Title: Vermilion

Chapter 3: She Seems Dressed in All the Rings...

Author: Kora

E-mail: or

Rating: R

Genre: Supernatural/Horror/Action-Adventure/Dark stuff and yeah…some romance-like-things…

Disclaimer: The following a character belong to Wes Craven and I am simply using the characters for my own twisted enjoyment.

Author's Notes: I got more reviews with my second chapter, so hopefully this one will get even more reviews, seeing as its one of the best chapters in the series, I think - what can I say? I'm a review whore…

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Freddy Krueger was walking around Springwood, right down the center of the street as if he were any other normal person, his shoulders hunched as he looked from house to house. Everyone slept peacefully in their respective beds, completely unaware that one of their greatest terrors was walking free and easy down the street.

At first, Freddy had tried to be sneaky. He had moved from car to car and building to building. Crouching and crawling and trying to be oh-so-subtle. He'd felt like 007. Then it had just gotten boring and he'd given up.

After all, no one in Springwood knew he was here. No one was going to jump out at him and arrest him. He was fine. Besides, he still had his glove and he could kill here just as good as he could in dreams. In fact, it would probably be pretty fun.

He hadn't killed a person on the outside in a long time. Jason didn't count. After all, they had both practically killed each other. But right there was a good example that he could handle himself in the real world. He had kicked Jason's ass all over the place. If that bitch Lori hadn't distracted him…

Too bad she's no longer around, he thought sarcastically, smiling blissfully. Now that had been some night. She had moved out of the house on Elm Street but she hadn't left Springwood. She had thought herself safe. Airheaded, big-breasted blonde whore!

She'd been having some stupid dream about her prom. Naturally she was the queen and Will was the King. Some stupid song had been playing - something by one of those popular teenybopper bimbets and Lori had been sooo happy. It had been sickening.

She'd been wearing this lilac number and dancing with Will in his white tuxedo and Freddy could only stomach so much of this frilly, frou frou dream. There were balloons everywhere and bad dresses and romance and - thinking of it now he actually stuck a finger in his mouth as he'd done then, as if to gag, just the memory made him want to vomit.

So the music in her dream had scratched out and all the people but Will had disappeared and Lori had thought this was completely normal. Until Will seemed to grow stiff in her arms.

"Will?" She'd asked in that sort of scared, quavering lamb voice that Freddy both despised and craved. Despise because her voice alone was irritating but craved in that he wanted her scared, more than scared actually…he wanted her dead.

She had looked up into Will's face and he'd said so innocently, "What's wrong, babe?"

She drew away, screaming as Will's face had begun to rot before her eyes, his skin melting away to mere muscles and tissues, his eyes empty black sockets and he'd reached out to her, his voice a low growl, "Come to me!"

She'd screamed and tugged at her hair and been oh so dramatic as she ran from Will and the dance floor, exiting the school gym and running down its halls. Freddy had tossed in the old classic leaves in the hallway, making it silent and eerie.

He remembered hearing Lori's heartbeat in his ears. Battering around like a rat in a trap and then he'd made the lockers go crazy, snapping open and shut wildly, causing Lori to scream again as she ran from the lockers, down the hallway and into another room - or so she thought.

Because as she opened the door at the end of the hall and thrust herself into the room she saw it was again the Gym. The decorations had fallen apart, crushed and broken on the floor, and no one was in the room now, not even Will.

It was dark and quiet and Lori was gasping as she slowly sank to the floor, wrapping her arms around her knees. That's when she felt a sudden pain at the top of her scalp, as if she'd been jabbed with a sharp pin…or circles of them.

She cried out and reached up to removed her Prom Queen crown - only it wouldn't budge - worse, she drew back her hands gasping, as they had been sliced in several places. The crown had transformed into waves of razor wire. She screeched in agony, clenching her bloody palms into the material of her dress as she rose to her feet.

She started in then with some grand standing, calling out something along the lines of 'I-know-you're-there-Freddy-come-out-and-face-me-you-coward'. The usual. As if he hadn't planned on showing up eventually anyway.

And so he did so then, appearing right behind her and turning her to face him, tightening his grip as he'd pulled her close and winked, "Can I have this dance?"

Lori had screamed and struggled but it'd been no use. Her fear was stronger than even she realized, than even she'd like to admit, and he'd swung her almost violently in his arms around the dance floor, moving in large arcs as the music started again, this time a chorus of the Rolling Stones 'Sympathy for the Devil.'

Even though they danced about as if fighting, Freddy still kept it as much of a slow dance as he could and Lori noticed this with both annoyance, outrage, and even more fear, spouting off that this wasn't even a slow song.

He remembered shrugging, "Yeah, but its a helluva good song - you don't like it?"

"I HATE it! I HATE you! GET OUT OF MY DREAMS!"

"Well, if you insist…" He'd said with a rather nasty looking smirk, "Might as well cut this out."

With that he rammed his razor fingered gloves into her stomach. She'd gasped in surprise - surprise - the dumb whore. He'd jammed her in the stomach again and again then slight her throat. She collapsed to the ground, bleeding out and dying and he hoped she'd heard his last words about her dress - but then he himself couldn't remember exactly what he'd said.

But he knew it had have been something funny and cutting.

Yeah, that had been one good day on the Dreamscape.

And now he was here.

He scowled and looked at his razortipped fingers. He couldn't wait to plunge his glove into one of those brats for this. He looked at the houses and smiled again. Actually, he couldn't wait to plunge his glove into anyone. Maybe he could make a quick house call before finding those kids…

That's when he heard a rumble from above. He stopped walking and looked up at the portal that had been ripped into the sky. He still didn't understand that thing but looking at it now he squinted. Was it just him, or was that hole…bigger?

The lightning continued to crackle furiously around the edges of the portal and white froth, similar to clouds, seemed to roll out of it. The center of it was dark fuchsia and purple and looked starkly familiar to him. Almost like the Dreamscape looked before he used his thoughts to manipulate it.

But that was impossible…

Freddy almost snorted as he started walking again, kicking idly at a pebble on the pavement. As if anything was impossible. After he'd died…legitimately…the first time, when he'd been human and torched by those holier-than-thou Springwood parents, and become the Dream Stalker thanks to those Dream Demons, he believed anything was possible.

That's when he heard a muted moan before him. He hadn't realized he'd been looking at his feet when he'd been walking and he looked up now to see a woman standing before him. She wore a torn, pink sweater and blue gray slacks. Her head was bent as if she was looking at her shoes too.

She had a massive amount of hair and as her head rose, her eyes glowed silver in the dark of the night. He recognized her instantly and blinked, his tone gruff, "You!?"

It was Nancy Thompson, just as he remembered her. Except not. In fact, she looked quite different now. True, she still had the wild mane of brown hair with the streak of silver gray he'd given her through fear alone. But now her creamy peach skin was drained of color, a bleak pale white, the congealed blue blood beneath obvious. Her tiny heart shaped mouth was dark blue violet and while her eyes were still the same color they seemed to glow now and they looked watery, glazed…

She reached out to him, showing sickly, chipped light violet nails and her mouth opened to reveal a row of teeth that looked as if they were stained silver and covered in blue gelatin. She staggered forward once, twice, then she lunged into his arms.

Freddy caught her, so startled he actually blurted, "Nancy?"

He had never really called her by her name unless he was trying to scare her but now it came out in surprise. He didn't have enough time to be chagrinned by it though, as she suddenly seemed to not only get a hold of herself, but of him.

Her fingers dug sharply into the material of his sweater, gripping his arms as she struggled forward, trying to get closer to him. She was making these terrible noises and snapping her jaw at him.

He cursed and shoved her away hard, tossing her to one side. She fell hard on the pavement and he pointed one razortipped finger at her, "You're not Nancy! I don't know what you are…but you're not her."

Freddy began to walked away, not even looking over his shoulder back at her. Something was stirring up inside him. Some…feeling. Some…emotion. He didn't like it.

But he didn't get to contemplate that either, he didn't even get three feet away from her when he suddenly saw a swarm of silver eyes glowing before him.

"Oh great, what now!" He hissed, falling into something of a defensive stance.

A swarm of zombie moved forward into his view, all making the same horrible noises Nancy had been making, he could even still hear Nancy behind him. Actually, it sounded like more than just Nancy…

He turned to see that one of the first girls who had ever defeated him now stood, hissing, as a whole army of zombies stood behind her. They must have come from whatever graveyard Nancy had come from. As for the Zombies before him, hell, maybe they were from the same place. He didn't care. All he knew was he steadily getting more and more pissed off.

"Give me a friggin' break," He muttered, shaking his head as he realized he was surrounded. He looked at his glove, then rolled his eyes and sighed, "Fuck it."

He charged forward and began slashing away at the Zombies like mad. It actually felt pretty good to finally be getting in some killing action…even if these people were all ready dead. His fingers tore away rotted dead throats and stabbed into watery, glazed eyes.

Fingers, ears, noses…all sorts of body parts flew into the air as he sliced and diced and basically tore a pathway through the Zombie hoard. They grabbed at his sweater and one even dared to touch his hat but otherwise they were ineffective in stopping him. At least, ineffective at doing it quickly.

But as more and more of them came, almost as if out of the woodwork, Freddy realized he wasn't going to win this. He was going to be overwhelmed by their sheer number and as he fought harder and faster he just kept cursing louder and louder.

This was such bullshit! If only he had his Dreamscape powers! If he did, he could do something to stop them…anything! Like, oh, he didn't know, he could make the whole road rise up like a wave and shake them away and he could ride the wave to-

Suddenly his random thoughts stopped as the road shook. Freddy looked down at his feet, eyes wide, "You gotta be shittin' me…"

The road rose up like a wave beneath him, shaking away all the zombies that had been clinging to him. He looked down at their squabbling, swarming hoard, stunned for a few brief moments.

Then he burst into a glorious, smoky cackle. He had his dream powers! In the real world! He didn't know what those brats had done, first with bringing him here and then the Zombies…and now this…

But, oh, they were really going to pay now. He laughed again and flicked his fingers. A surfboard made of a human skeleton appeared beneath his feet and he felt almost gleeful as he rode the road like a wave, away from the Zombies and onward down Springwood's streets.

He tried to think of where to go and knew there was only one place for him. His ride ended at the abandoned power plant. His old working place, his old boiler room. He looked at it and grinned, it was good to be at his old home.

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The skeleton surfboard?! snort I allow myself one very campy, very bad thing and this is it - swear!!