Author's note: The email mentioned in this chapter is part of a review I got for this story. I hope the owner does not object that I used it, otherwise I would remove it and rewrite the chapter. Please don't abuse the email addresses!
But now, let the story continue…..

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Dream world

Sarah was falling. Her frightened scream still echoed through the steamy air as metal pipes, catwalks, ducts and chutes passed by in an ever faster growing speed. The free fall down through the iron maze of the power plant seemed almost endless, giving her enough time to envision her dreadful dead when she would finally hit the ground and get painfully smashed by the enormous impact. After all her fears of being killed by Freddy's bloodstained razor sharp blades it seemed almost dull that she would now plunge to her death.

But the feared impact did not happen, and totally perplexed she realized that the sight of the power plant had vanished and had been replaced by a star spangled dark heaven. A rough wind soughed through the cold air while she was still falling and falling. And then, all at once, she crashed through a wooden roof and plumped hard into a rotten sofa which luckily absorbed most of the shock of her abrupt landing. Scales of wood and dust hurtled around in a thunderous cloud, making Sarah cough several times. Her bones were aching badly, but at least she was still alive!

A dark chuckle behind her made her spin around. Freddy, the Nightmare Stalker, was sitting on an old office chair, his worker boots resting on a messy desk in front of him. A flickering computer screen was standing alongside with piles of junk on the desk, the computer itself being placed under the table.

"Well, well. You're late. What slowed you down, bitch?" he sneered. Puzzled Sarah didn't answer but took a look-around first. She was in a living room, or what must have been a living room ages ago. A dirty carpet was lying on the floor, its pattern barely visible under layers of dust, mud and dark blotches. The wall papers were paled and disengaging from many parts of the wall, other areas seemed to be shred in pieces or were covered with dark spots Sarah didn't want to study any further at all. The rotten sofa she was lying on belonged to an also moldy armchair standing aside in the opposite corner of the room in front of a television set with a broken glass. Obviously the sofa had been placed knowingly in the middle of the room, just where she had fallen through the roof. It took Sarah not very long to recognize where she was – it was the old 1428 Elm Street house, Freddy's "home".

"You sick bastard, it was just a trick! You scared me to hell!" she shouted furiously as she realized that her frightful fall had only been some kind of invidious dream world illusion. But Freddy was just amused by her outrage. He snickered and waved again to her with his razor glove.

"Yeah… I can taste your fear, it's fucking sweet and delicious! Besides, you wanted me to do some dream tricks in one of your damn emails, don't you? So don't complain about it now!"

"You could have had at least the decency to forewarn me!" replied Sarah visibly annoyed. She stood up and vainly tried to tap the dirt out of her clothes. Freddy on his side seemed more than satisfied and chuckled again: "And spoiling the whole fun? No fucking way, bitch!"

"Yeah, very funny. Now what next!?"

Freddy took his feet from the desk and sat up straight. He beckoned her with a fast, clicking movement of his blades and pointed on the computer screen then. Unsure what to expect Sarah came closer reluctantly. From close up the desk seemed even more jammed with trash. Old moldy pieces of pizza, dented empty cans of beer, tools and other junk were mixed up in an utter confusion. Something Sarah finally identified as a blood crusted hearing device laid on top of a huge pile of papers. A broken doll, wearing nothing but a red hair ribbon and with only one plastic eye left sat next to the dusty computer screen. And in the midst of all this weird and squirmy mess was the keyboard located, its keys and edges scratched as if someone had treated it unrestrained with sharp knifes instead of using his fingers.     

"See what you have done to me, sassy nag!" said Freddy in a more than sourly tone. Again he pointed on the screen, and Sarah stepped near him to look what he meant. An email program labeled 'Outlook Express Hell Version' was running, showing more than twenty new messages in the inbox. Apparently Freddy's email address had still spread around, as Sarah could see emails coming not only from Springwood but from other cities and even outside US.

"Oh!" was all that crossed her mind about this, but Freddy scowled at her and furiously stroke the keyboard with one of his blades. The first email message opened up:

From: SamAlucard13@aol.com

To: fred.krueger@hell.com

Hi. The name is Sam Alucard. I'm a fellow psychopath and fluently run about in my dreams killing people I don't really like.  However, there is one person yet I've not been able to get. He's a guy named Presby and he's a total fucking dickweed to me...one of those guys who just doesn't know when to leave a girl alone you know? So I was thinkin, since you are after all a professional in the business of killing, would you like to snuff Presby for me and do a girl a favor for once? The reward will be great if you just bring me his head on a platter...or in your hand. Either way, it's all good. Laterness and unpleasant dreams to ya.

~The Almighty Sam Alucard~

While Sarah was reading silent Freddy started to curse almost immediately, getting more and more enraged until he finally burst out:

"Damn fuck! This bloody crap is your entire fault! Look at this piece of shit! Who is this fucking Sam? And why in hell does she think she could hire me like a contract killer?? I don't kill kids on request, I kill whoever I want to kill and I kill just for myself and not for any damn fucking brat! That's all a big fuck-up, and it totally sucks!"

He banged his left fist so hard on the table that the pile of papers overturned and fluttered down to the ground, then he swept half of the junk from the desk with a frantic snarl. Cautiously Sarah stepped a little back, trying to get out of reach of his razor glove as she did not want to get hurt during his sudden rage attack, be it accidentally or even on purpose. But as quick as his hot-tempered outburst had come, as fast did it go by. Taking a deep breath he actually regained his restraint and, as if nothing had happened at all, began to type a short reply. Sarah wasn't sure whether she could really trust Freddy's newfound self-control. The way he grimly hit the already maltreated keyboard with his blades and the content of his reply, which contained mostly f-words and other kind of vulgar insults, were not really inspiring confidence. While Freddy was still typing she glanced over the subject lines of the other still unread emails, noticing not only "fan mails" but many spam mails about the typical useless stuff like penis-enlargement, debt offers and fake virus warnings with attachments probably infected by the virus they were warning for.

"You've got a lot of spam emails, haven't you? You can't blame me for that, too!" she said. Meanwhile Freddy had finished his first reply and started to manually delete all the spam mails. He gave her a short, black look and grumbled:

"I can, bitch! Before I wrote to you I had almost none of this bullshit, and now I'm flooded with it!"

"Well, why don't you use a spam filter instead of deleting all the spam by hand? It would be a lot of easier, and more secure, too."

"A what?" replied Freddy, obviously not knowing what she was talking about. But before Sarah could explain it a beeping sound came from the computer and a pop-up window appeared on the screen, then another and another and so on until the whole screen was filled with tiny boxes.

"What the hell…" shouted Freddy furiously again and stroke the keyboard wildly in a desperate attempt to close the cascade of pop-ups. Sarah tried to read some of the boxes, which were mostly error messages and warnings about a computer shutdown in a few minutes, when suddenly a blue screen appeared and the computer got shut down.

"Damn, not again! This fucking computer drives me crazy!"

He lashed for the keyboard with his razor glove once again, before he jumped up and kicked his chair away.

"Well, it looks like you have a computer virus on your hard disk, perhaps even more than one." said Sarah calmly, ignoring his anew violent outburst, "I assume you don't have any anti-virus software installed, or a firewall, do you?"

"A firewall? A firewall?? Do you want to take me for a sucker?"

Without any warning he lunged at her, the razor blades spread apart, and only Sarah's quick reaction saved her life as she dodged away, thereby getting only cut on the left upper arm.

"Don't!! I don't twit you! It's a computer program, a firewall is an internet security software!" she yelled and raised her hands in fear of another strike. Freddy, though, stopped his movements and lowered his gloved hand.

"Why didn't you tell before?" he snapped. Relieved to be – once again – still alive Sarah stared at him in blank astonishment, unsure whether to be angry or not about his rapid change of temper. The four cuts on her arm began to twinge painfully, blood trickling through the slit cotton of her pajama.

"Ever heard of thinking before acting?" she mumbled and examined the wounds carefully. Freddy however didn't care about her injuries and asked:

"So what's this damn fire-thingy and virus stuff about?"

With a sigh Sarah looked up and said: "An anti-virus software scans your computer for dangerous viruses and trojans which try to harm your system, like what happened to your computer before, and a desktop firewall checks your internet connection and defends you against hacker attempts."

Freddy seemed quite confused, taking off his fedora and scratching his bald, scarred head with one hand.

"I see. And you're saying my computer is infected by some fucking viruses and that's the cause for all the bloody failures?"

"Yes, I'm quite sure." Sarah replied, and then, with a sudden idea in her mind, she added: "I could help you clean your computer, removing all malicious things and fixing the system, but…"

"But what, nosey?"

"Well, then you have to keep me alive for a while!" she said with a somewhat sly grin. Freddy gazed at her agape, before he smirked and pointed with one of his blades in her direction.

"Very clever, sassy brat!"

He tapped with the index blade against his lips several times while he considered her offer. The longer he stayed silent, just giving her a cutting glance, the uneasier she felt. Suddenly she had the awful idea that he would refuse to let her live, preferring to kill her right now like the impatient child killer he was. Then, finally, Freddy nodded.

"Agree. You're safe until you're done with my fucking computer. But then…"

He made a clear gesture with his razor glove along his throat. Sarah had already expected to get only a temporary ceasefire, but it was better than nothing.

"But until then we have a deal, right?" she asked again just to be sure that there was no misunderstanding.

"I give you my hand on it!" replied Freddy and put forth his gloved hand. Sarah knew she had to seal their deal with a handshake. Carefully she took his hand, the sharp razor knifes enclosing her hand and cutting into her skin as Freddy tightened his grip with a cruel smile. Sarah winced under his painful pressure, when suddenly she began to fade away. She was awakening!

"See you next night!" she called, hoping that he could still hear her, before she awoke in her bedroom eventually. The nightmare was over, at least for this night.