Chapter 22.1
The Mind of Madness

Freddy perched high upon a catwalk above the two girls as they spoke. He glared at Melissa who embodies his final conquest, and Alice who had escaped him too many times. Perhaps killing Andrea was too hasty a move. She had been nice enough to summon the souls of his victims so that he could reach beyond the grave a last time to kill even with out a mortal tie to his victims. No, they were not "Elm Street" Children. They had just been on Elm, an inch too close to get away. But he wanted out, out of the prison, to be able to leave springwood, infect to world, and if he could inhabit Melissa, he would do this. He could kill forever, but the fact that she was figuring this out herself was too much for him to bare. 'How dare she think she knows me? Stinking little bitch!" He wanted to knock her off her high horse for thinking that he couldn't kill her. He gripped his claw and dug the blades into his own hand to feel the pain, and have it mask his anger, but being dead it didn't have the same affect it once did in life. Worst of all he hated that she was right. He needed them both.

He stood up and scraped his claw across the rail in front of him. Alice and Melissa looked up at him and gasped. He jumped from the catwalk down to them below. He landed hard, but still stood. 'You can't predict what I'm going to do you little pig!' he thought in a rage. He leaped towards Melissa and slammed her against the wall. Alice gasped at the speed Freddy possessed to be able to push past her before she knew it. Alice leaped up behind him and took hold of his claw. "Leave her alone!" she cried but as she pulled him back she noticed her form lighten. She felt lighter and her vision of the boiler faded. Gravity held her limbs. She could feel the weight of her body pressing against the floor. Her head felt heavy, an obvious side effect of the drugs she had taken earlier. Then she noticed she was been shook awake. "Alice!" a voice called desperately as she opened her heavy eyelids.

"Doctor Gordon?" she said faintly. She opened her eyes wider and noticed it was him standing over her. She then remembered where she was and what had happened. She sat up quickly and looked around the small basement. Melissa still lay tired up and the bag of bones still lay underneath the crate. However Andrea was not there. "Andrea!" she gasped.

"I know.I know" he said. "What happened?" he asked.

"I pulled her in." she whispered as tears stung her eyes. "I didn't mean to. I was scared and I thought of her and then she was there...and now she's gone." Neil put his harm around Alice to comfort her but Alice brushed him away. "Melissa's still in there." She said.

"We have to get her out." He said turning to the sleeping girl. He opened her eyes, but they still remained rolled back in to her head. Bruises began to appear on her skin, and small cuts appeared on her knuckles.

"Don't worry Neil." Alice said calmly. "He won't kill her..He can't kill her. If he kills her, then he dies." Neil looked at Alice with wide eyed amazement. "She is the last." He nodded and glanced around the room.

"What do we do now?" he asked. "He needs her alive to live. What then?"

"He needs me to get his victims." She confessed. "He needs my power, Kristen's power to reach the dreams of others."

"But he has been reaching others with out you."

"Only as far as his power can reach.his power." Alice looked over to the furnace. "His weapon." Neil reached up and removed the rag with the rusted claw.

"No wonder he keeps bringing the Children here, it's the source of his power, inside a furnace"

"Inside his boiler room." Neil nodded and put the blades in to a leather case near by and then took the bones from the crate.

"I didn't do this right the last time." He said "I need to do this properly."

"Do what?"

"Bury him."

Alice looked over at Melissa whose skin began to grow pale and sweat poured from her skin. "We better do it quick, if he weakens her too much we may never be able to wake her."

Carefully Neil and Alice gathered up Melissa and Freddy's remains and pulled them up the stairs. Alice nearly dropped Melissa when she saw Andrea's body in the living room. She had been impaled on top of the lamp, however cuts beyond the broken glass would need more explaining the just a broken lamp shade. Alice looked away and continues out of the house and to Neil's car. They put Melissa in the back seat and the bag with Freddy and his claw in the trunk.

Meanwhile Melissa was being beat within an inch of her life. Freddy took his time torturing the girl, and he did so with a smile on his face. Melissa stumbled to her feet after her more resent impact with the wall and smirked.

"You can't kill me." She said. Freddy again grabbed her by the neck and pulled her to him.

"I might not be able to kill you, but you'll be surprised what you can live thru." And he tossed her against the wall again. He picked up a broken pipe and spun it around in his hands and glared at her. "It takes a lot to die, I should know. They have tried to kill me many times. After a while you think they would understand." Then he swung the pipe and smacked Melissa in the stomach head and on her back until she again was on the floor. "You can't kill what is already dead!" He noticed blood coming from Melissa's mouth and threw the pipe away. 'Mustn't kill the whore yet' he thought. Instead he leaned against the burning furnace, the heat not fazing him.

"They always think pulling me out of the dream will kill me." He chuckled. "What a pile of shit. You would think they would give up on that theory after it failed, but no. That is what they always try to do."

"So," Melissa wheezed in between coughs. "You can't die even if you're pulled out?"

"Duh shit Sherlock." He mumbled "you catch on quick. Hell no I won't die. You can't kill what's already dead!" and he laughed. Melissa stood and looked past him in to the flames.

"Then die!" she screamed and ran to the flames throwing herself in, but the fire never reached her, Freddy pulled her back and again tossed her to the floor.

"Not so quick, little bitch" he growled. "That's not in the rules."

"You make no since!" she screamed "If I die you die, damn it!"

"Exactly! I can't let you go waking up and slitting those pretty wrists, now can I?" he said coldly "Don't think this is fun for me, I've never wanted to kill something as bad as I want to kill you. I mean you look exactly like your fucking mother."

Melissa breathed deep and relaxed. "My mom..she really got to you didn't she?" but even that was too much for him to hear, he ran towards her and punched her in the mouth with his metal knuckles. Again her mouth filled with blood and she spit it out on to the floor. "She did a real number on you."

"She just assisted in the inevitable." He growled. "But you know something princess, your momma was a twisted as me. If you don't believe it then that's your problem. But what do you think she had to do to get that close to me? It took a lot more then a bottle of gin, however it didn't take me that long to get in to her pants." The taunts began to get under Melissa's skin too. "Trying to help those kids, that's just her way of trying to get to heaven after killing them."

"LIAR!" she screamed.

"Come on? Who's your daddy?" he laughed

"Sure the hell isn't you!" she screamed.

"That's for damn sure." He spat. "But think about it, if a killer was inside your mother, do you think there is a little killer in you too?"

"Only enough to kill you." She muttered. Freddy chuckled. He had another hero on his hands. Another want-to-be saint who thinks she can kill him. Melissa got up and ran towards him in to the furnace, the hot metal burning her arm and she pulled him away from it. Freddy pushed her away from him but still she came at him.

"Bitch's gone crazy!" he yelled as she tossed her away from him again.

"Come on Freddy!" she screamed, "Not going to fight me? Scared? Come on!" she picked up a pipe and hit him with it. Freddy reached up and took the pipe from her hands and swung it back at her. Melissa jumped back. "That's better!" she screamed, "Come and get me." And Freddy watched as Melissa ran to a wall, and walked right through it.

"What the hell?" he asked himself. He had never seen a victim able to leave his dreams, but no..she was not a normal victim.

'As I lay me down to sleep, the master of dreams, my soul I'll keep'. That would explain why she was able to find her way to Alice, and how she was able to be protected by the souls. Melissa was a true adversary, she was a dream master.