Chapter 23.1
The Master of Dreams

Alice and Doctor Neil Gordon drove past the gates of Westin Hill and on towards the cemetery. Alice's heartbeat still thudded in her ears as the car made it's way slowly threw the paths that intertwined through the grounds. "Where is it? Where is it?" Neil muttered to himself. Alice looked up to hopefully see what ever it was he was looking for, but all she saw was the many stones that lined the earth. In the back seat Melissa whimpered slightly as she turned in her sleep. Alice glanced back at her and saw the new bruises and bloody lip now on her face. She would do anything if only she would open her eyes, or have the souls speak through her again, but she knew this was not possible. Freddy had claimed those souls from their rest and he knew she had to release them before anymore damage was caused.

Suddenly Alice jerked forward as Neil quickly stomped the breaks. Alice rubbed her neck, she was lucky she didn't get whiplash. She looked at Neil who sat frozen staring out to the cemetery towards a tree. He knew that beyond that tree was his only salvation. Quickly he opened the door and stepped out. He walked to the trunk and opened the latch and took out another sack, different then the one Freddy's bones were in. "What's that?" she asked.

"An old friend" he replied. And it was then Alice knew who he had in his hands.

"Where did you find her?" she asked.

"Where she was left" He said. He took a shovel in hand and motioned to Alice to follow. She reached inside and grabbed another shovel and followed him. Then he told Alice all he knew of the body in the bag.

"Amanda Krueger disappeared in 1968. Evidence left behind suspected she may have killed herself, or was murdered. Either way she was never seen from again. Because of her disappearance and the lack of police involvement the monastery assumed she had died and laid her memory to rest, putting up merely a tombstone here in the cemetery. What they didn't know was she wasn't dead, and in fact never really left."

"I don't understand." Alice said as they walked closer to the tree and turned. Neil reached in to the bag and pulled out a flashlight and shined it down on the stone at the tree's base. 'Amanda Krueger, Her name in Christ Sister Mary Helena'

Neil began to shovel dirt out of the grave, and Alice followed, digging deeper in to the ground.

"Part of Krueger's defense in his trial was the fact that he seemed to grieve over the loss of his mother, and often came to the monastery to bring her flowers. The staff though confused or even frightened by this behavior let him by as he walked the halls late at night."

"But this date is all wrong." Alice noticed. "It's 1968. Fred Krueger didn't die until 1974."

"So you see the truth."

"They said she went crazy after his trial, killed herself."

"Not true."

"He had her didn't he?"

"Yes." Neil explained "He had held her captive in the tower, which had been abandoned. She was locked in there for days, month, and years. We can only guess how he kept her alive, what he did to her, or even if she tried to escape. She was an old woman at this time, she couldn't fight back. After his capture, he was locked away for a whole month until his trial. When he was release he came back to find her, barley alive, reduced to an animal to survive, but her faith still intact, insisting God would save her. That is when he bricked her in."

"That's where Yvonne left her?"

"Yes," he replied. "And where I found her. No one knew where she was. The tower was her tomb."

"Until Yvonne found her?"

"Yes," he confirmed

"How did she die?" Alice asked.

"Starvation some would think, or perhaps he killed her before he bricked it up. This is not the case, so I found out."

Their grave was nearly four feet deep by this point. He laid his shovel on the side of the grave and took the bag. Carefully he stepped out of the grave and reached in to the back taking out the bones. His knowledge of anatomy helped him in laying the bones out. First Alice thought he laid out a sheet, but it turned out to be an old nun's habit. Then he laid the bones on top of them.

"I found the tower had been re-bricked after she was found. I hoped she was still in there, and I was right. I removed the bricks and found the old bricks still lay beyond it. It was a crime scene of gruesome detail. The windows open, the birds flying around, and dried blood that no one would have noticed unless they honestly looked for it."

Neil held up a rib bone and Alice saw the four cuts in the bone.

"He killed her?"

"But here's the tricky part.there was blood on the bricks."

"What?"

"On the other side of the door, the bricks, and even on the floor, there was dried blood. She died in the room after she was bricked in."

"How?"

Neil just looked at her as though the answer was right in front of her.

"She was the first person he killed.in dreams!" Neil nodded "But how is that possible, how can he even enter our dreams?"

"I've had several theories on that, but only God knows how he ever did it to begin with."

"This has nothing to do with God."

"Either way it happened, I know that he killed Amanda, and then wasn't heard from for 10 years."

"What happened in 10 years?"

"I don't know."

Alice sighed in frustration and continued to dig as Neil pieced together Amanda's remains. Her mind swam with possible theories. She had glanced at Gina's Keller's notes on Maggie Burroughs while they were at the house and remember her theory was 'Dream Demons'. Personally it seemed like a fairytale and far to simple to be the truth.

There were just so many questions. What is Freddy's weakness? Why can't he be killed? How is it he is able to enter dreams? What did he want?

Punishment.revenge.justice.all of these words came up at one point or anther. To punish him for murder they murdered him. For revenge he killed their children. For justice they fought him again, and again.

"He is running out of options." Alice said suddenly. Neil looked down at her as he lay another bone. "He is running out of ways to reach us. He is running out of fear. He has killed all those who believed in him, that remembered him except us and the parents with their dirty little secrets and still it's always us having to fight him, us having to clean up his mess."

"Tiny sacrifices." He whispered. Alice looked up at Neil.

"Exactly, we are sacrifices." She realized. She dug harder in to the ground as she thought about it. "We are their sacrifices to keep their secrets; acceptable losses."

"Alice I'm sure their parents didn't mean for this."

"I don't care, I'm tired of running." She threw her shovel down and began to cry.

"I have spent the last 10 years trying to find a way of saving you all, but I'm running out of options myself." He pleaded crawling down in the grave with her and holding her. "Amanda told me that the angry spirit needed to be laid to rest, and I thought I did, but a junk yard is hardly hallowed ground. Please Alice, help me end this. We will bury her here, and then take him to his plot and bury him as well."

Alice stopped crying and looked up at him. "He didn't have a plot." She said. "He was burned and ."

"He has a plot, Alice." He explained. "I found it in the police reports. Plot number 5783437."

A relief fell over Alice then. He had a name, he had a body, he had a plot, he had an end. She hugged Neil and looked up and Amanda's bones. "Let's bury her like she should have been." She said. Neil nodded and they crawled out of the grave. Then taking the old habit in hand they lowered her down in to the grave. Then crawling out of grave again they both stood at the foot. Neil reached in to his pocket and removed an old flask. Alice looked at him strangely. He didn't explain his actions, but rather he held the flask up and began to pray.

"Here lays Sister Amanda Krueger, known in Christ as Sister Mary Helena. May she join the Father in heaven. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall feel no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. My cup runneth over. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil and I will dwell in the house of the lord forever." He then splashed the water inside the flask down upon the bones. "Ashes and ashes, dust to dust." Then Alice and Neil watched as a bright light shown from the bones, and in a burst of light vanished, down inside the grave the bones of Amanda Krueger turned to dust.

"Oh my God!" Alice gasped. "That's more then just bourbon in there isn't it?"

"Holy Water." He replied, and kissed the flask and put it in his pocket. "The soul he could not claim has been set free."