling up a photo of Valerie on her phone and nearly shoved the screen into his face. "If you say she's not your type, I will give you a matching chipped tooth, mister. Cause there is no way you can look like that and this not be some sort of Fate thing!"

Bianca could have sworn she saw something akin to lust pass across his face at the sight of Valerie's photo, but it vanished quickly. "I really shouldn't be discussing this with my patients –,"

Bianca held the phone close to her chest, screen turned towards her, as she smiled mischievously at him. "But I'm technically not your patient, am I?" She teasingly made Valerie's picture peek at him. "Hm?"

He hesitated. "Not going the way I planned," she thought she heard him mutter before he held out his hand for her phone. She grinned as she placed it in his gloved palm. He stared at Valerie's picture in silence for several long seconds, his expression inscrutable. "Fate, huh?" he asked with a slight scoff. "…Maybe…"

"I'll give you her number after we're done here," Bianca promised, taking the phone back from him. The hand he'd been holding the phone briefly squeezed into a fist before he turned away.

"Let's have a more thorough look at those teeth, Miss Cates."

Bianca, pleased at her match-making moment, leaned back in the chair, and opened her mouth wide. A bright light aimed at her face temporarily blinded her as she squinted against it.

"Say 'ah'," the dentist prompted. Belatedly, Bianca realized she hadn't even asked for his name. She opened her eyes just a crack to see if maybe he was wearing a nametag or a lanyard with an ID card or even had it stitched into the fabric. There was no name to be found. Well, Bianca would not leave the building until she knew his name. She wasn't just going to set up Valerie with someone she didn't even know the name of!

Suddenly the dentist's fingers were in her mouth and roughly prodded about, making Bianca nearly gag several times. She would have said something if his knuckles hadn't been preventing her mouth from being able to form words. He gave a low 'hmmm' and withdrew his fingers with a shake of his head. "It's no good. They're just all gonna have to go." He turned around and began to remove his latex gloves.

Bianca blanched. "What! But you said it was easily fixable!" she shouted at his back.

"And it's true. No one will notice you have a chipped tooth if you don't have any teeth to compare it to!"

Bianca felt all the blood drain from her face as she watched the back of the dentist's uniform and his skin transform before her very eyes. The white was replaced with red and green stripes, and his skin bubbled and melted. When he whirled around to face her, Bianca was almost distracted enough by the change in his appearance to notice him hefting the gigantic silver drill that was nearly the size of Bianca's forearm. He bared a sadistic grin, revealing rotten teeth. "Hey, babe! Wanna get drilled?" The drill whirred aggressively at her and Bianca finally let out a terrified scream.

"Open wide!"

As soon as he took a step towards her, Bianca's fight or flight skills kicked in and she hauled herself out of the dentist's chair just as the burnt freak skewered the place she'd been sitting with the drill bit. "Oh, come on!" he growled, struggling to pull the drill free. The machine proved to be too deeply imbedded. Throwing herself against the wall and as far from his reach as possible, Bianca and the monster locked gazes. She glanced at the door to see if she could make it. The monster followed her line of sight and grinned. He looked back at her and grinned. "Go ahead. I love a good chase. I'll even give you a ten second head start which will begin the moment you're out the door."

Bianca, hardly daring to hope he meant it, inched her way along the wall towards the door. Having given up on extracting the drill, the monster straightened from the chair, which caused Bianca to freeze her movements. He made no effort to draw closer to her. Instead her circled around the chair so that it no longer blocked his path to the door. Slow, predatorial steps that plucked at Bianca's nerves. When it became clear her was waiting for her, Bianca resumed her slow shuffle to the door, but never took her eyes off of the monster.

He lifted his right hand and tapped his index finger against the overhead light's extension bar. Clink, clink, clink. The sound of metal on metal caught Bianca's attention and she finally broke eye contact to glance at his hand. What she saw sent chills down her spine. A glove with knives for the fingers…

Freddy…

Bianca's legs nearly gave out on her as she finally realized who she was dealing with. But no! There was no way! He wasn't real! He wasn't real!

"One, two; Freddy's coming for you," Krueger sang, catching on to her thoughts and gave her a sickening grin.

Her feet seemed to remember to keep moving before she did. Her outstretched hand along the wall came across empty space. She quickly looked to see that she'd reached the door.

"Three, four; better lock your door," Krueger continued singing. "Five, six; grab your crucifix…"

Bianca flung herself out the door and mentally counted down her ten seconds. She needn't have bothered. Krueger broke off his song and his voice boomed out the numbers seemingly from all around her.

"One!"

The dentist office had morphed into a nightmarish scene of bloody walls with teeth sporadically embedded in them.

"Two!"

She ran past rooms with doors that has frosted glass windows. She caught glimpses of silhouettes, dentists mercilessly stabbing overly large and sharp tools into helpless patients' mouths. Screams of agony turned garbled as their throats filled with blood.

"Three!"

There was a door up ahead that had one word written in gibberish upon the frosted glass window. Even though the word made no sense, instinctively, Bianca knew it was an exit. You can't read in your dreams, she remembered hearing Valerie say. The part of your brain that can translate written word is turned off when you sleep.

"Four!"

Bianca slammed into the door with enough force to develop bruises on her skin and she fumbled with the knob.

"Five!"

"Come on, come on, come on!" Bianca whimpered as her sweaty and shaking hands continued to fail grasping the knob.

"Six!"

Finally gaining a good grip, Bianca twisted the knob and pushed open the door. Bright lights flashed, blinding her and creating spots to appear in her vision. She could hear the click of cameras.

"Bianca!"

"Bianca Cates!"

"Miss Cates! Look over here!"

Bianca shielded her eyes enough to peer past the bright flashes of lights and made out a sea of paparazzi.

"Miss Cates! Will you be doing another nude photoshoot!"

"Yeah, Bianca! Show us your tits!"

Bianca felt completely exposed and she grasped at her shirt just to assure herself that she was covered.

"Seven!"

Bianca jumped at the sudden sound of Krueger's voice. He's slowed his countdown. Or did the adrenaline pumping through her only make it seem like it was taking him longer?

The paparazzi began to swarm closer, the camera flashes like explosions of blinding-white lights, their cries for more more more turning into grasping hands grabbing fistfuls of her clothes.

"Stop it! Let go!" Bianca shrieked, slapping away their hands and bending back fingers. When that didn't seem to deter them, she began kicking at faces. This gave the paparazzi pause and she slipped past them.

"Eight!"

If I get out of this, I'm never discrediting anything Valerie says ever again! A three-way intersection came up and Bianca came to a screeching halt. "Oh god, oh god, oh god," she moaned, turning this way and that, unsure where to go.

"Nine!"

She went straight. She was running completely blind, what did it matter which way she went? She should have taken those pills the boys gave her! She was such an idiot to have thrown them away!

"Ten!"

Bianca let out an ear-splitting scream as Krueger appeared right in front of her. She couldn't stop in time, and she slammed into him. He didn't budge at all. White-hot pain erupted from her mid-section. Looking down, she saw she'd embedded herself onto his knives.

The coppery taste of blood worked it's way up her throat and she coughed a spew of red into Krueger's face. It didn't faze him. He gave a satisfactory smile. Twisting the blades in her gut, he grabbed her arm and pulled her closer, shoving the blades even deeper. He brushed red hair away from her ear and said, "Your ten seconds of fame are up, Bee. How'd it feel?"

He withdrew his blades with a violent pull and she collapsed to the floor. Blood poured out of her belly onto the ground, pooling around her. Krueger chuckled darkly and Bianca distantly recognized the sound from earlier in the car. She'd thought it sounded hot then, not so much now. Not when he was circling her with her blood dripping from his blades.

Finishing his circle around her body, Krueger crouched close by and wrapped a strand of her hair around his finger. "Always wished my hair had turned out this shade of red," he commented off-handedly, as if Bianca wasn't bleeding to death in front of him. He pulled on her hair, painfully until there faces were close enough to bump noses. "Don't worry about giving me Valerie's number, babe. She and I keep in touch in other ways." He let her head drop onto the floor with a hard thud.

Bianca could do nothing but watch him. All her strength was gone. His blades danced across her stomach. "It's funny how you wanted to get us together, ya know. 'Fate'?" He scoffed and made a deep cut along her abdomen. Bianca's cry held little vigor in it. She was nearing the end; she could feel it. "I've got plans for Val. Big plans. And if she doesn't like it…" Another cut, even deeper than the last. Krueger's slow grin nearly stopped her heart. "Heh. She'll learn to."

He trailed his knives up along her stomach and up to her chest. "She'll have a change of heart." His knives plunged into her chest and pierced through her heart. Bianca's final scream petered out, unfinished, and her head sagged to the side. Extracting his blades, Krueger held his ungloved hand over Bianca's body and waited. It didn't take long.

Bianca's soul slowly floated up and into his awaiting grasp. Once he absorbed her soul, a wave of new energy washed over him. He groaned with pleasure as he felt his powers returning to what they once were. With so many kills in such a short time, he could manage to manipulate things in the Waking World for a short amount of time. Once he'd been able to do it effortlessly, but he'd killed Springwood's entire teen and children population by then. As the years went by without a fresh kill, his powers had dwindled.

It was almost like riding a bike though, reacquainting himself with those abilities to affect reality. It wouldn't take him as many souls this time around to reach that level of skill. But it wouldn't last very long if he didn't keep fueling those powers. Eventually he wouldn't need to make frequent kills to keep from losing them. But for now…

Krueger closed his eyes and focused on one thought. Valerie. The air in front of him began to ripple and tear. Latching on to that single thought of Valerie, Krueger open his eyes and motioned with his hands as if he were renting the tear even bigger. It grew upon his command and became a window into the Waking World. No one else could see it. Especially not Valerie and her friend, Isabelle.

Krueger gave a smug chuff of laughter and folded his arms as he watched Valerie talk Isabelle through her organizing process. He quirked a non-existent eyebrow when he noted the pile of articles and papers about him. But he said nothing. Just watched….and waited.

(Well, Dear Readers, despite an extremely busy schedule, traveling, and some internet problems, it appears that I have, in fact, managed to deliver this chapter to you just in time for Halloween! Yay me! Anyway, I hope you "enjoyed" that, and I by no means mean that you enjoyed the blood and gore and murder, but the narrative aspect of it. Yes, definitely that (narrows eyes suspiciously at audience). Riiiight? Anyway, has anyone else heard any rumblings about an ANOES revamp or continuation? I thought I'd come across some mutterings of it but then I got pretty busy and didn't think to look into it.

I hope to see some reviews from you so I can know what you think of this story's progress! Until next time, Dear Readers! Happy Halloween!)