I am really sorry I can't update this as often as I'd like, but school is such a distraction, that I am lucky if I can post on weekends. This won't be too much of a problem, school lets out in 6 or 5 weeks, I think. At least, it better be only that long.
Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me from Edward Scissorhands or A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Chapter III: A New Doll to Play With
Ever enthralled, Edward stood, held by silence, looking upon his creation. Pride lay in the background of his gaze, faded by the desperate longing overshadowing it. It wasn't like any of the others; he had taken time's caution with this one. It was of Kim, of course, and it was of her innocent youth. Her hands were delicately cupped, in which Edward had placed a bouquet taken from his garden. Her body was curved with elegance, pirouetting under invisible snowflakes, and her face held no features, it was left blank. He left it that way, in honor of its free-spirited beauty, which he knew he would never be able to capture.
Hours had passed him by, leaving him to his work. With it done, Edward was left with a hollow echo of exhaustion. But this was nothing new, for tired was how Edward seemed to feel all the time, now that there was nothing left for him in this world. Companionship sneered upon him; all that remained of his memory in Suburbia was nothing more than exaggerated observations, inherited by the ancestors of Helen and the other gossip women from days gone by. These fabrications included how his "ghost" stalked the mansion, hungering for the vengeance of his untimely end. Edward knew not of the stories, for he was familiar with Kim's lie, that he was no more among the living, and that he could never return to the town that once welcomed him with arms wide open.
He decided to let sleep comfort him, something he had not allowed for awhile now, being the victim of insomnia from Kim's final visit. He was simply too worn out, too torn at the edges to maintain a firm hold on his grudge against sleep. Leaving the garden was no easy task; he would gladly reside there for hours more if possible. But Edward adored his entire home, the fantastical mystery that enveloped it, the bizarre furniture strewn everywhere, reminiscences of the Inventor and his love for imagination.
He made his way back into the manor, the fiery warmth of satisfaction cheeringly cackling inside him, glowing within the dark remorse's embrace. He kept his hands away from the walls as he walked, simply letting them hang as he went along.
His fire went out as he came to the attic, his room. It was cold and bare, holding the barest sliver of the moon's sympathetic light. And really, all it could reveal were the stains, the stains from so long ago. Edward cringed; he'd rather not to think of that night. But it was inexorable, the blood was still there, and it smirked, the same smirk Jim had worn. The same quirk of the lips, the very one that had led Edward to believe Jim's tomfoolery as commonplace, nothing harmful. But it had been harmful, more harmful than Edward himself realized.
He had never wanted to take a life, and in truth, the guilt haunted him to this very day. Life was fragile, as fragile as the ice Edward worked with. It was something to care for, something not to neglect, no matter what the person chose to make of it. Jim had crossed that line, what he had done to Kim could never be absolved. Regret stalked Edward still, averse to grant his wishes to destroy that night.
Edward flopped limply upon his bed, too lost to pull the covers over him. But even if he could find the energy to do so, he wouldn't; their meek skin could never hold enough fire to warm him. He tossed, and he turned. He tossed and he turned. Sleep seemed apt to ignore his crying fatigue, leaving him in a feeble depression.
Echoes of her crept back into his mind, bringing his smile back home as well as chase away his lingering discomfort. She truly was inspiration, her shimmering ebullience bringing back to life his will to indulge in imagination. And now he was left with the remains of her face; her memory the only piece he had managed to keep within his cusp. His smile once again left him frowning in the dust of his evanescent joy, as he lay alone in the dark.
Sighing, knowing full well he was in for a never-ending night, Edward let go of his emotion, giving it free reign around the manor, as he closed his eyes in one last desperate cry for asphyxia.
Holy shit. It was the only thought allowed for the moment. Pounding away was the knowledge she had recently come upon. "No fucking way." Brigid muttered as she ran, running from truth and his deliverer, away from her intuition. It just couldn't be; she tried to lure her doubts away with the myth of her paranoia, though the attempt was failing miserably.
Paying no heed to her common sense, which was screaming at her to pay attention to the roads she was traveling down, Brigid sprinted back towards home. Longing for answers fueled her adrenaline, giving her the energy to keep going without catching her breath. Turning onto Elm Street, she caught sight of her father, taking rest in a second-hand lawn chair, releasing his troubles in the smoke bleeding from his cigar.
"Dad! Dad!" She called out, not bothering to wait until she was all the way home.
"Hey Sweetheart!" He looked up from the motorcycle magazine he held in his interest, a smile gracing his face. It immediately caved into a depression, aware of the fear caged within his daughter's eyes. "What's wrong Bridge?" Concern echoed his words, resounding with the use of his age-old nickname for her.
"Please, dad." She pleaded, doubled over in her lack of oxygen, trying to recover. "Was this the house of that physco child-killer? You know, that Freddy Krueger dude?" Her suspicion was nagging, never letting her rid of its presence.
"Honey, you know he's dead, the townspeople hunted him down." He reassured, positive that at this she would lay down the matter and let it rest. "There's no reason for you to be worrying about it; it was a long time ago, around the time that you were born."
This did little to settle Brigid's daunting worries; nor did it answer her question. "Well," She demanded, "Did he live here?" She clung onto her unyielding fortitude, unwilling to let go and watch it slip between the grasps of her fingers. "Did he?" She was in hysterics at this point, the silence a knife caught within her interrogation.
"Yes. The answer to your question is yes." He replied, going against his reluctance to enflame her to even greater panic. Silence fell between them, curtained with truth, until Jack spoke again, fraught with the appearance of his child. "Honey, I've told you before, he's dead, he can't get to you."
"But all those kids…" Her timbre spilled out hoarse, the sound naught above a whisper. "He lived in their dreams." She referred vaguely to the mass killings that had only recently come to a halt with the drought of victims.
Sighing, Jack Belen wrapped Brigid into his embrace, praying for some way to calm her. "You heard the news, hon; it was a mass suicide that killed all those kids." He presented her with reason, a relief for the skeptical side of her. You remember watching the news. She brought down the amount of terror with that simple statement, although she could not ignore its miniscule tendrils that remained entwined around her.
"I really think you should get some rest. You're upset, and you're feverish." He removed his hand from her forehead, walking her to their new door, the same glint of worry never fading from his eyes. "I'll wake you in time for supper. Take out sound good to you?" Brigid nodded, shuffling through the worn doorway, turning her back to him as she entered the unwanted home.
He'll believe anything. She winced at the return of her doubts, striking down the temporary respite she had managed to hold onto for a record setting three minutes. It was on the fucking news. How could they lie about something like that? But was it believable? Could a entire populace of teenagers honestly been suicidal? The rising questions fogged Brigid's reason with their filmy provocation, leading her to believe that the media was not selling the whole story.
"Just stop." She muttered, winded from the ambivalent beliefs clawing away at her sanity. She went into the living room, which was in a decent enough of a state, despite the disturbing taint within the room's domestic charm. Looking around, Brigid could not help but think of what little warmth it held; with the little furniture placed within, the area seemed much of a skeleton with its hollow comfort.
Placing herself upon the lone sofa, Brigid clutched onto the false hope of her dads words, falling into delicate slumber…
Deeply buried within his own work, Freddy remained unaware of the presence lurking in his shadows. For awhile, he focused his mind completely on his little project, determined to hear nothing else until his plans were set. But frustration had begun to seep through the crevices of his thoughts, irking the infinitesimal twig that was his temper.
"Goddammit!" He dug his claws into the wood of his desk, bleeding splinters. He was being led by nowhere, going to that same place. The true identity of Suburbia's lair remained under cloak and dagger, unwilling to be discovered. Annoyance distracted him, leading Freddy astray from his aspirations. Cursing again and again, Freddy was beginning to sense some phantasm luring him away. Its scent was subtle; a mixture of youth and blood. It was the fear that enticed him, the deliciously toxic fragrance of terror swept Freddy off his feet. And there was so much! So much fear to feed upon! Freddy's wicked grin put that of the Jack O' lanterns to shame; new prey had naïvely entered the cave of the predator.
There was a certain something to this particular fear; it reeked of adolescence. Freddy was seduced; the knowledge of a live teenager took over his mind, tempting his every ambition. Freddy knew he would have to control himself; the urge to kill again had remained stationary in his blood for far too long. He knew that he could not murder whoever this person was…yet. The timing could not have been so perfect; this young adult would act the key in Freddy's play, his ticket to Edward. It seemed almost too convenient, however, to ever be true, the kid's arrival at this point in his career. But Freddy was not one to believe in omens, he refused to see what was in front of him.
He left his thoughts to his thrill, kicking back in his leather chair, once more waiting for the hunt to begin…
Brigid awoke to a silent serenity; nothing seemed alive. Glancing at the clock, she was alarmed to see it was well past seven, and her dad had yet to come to wake her. He's probably getting dinner. Her common sense informed her, seeing that his beloved pick up had gone from its perch in the driveway. Shrugging, Brigid, ignorant of her past thoughts, made a decision to explore the house.
The silence unnerved her; not even the robins were chirping, and it was spring. Not even the subtle buzz of electricity was present, though the lights were on. "What the hell?" She muttered, hearing no sound at all.
Her attention was ensnared by the little girls playing outside. Wait, children? Brigid approached the window, to see the young girls playing jump rope, singing what sounded like a nursery rhyme:
1, 2 Freddy's coming for you
3, 4 Better lock your doors
5, 6 Grab your crucifix
7, 8 Gonna stay up late
9, 10 Never sleep again
What was that song? The words were sung with such innocence, and yet they seemed demented shards of a madman's verse. What was going on?
It hit Brigid, a sudden comprehension without warning. She was dreaming. Sighing with relief, she continued to watch the girls with a rueful bemusement, wondering why she was dreaming such things. Her attention was again stolen, this time by bizarre noises, coming from what she supposed to be the basement door. Ignore it. She blocked out the noises, convinced that if she ignored them, they would go away.
Much to her dismay, they did not stop, only increasing in volume and annoyance. But Brigid simply let the matter go, knowing it was just some insignificant dream, a fantasy of her minds creation. But curiosity could not be appeased as easily as she had thought; no, its hunger growled within her ears, refusing to let her deny it. And this was how she found herself in front of the doorknob, encrusted and faded with abandonment. Putting her hand upon it, she could feel the imprints of those before her; she sensed the naivety of others within her touch.
She turned it, though she moved it slowly, unsure now whether she should go through with this. She pushed her reluctance aside, confident in her state of dreaming. Throwing open the door, she took the first step, only to fall into a seemingly endless oblivion. Biting her lip, reigning in her scream, Brigid found herself looking down into never ending onyx, no end in sight. "Please, God." She murmured, tears etching within her eyes. It's only a dream! Her cry was silenced by fright, laid to rest before it could provide any sort of comfort.
These pleas, although doing nothing, managed to travel through the darkness, igniting sinister chuckles from a source unknown. The laughter entwined with a hissing sound, the noises Brigid had heard earlier. Finding herself upon metallic ground, Brigid followed her gaze, noting the scarlet hue draped over the place. She was startled from this trance, her sight fogged with white steam, billowing from a boiler-type object in front of her. Blinded, she stumbled around, unknowing of the stairs in waiting behind her.
With a scream, she felt her grip upon the ground give way to the topsy-turvy ways of free falling. She tumbled over steps, their menace getting sick pleasure from her whimpers. Again, she prayed desperately, only to find herself among empty air. When she finally did land, it was in a sprawled heap against insecure railing. "Holy crap." She felt her breath caught, slowly rising from the beating it had taken. She would most likely boast some bruises, but other than that there was no real harm done.
Sitting up, Brigid acknowledged that she was in some sort of boiler room, judging by the brutish beings shoved in rows, unable to squirm. That, and the steam seething out of every crevice, bleeding warmth into the stiff atmosphere convinced Brigid of her environment. Picking herself up, while at the same time attempting to steady her dazed contemplation, she attuned her hearing for the paranormal.
Hearing nothing out of the ordinary, she sheltered her caution for the moment, daring to move. Turning back to where she had fallen, Brigid made to find her way up the stairs and back into her home. But she discovered that they were not there, as if they had never come into existence. "It's a dream." She told off her paranoia, soothing its brittle edges. "Nothing more." And so she was lost within her own dream, nowhere to go, without the slightest clue as to where to turn.
Faltering her fear only slightly, being held within the labyrinth of boilers and pathways to nowhere intimidated what remained of her bravado, confusion masking her face. Which way to go? It was then it started; a soft clicking, gently sonorant into the carmine evening. It grew in volume, its thorns wounding Brigid's tolerance. She was deaf to it, casting it off as some strange concept her dream had conjured, but it was unwavering, and would not let itself faint into the background.
"Ignore it. Just ignore it." She muttered, clenching her fists in an effort to keep her impatience still. Listening, she deducted that the cryptic sounds origin was to her left; therefore she began a hurried pace in the opposite of ways.
Brigid walked to her right, only to find the clicking would not concede, even as she distanced herself farther and farther away. It stalked her, as she made various twists and turns, her dread dripping into every foot print.
She wanted to keep telling herself it was only her dream, only to find that her doubt had grown immune to that excuse. And then it stopped. The quirky clicking had disintegrated, dead by its own devices. She lapsed into her false sense of surety, once again hiding behind apprehensive walls of silence.
It was truly horrid, the sound that followed; it was the raw screams of metal cutting into metal. Putting her hands over her hearing did little, if anything, to subdue the noise. It wasn't as subtle as the clicking; it clawed into Brigid's brain, twisting her self-assurance into an abnormal statue of agony. She flung her form around, the last of her patience broken into pieces. "Who the hell is doing that?" She hurled the question in a scream of anger, not expecting any sort of response.
The shadows released a strange figure lurking within their embrace, waiting for the opportune moment for him to reveal himself. For the moment, he simply kept in the obscure vermillion, mystery clothing him as he spoke:
"Welcome to my world, bitch."
5,6 Grab Your Crucifix…