Dream world, another half an hour later
Satisfied with her work Sarah disconnected the external CD-burner and placed the last of the backup discs she had created for Freddy's personal stuff on top of two other discs already lying on the table. She had eventually finished the backup! Next she started the formatting process, after which she would then proceed with the new system installation. Freddy had not returned yet, maybe his homicidal hunt didn't go as fast as planned, or maybe he was taking his time, making the most of the suffering of his victim. However, Sarah was thankful for any minute she could work alone, without being threatened and insulted again and again.
Stretching on the scruffy and rather uncomfortable chair Sarah reached out for her backpack, which was standing to her left on the floor. But before she could even touch it a cracking sound came from the old chair, as it all of a sudden collapsed right under her butt. With a loud "Ouch!" she crashed on the hard floor. After a short moment of shock she realized that she was luckily not hurt. Pushing the broken chair aside she got on her feet again, letting out another painful shout as she banged her head against the edge of the table. The impact was so hard that several piles of trash as well as her new made backup discs slumped to the ground.
"Damn!"
Holding her aching head she crawled back and stood up slowly, this time looking carefully not to bang her head again. She ignored the trash on the ground – mostly empty cans, fast food wrappings and other garbage – and simply picked up the backups discs. Luckily the discs itself were not damaged, but one of the disc covers was broken so the disc was no longer held in its place.
"Great. First the chair and now that! I hate this dream so much…" she mumbled under her breath. A side glance at the computer screen showed her that the formatting process was finished, and so she pulled the second chair on which Freddy had sat before to her side and sat down, but not without first testing the stability of this chair by pushing the seat several times up and down. One crash on the ground per dream was undoubtedly more than enough. With a few handles she initialized the installation of the new fresh Windows operating system and watched the slow progress for some time. But after a while she got bored and grabbed the broken disc cover again. Maybe she could find something to fix it, some tape or glue.
Resolutely she stood up and walked slowly through the room.
"Hm… let's see… if I were a maniac child killing dream demon, where would I put in the scotch tape?"
Glancing over the dusty and rotten furniture Sarah's view stopped at a chest of drawers standing at the left wall near the door. With a few steps she approached it and was just about to open the topmost drawer, but then she stopped. Maybe she could find some tape in there, but maybe she would find something different… something gross and terrible? After all it was Freddy's home, and he wasn't really that kind of homemaker. Besides, he would surely be mad at her if he found her snooping around in his stuff. With the hand already on the knob of the drawer she hesitated, looking quickly around her for any signs of Freddy. But the king of nightmares was still missing. The heck with it, she thought, I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm just looking for some tape, something I wouldn't have to do if his stupid chair hasn't crashed.
And by thinking this she opened the drawer with a vigorous tug.
"Oh.... my.... god!"
Sarah let out a shout of disbelief and disrelish as she starred at the content of the wooden drawer: dozens of knifes! Long and short knifes, thin and thick knifes. Rusty knifes, bloodstained knifes, knifes with the tip broken off, twisted knifes. Some of them without the haft, others already welded with metal knuckles. And there were also pieces of copper and metal plates, and some leather gloves. Obviously this was Freddy's spare parts inventory.
"Great. If I had wanted to build my own razor glove this would be my golden opportunity. But all I need is just duct tape!"
Shaking her head she closed the top drawer, then, with bated breath, she opened the second drawer and darted a short look in it. This time there were no knifes – this time it was worse. The drawer was filled with old, greasy pornographic magazines. Not the high quality playboy kind, but the most disgusting scum Sarah had ever seen. It was sadomasochistic and inhuman trash, but to make it even worse they were all covered with vulgar comments, lines and cigarette fire holes, making the already abhorrent posing women look like they were tortured.
"Ewwww! This is so sick!"
Without any further look Sarah closed the drawer again. Of course she knew that Freddy was a perverted bastard, but she had had no idea how pervy he really was. With growing reluctance she peered at the third drawer. Her need for abominable things was more than satisfied for tonight, but on the other hand it could barely get any more appalling than it already was. With a deep sigh she finally opened the third drawer.
"Hey, there you go!"
With a triumphant shout Sarah grabbed a piece of scotch tape that was laying between some office stuff like pens and pencils, rubbers, a bottle with all-purpose glue and several paper notebooks. With three short pieces of tape she fixed the broken disc cover, then she threw the tape roll back into the drawer and was just about to close the drawer, when she suddenly saw something under one of the notebooks. Something she had never ever expected to find in Freddy's house: a bible.
Puzzled Sarah took the black leather book and ran over the pages. She anticipated that the bible was similar disgraced as the porn before, but much to her surprise it was intact and unscathed. On the first page was a handwritten dedication: To Fred. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer (Romans, 12,12). In sincere love, Sister Mary Helena. August 1951.
By reading the dedication Sarah's surprise turned into absolute astonishment. Could it be? Could it really be possible that this bible was a present of Freddy's mother? But why would Freddy keep it then, considering the profound hate for his mother he had once shown in their chat session? Too bad she couldn't ask Freddy himself, but it was more than likely that he would rather kill her instantly than explain why he kept the bible.
With a half suppressed sigh Sarah closed the bible and was just putting it carefully back on its place, when she noticed a corner of a picture that was protruding from the notebook above the bible. Curiously she flipped the notebook open, revealing a bunch of old photographs lying between some pages of the notebook.
"This is getting weirder and weirder!" Sarah mumbled while looking at the first picture. It was a portrait picture, showing a stern looking boy about ten years old. Although the picture was black and white like all the others Sarah guessed that the boy's hair was blonde. She wondered if this was a picture of one of Freddy's victims, but somehow she was not convinced of it. Again she took a close look of the boy on the picture. The plain woolen sweater he was wearing was too loose, giving him quite a poor appearance. He looked so serious and sad and... lost. His eyes, though, were someway familiar. And then, all at once, it hit her. This was not one of Freddy's victims, this was Freddy himself, as a young boy!
"God, he looks so small!", Sarah thought with a rush of emotion. But before she could survey the picture any longer she heard a sudden sound from behind her. Frightened Sarah jumped up like a shot. In desperate hurry she closed the drawer with a push of her feet, staring for one moment at the bunch of photos in her hand before she hastily put them in her back pocket. Then she spun around, reckoning in fear to see Freddy with his deadly razor glove raised, ready to kill her for snooping around in his private stuff.
But Freddy was not there.
Sarah was so relieved that she laughed nervously, when suddenly another sound came from the opposite direction. Again she turned around, screaming appalled as she saw a female corpse standing right behind her. The cruel mutilations and the deep parallel cuts all over her bloody body proved her as one of Freddy's victims. Although there was not much left from her face – the eyes were missing, showing nothing but bloody eye holes, the nose was smashed and half of the face was skinned – Sarah recognized her from a memorial picture in school. Her name was Paula, she had been one of Valerie's best friends and had been killed in her sleep only two and a half months ago. Now the abhorrent figure of what was once a happy teenager raised her blood-soaked hand and waved to Sarah.
"Ssss...aaaa....rrrr....aaaa...hhh!" the corpse called with a zombie-voice like in one of these cheap horror flicks, blood spilling out of her mouth at every syllable.
Although Sarah knew that the dreadful dead girl was nothing more than a bogey trick to get her scared, an announcement of Freddy's approaching return, she felt her stomach revolting and shook her head in disgust while slowly backing off.
"You're not here. You're not real. It's just a dream!"
Unfortunately the not-so-real dead girl didn't care that she wasn't here and started stumbling toward Sarah. She took some more steps backwards, when suddenly she got grabbed by four sharp blades from behind her. With a high pitched scream Sarah spun around, facing Freddy who had appeared right out of nowhere. He smirked.
"Missed me, nosey?"
"Damn!" Sarah shouted, quickly turning her head to the direction where the corpse of Paula had been standing, but she was gone, "You're such a prick, you know?"
"You're welcome!" replied Freddy malicious, his razor talons still grasping her tight at her shoulder. Fresh blood was glinting on the sharp blades, leaving clammy red streaks on Sarah's pajama. With an angry gesture she pushed his gloved hand aside and checked the blood stains on the tissue.
"Great. You ruined my pajama. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get this blood out of the fabric?"
Freddy fanned out his talons and wagged his bladed index finger at Sarah.
"Ts-Ts-Ts. You'd better be glad that it's not your own blood. But it will be yours if you don't hold your cheeky tongue, bitch! Besides, why aren't you working on the frigging computer, eh?"
"I am! Or at least I was until you came up with your little zombie show." replied Sarah with her best poker face and picked up the backup disc that was still laying on the ground. Without turning a hair she went back to the computer desk.
"God, how I missed this lovely atmosphere of threats and insults!" she mumbled low on the way, but loud enough that Freddy, who was following her, could hear it. He snarled and twitched edgy with his blades, but luckily for Sarah he could just control his homicidal impulses. Reaching the desk Sarah nodded toward the broken chair.
"Look at this trash! Your bloody chair crashed right under my ass. How am I supposed to work here when your rotten furniture is a danger to anyone who is so unwary to use it?"
"Fucking hell, you're such a pathetic wimp!"
Freddy made a flipping gesture with his bladed hand, and with a sudden 'plop' the chair pieces got reassembled on their own. However, it looked as rotten and unstable as before the crash, and so Sarah took the second chair, ignored Freddy's hissed "chicken" and sat down.
"Okay, see, the installation of the operating system is done. Your computer is now free of any viruses or trojans."
Sarah demonstrated the functionality of the system by starting and closing several standard programs. By doing this she noticed that there was already an internet connection configured – maybe there was some kind of wireless LAN in this dream hell place – and therefore she added:
"Don't go online until I say so, okay? You'll only get some new viruses. But you can use anything else, play some card game or whatever you like."
"Yeah, okay. So that's it? You're through with my computer?" said Freddy impatiently, his eager tone of voice hardly concealing his bloody-minded intentions.
"Ho-ho, stop it! I know you can't await to kill me, but not so fast!" replied Sarah quickly, "I said I'm done with the operating system. But I have neither done the installation of your programs nor restored the backup of your personal data."
She held up the jewel case of the backup disc.
"Damn!" cursed Freddy and kicked frustrated against one of the table-legs, causing everything on the table to tremble.
Sarah wanted to say something, but then she felt a warm prickle all over her body. She raised her hand and saw it slowly becoming translucent.
"I'm awakening!" she stated, not caring that Freddy could already feel her vanishing presence. Hurried she snatched her bagpack from the ground and threw all of her stuff inside it. Then the dream world faded into black.
Author's note: My apologies that it took me so long to complete this chapter. I hope you enjoyed reading it anyway. A special greeting goes out to KrazyKatKrueger, Tuesday Mourning and Demona Triple H. And of course to all of my readers that like my story. :-D