Wwwhhooo! Thank you guys so much for the extremely nice compliments in your reviews! I'm so happy, I'm doing the Happy Dance! I'm glad you all are liking this story. I'll do my best to update faster, and the good news is that I'm pretty sure this story will be done before school starts up again.
I'm sorry, but yes Natasha is dead. However, because she has turned out to be more popular than I thought she would be, I've come up with a story idea to bring her back…at least for a bit. And no, I won't make her a "pawn", she'll come back as a Keeper.
I'll let you go so you can start reading. Enjoy!
Too Young
Chapter 4: Right of the Keeper
Fire raced along its track of power lines, gathering speed and intensity as it spread out in both directions from the transistor. The flames created a ring of eerie orange-ish light and caused the black shadows that lurked underneath miscellaneous objects to jump with life.
Stumbling with exhaustion from climbing the steep incline leading out of the cemetery, Neil topped the hill and gasped at the scene that lay before him. The area looked like something from a war movie; vehicles lay crushed, chunks of pavement were scattered everywhere and enough blood to paint the Capital Building lay in pools and dripped down the storm drains along the street sides. The scene was ghastly; completely unbelievable.
It took several seconds for Neil to register what he was seeing. Shaking off his initial shock, Neil reacted on his instincts and sprinted over to the devastated remains of what used to be a SUV. The massive vehicle was overturned and little more than a cube of twisted metal. He prayed that nobody had been inside it when the thing had been crushed, for it literally looked as if it had been smashed by those junkyard car crushers.
Neil skidded to a stop outside of what he assumed to be the driver's side door and fell to his knees, trying to peer through the wreckage to spot any survivors. Not seeing a driver, Neil strained his eyes to look at the front passenger's seat, and saw what looked to be the remains of a teenage girl. His eyes were drawn to a large red stain around her abdomen, and he recoiled as he saw that the girl was nearly gutted.
Seriously doubting that the strange girl sitting before him could be alive, Neil did his best to crane his neck to see in the back seat, hoping any passengers had better luck than their counterpart did. He thought he saw some hair and maybe a hand sticking up from the mysterious depths of the wreckage, but there was no way to be sure. One thing he was sure of though was that there was no noise emanating from the back, and that wasn't a good sign.
Hearing a sound of a door opening off to his left, Neil turned to see an elderly lady dressed in a light blue robe, peeking around her doorframe. "Call an ambulance!" Neil ordered her, as he started around to the other side to try to get a better view of the passengers. If there was somebody alive in the vehicle, it was important that they know there was help on the way. Despite his efforts though, he was still unable to see much, although he thought he could make out what seemed like two bodies.
He looked back towards the home of the lady, and was flabbergasted to see her still standing on her porch, gawking at the grisly scene in front of her home. "CALL FOR HELP! DO IT NOW!" Finally, the woman was shaken from her trance, and made her way inside to call 911.
Without being able to get to the injured passengers, there wasn't much else Neil could do to help until the EMP's showed up. Looking around, Neil tried to do his best to asses what happened. Back behind the battered SUV, about forty or so feet, Neil saw the road's pavement splintered as if something had broken through the thick highway. Not far from the shattered pavement and twisted vehicle, a parked car sitting alongside the road had its roof and hood dented in, as if something heavy had stood on top of it. Looking a little farther along, Neil saw what had sparked the fire; an electric poll had been impacted hard enough to send splinters out the back end of it. It was unclear to Neil what had caused the extreme damage to the SUV, for the poll had not been hit hard enough to cause the wreckage he saw.
Off in the distance, Neil heard the mournful wails of emergency sirens firing up, beginning their race to the scene. He knew they would be asking him questions; questions about how long ago this had happened, how did you learn of it, and most importantly, how he had ended up so close to the scene of devastation that he could lend help so quickly. Neil could easily answer all questions he knew they would throw at him, save the last; how he had been at the right spot at the right time to lend help.
With the sirens growing closer to the scene of the crime, Neil turned his back on the overturned vehicle and stared in wonderment towards the Springwood Cemetery. Could she really have…no…it's impossible. Nancy's dead, she couldn't have led me here. Neil paced, impatient for the ambulance to arrive.
…
Diane tiredly slid out of her car, hesitated a moment to let her legs adjust to holding her weight, and slowly began making her way to the front door. After unlocking the thick, intricately designed wooden door, she halfway stumbled through the doorway and carelessly tossed her purse on top the kitchen table. "Natasha! I'm home!" She hadn't had time to eat dinner before her shift at the bank had started, and she hadn't had any time to have any kind of snack while at work. But it had taken nearly all her energy to call up to her daughter that she was home; she had nothing left to direct towards eating.
Putting all of her focus to climbing the stairs, Diane carefully made her way up each carpeted step. She wanted desperately to go to bed; she had to go back to work early the next morning to open up, and she wanted to get every bit of shut eye she could before having to get up and go again. But as tired as she was, she decided to check in on Natasha quickly before turning in herself.
Finally, after what seemed like hours of climbing Mt. Everest, Diane reached the peak of the stairs and turned right, heading off in the direction of her daughter's bedroom. As she drew closer, Diane could see that Natasha's light was still on, the hard yellow glow seeping out from under the closed door. She sighed in sympathy for her daughter, realizing that Natasha was having to put in yet another long night into working on her computer, no doubt another report for school she had to get done. Diane realized that actually, compared to her daughter's workload, she had an easy time of it; at least when she came home from work, she didn't have hours of homework yet to do.
Reaching the closed door to her daughter's bedroom, Diane knocked quietly, hopping to not disturb Natasha if she was deep into her homework. When she received no response, Diane slowly turned the door handle and pushed the door open. As the door opened, receding into the room and allowing Diane a better view, a slow smile of amusement played on her lips at the scene that greeted her.
Natasha sat with her back to the opening door, slumped over her computers desktop, sound asleep. Diane knew her daughter must have drifted off to sleep in that position while trying to think of what else to type on her report, for the computer's screen still showed an open Microsoft Word document.
Diane swallowed the urge to take a picture of this "Kodak moment" and quietly tiptoed over to her daughter, knowing she should wake Natasha and allow her to finish her paper. She gently shook Natasha's shoulder, trying to not scare her as she awoke from her sleep. Despite her attempt to not disturb her daughter too much, Natasha's body, seemingly limp, rocked back into her chair, causing her head to fall back, exposing her shredded throat.
Screaming, Diane leaped backward, staring in horror at the sight of her daughter's muscle and neck tissue hanging from the wide gash that ran from one side of her neck to the other. Blood had seemingly gushed from the mortal wound, running down her front, staining her clothing and gathering in a pool on the computer chair she sat in. The blood had splattered onto the keyboard, ruining the delicate instrument.
Diane stumbled backward, fell over some object and began to crawl backward out of the open doorway, all the while not diverting her eyes from her daughter's wide-eyed, shocked gaze. Pulling herself up, Diane ran from her daughter's room, tears streaking down her face.
…
Libby hurried down the long corridor that led to the waiting area, letting her long legs carry her out of the Westin Hills Counseling facility. Her session with Dr. Yin had gone a good hour passed the scheduled ending time, and she was more than ready to get the hell out of the shadowy building.
Not only had the session run over the time allotted, which irritated Libby anyway, but the whole appointment had been a disaster; one extremely uncomfortable moment leading to an even more uncomfortable moment after another. Dr. Yin had attempted to coax Libby into realizing that what had happened to her a year before in fact, wasn't her fault. Yin had tried to make Libby understand that she wasn't a bad person, and that she now had an opportunity to make a fresh start. Yin had explained that because Libby's mother had decided to move down to Springwood, this allowed Libby a second chance; a chance to put the past behind her and make new, more fitting relationships here.
Libby had disagreed, practically shouting "I don't want to make new relationships! I don't want to belong here!" along with some asterisks and explicative curses that she now shuddered to think that she had been capable of such profane language. What's the point of starting a new life here? I now know what lies inside the hearts of every person under the sun. If I stay distant and don't get attached to anyone, there's no way that anybody can ever again hurt me.
Convinced that Yin wasn't qualified to be a pet psychiatrist, Libby rushed past the receptionist's desk, not bothering to say a goodbye, and all but ran down hallway that led to the outside world. Flinging open the heavy doors, Libby breathed in the cool night air, letting it wrap around her, cooling both her body and her anger. Glancing up into the night sky, she saw the beautiful patterns of twinkling stars, burning brightly all that distance away to bring a soft warm glow to the tiny people inhabiting this planet. The shimmying, dancing beacons comforted her, sending warmth through her body. But the warmth did little to sooth her tortured soul. That part of her, like always, stayed cold and barren, completely untouchable to any outside influence.
Libby diverted her eyes away from the comforting sight, and began making the journey to her home. She had spent enough time out in the open and it was time to recede back into safety. A whoosh of air above her caught Libby's attention and she shot her eyes skyward once again, looking for the cause of the unexpected rush of air. Nothing moved, nothing that could explain the cool air lingered anywhere around Libby's position.
Shrugging the incident off, Libby continued on her way, feeling a bit more exposed than before. Suddenly, out of nowhere, an agonized shriek of what sounded somewhat like an eagle pierced the air directly above Libby. A force more powerful than Libby could have ever imagined hit her like a ton of bricks, knocking her over and causing her to hit the ground violently. Her vision was blinded by a series of images; images of children. Children no older than eight or nine swarmed in her eyes, cutting off anything else that would've been in her view. The children were happy; smiling and laughing while playing with other kids of similar age. Without warning, the images of carefree children were replaced with images of dead, lifeless corpses, all bloody and mutilated beyond recognition.
She was shocked by the ghastly images she saw, but she barely had time to register what she was seeing before an entirely new sensation gripped her with iron hands. Libby began seeing visions not of children, but of older kids, teenagers. The faces swarmed around her, suffocating her very being. The faces gave way to visions of unbelievable images; images that could only occur in the realm of dreams, of nightmares. So horrible were the visions that Libby was shaken to her very core, touching the most primitive of primal fear.
Suddenly, the nightmarish scenes gave way to blinding pain. Pain gripped every vein, every tendon, and every fiber of her body. Her vision went to an otherworldly white, bright enough to remind her of a nuclear explosion. Slowly, the pain started to pinpoint in one single area, her chest. Libby felt as if a huge claw had just torn through her front, sending a searing pain resounding through her torso. The pain from the invisible claw gave way to a burning sensation around her neck. The grip tightened, until she couldn't breath and she began to choke. None too soon, that pain gave way a feeling of being drained of all her blood. She felt light and rubbery without her life-force flowing through her veins. That pain mutated into countless lashings across her back, which yielded to the gut-wrenching feeling of talons tearing through her stomach, skewering her body.
On and on the diverse pain went. Libby began to grow numb to the various painful points invading her body, taking advantage of her in her vulnerable state. It has no right! her pain-numbed brain screamed. She began to feel sick, nauseas and light headed; it was just too much for one person to withstand.
After what seemed like an eternity, the final piercing to come over her was one of a feeling of being chopped into countless pieces; as if she were being shredded. All at once, ever ounce of the racking pain left her body, leaving her oddly cold but at peace. She lay on there on the sidewalk's pavement not moving, barely daring to breathe as the night continued on around her. What the hell just happened?
Slowly, she gathered her strength and began to inch her way up into a sitting position. She felt that prickling sensation one gets when one's limbs fall asleep, and she patiently let the blood flow back into her arms and legs. Gradually, her breathing returned to normal and she felt brave enough to stand. After balancing on her weary legs for a couple of seconds she took a tentative step forward.
"Hey miss, you okay?"
Libby slowly craned her head in the direction of the voice, for she didn't want to push her body too far too quickly. She saw the person the voice belonged to; a man in his mid fifties stood a short distance away, watching her intently. Libby wasn't too comfortable with the fact that the man was so close to her, but she relaxed a bit when she saw an elderly lady, his wife she assumed, standing a couple paces behind her husband. Libby guessed that they had witnessed her fall to the ground and were seeing if she was okay.
"Yeah…I think…I'm okay," Libby actually wasn't too sure of that. She still felt a bit funny, kind of dizzy, but nothing more. At least I'm not writhing in pain anymore.
"Do you have a history of seizers, honey?" The elderly lady looked extremely concerned towards Libby, apparently not believing that she was indeed fine.
It took a moment for the question to register in Libby's head, "What? Uh…no…no I'm just fine thank you. I think I'm just going to go home an...," she never got to finish, for right then and there, a darkness consumed her, and Libby collapsed.
The elderly man rushed over, scared for the girl, thinking that she had just suffered some type of medical trauma. Reaching her side, he knelt down and felt for a pulse.
"George, is she okay? What's wrong?" the lady was nearly panicked. What had started as a nice evening walk had turned into a life or death situation.
George was silent for a while, before slowly turning back to his wife, a look of horror plastered on his face. When he spoke, his voice was slow and deliberate, and very hollow, "Bettie…she's dead."
The two of them stared at one another, not understanding what had just taken place before them. George was about to stand to go find help, when a scream like one that he had never heard before erupted from the girl's throat. Stranger still was the fact that the scream was not female, but in fact was male.
If the elderly couple had grown up around Springwood, and if they had been around in the mid 1960s, they might have known that the voice they were now hearing coming from the girl's mouth, was none other than Freddy Krueger himself.
…
Well, this chapter was considerably shorter than the last. I thought about going on a bit and making this a little longer by continuing the story, but I opted not to. I wanted to make you guys all wait. Ha, ha, ha! I'm evil! Nah, I'm just kidding, the real reason I didn't go on was because I didn't want to put you all through reading another 20 page or so long chapter. The eyes you know, get tired after a while.
By the way, if you didn't understand, the physical wounds that Libby was experiencing were the exact same wounds that Freddy's victims experienced in the Nightmare movies, and in the exact order they died. I only explained the first 2 movies, cause I didn't want to go all the way through all the movies, describing the death scenes of each victim. Also, the nightmares she saw in her visions, were the nightmares that all the Nightmare characters experienced. I was going to explain this in the text of the next couple of chapters, but after re-reading it, I saw that it could be a little confusing.
I'll update ASAP! Till then, be safe!
