After what seemed like an eternity, they reached the edge of the forest, noticing both the Impala and the green van that Michael Myers had stolen. Without an extra word, they went to Dean's car. Sam pulled the gun from the glove compartment, stood straight, and shot two of the tires on the van out.

"You think that will stop him?" Dean asked.

"Nope," came the reply as Sam roughly dropped into the passenger seat. "But all I really want to do is slow him down until we know how to take care of him."

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Dean was still leaning on the passenger side of the car when Sam finally looked over and asked, "It's only buying us a little time, dude. Why aren't we leaving?"

"I . . . uh . . ." the elder hunter began uncertainly.

Sam raised an eyebrow, and then his gaze roamed first to his brother's bleeding leg, and finally to the broken cast. "Oh," he muttered, dragging himself out of the car. "Why don't I drive?"

Taking a deep breath, Dean pulled the keys out and held them by two fingers. "You know how much this hurts me?"

"Yeah," came the response as Sam jerked the keys away and stumbled to the driver's seat. "But we both know you can't drive like that."

"I'm not sure you're any better. On second thought, maybe I should –"

"No," the younger brother interrupted. "Get in the car and let's go. The longer we stand out here arguing about it, the more time Myers has to catch up to us."

A short while later, they found themselves back at their motel, patching each other up. Dean's leg needed stitches, he needed a new cast, Sam's torso and leg needed stitches, and both of them needed a week of sleep. Unfortunately, they couldn't take care of the sleeping at the moment. Dean fixed his brother's ripped stitches and put in new ones to the gash in his leg, then Sam returned the favor to Dean's leg. Finally, Sam applied the temporary splint from their first aid kit to Dean's broken ankle after removing the pieces of cast that were still barely hanging on, wrapping it securely.

"That won't hold," he announced. "I mean, if the real one from the doctor didn't stay on, this one won't. It's just to give you a little support until we can get you back to the hospital."

Dean, who had dropped onto his bed in exhaustion, grunted his acknowledgment of the statement and let his eyes slip closed.

"Hey," Sam snapped. "I'm the one taking a short nap here, remember?" He shook Dean's shoulder gently and scowled when he got no response. His brother had either fallen asleep or was unconscious. That meant he was pretty much on his own for taking care of Freddy Krueger. He would have liked nothing better than to wait until Dean could back him up, but Michael Myers was probably already on his way, which meant they had little or no time left. He dropped into a nearby chair and pulled out his cell phone, dialing a familiar number only as a last resort.

"Bobby?" he asked when someone answered the other end.

"Is that you, Sam?" Bobby returned.

"Yeah, it's me. Listen, I have kind of an odd question for you."

"Coming from a Winchester, that's not good."

Sam snorted, trying to sound amused but failing. "Look, you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you the whole story, so I'll just get straight to the point. Let's say there's a creature that can only attack people in their dreams."

"Sam, there are creatures that can only attack people in their dreams."

"Yes, but you can only kill this one if you wake up while you're having a dream he's in and you pull him into reality with you."

There was an uncomfortably long pause on the other end as Bobby digested this. Finally, he said, "Sam, are you drunk?"

The younger hunter rolled his eyes. "I knew you wouldn't believe me. I knew it!"

"You're probably drunk. Have you two been watching horror movies?"

"No, Bobby, we haven't."

"Let me talk to Dean."

"I can't. He's sleeping . . . or unconscious."

"What? What happened?"

Sam sighed again. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Does this have anything to do with Nightmare on Elm Street?"

"Unfortunately, no."

Sam could almost feel Bobby nodding disbelievingly at this. "Okay, Sam. Let's say this creature of yours is real. What's your question?"

"How do I kill it?"

"After you've pulled it into reality, of course."

"Right."

There was another pause. "Have you tried anything?"

"I couldn't pull him out with me. I ended up with his hat."

"Are you sure you're not drunk?"

"Never mind, Bobby. I'll figure something out," Sam grumbled, ending the call in spite of his friend's worried voice still coming over the line. "I knew he'd think we were insane," he murmured to himself. "And when another hunter thinks you're crazy, that's really bad." He looked over to where Dean lay helpless and prayed that Freddy wasn't attacking his brother right then. But that single thought gave him the stamina to go in after the dream killer by himself.

Since this was one of the few horror movies he had bothered to watch, he decided to do what the girl in the movie had done. He set the alarm on his phone to go off in ten minutes, then started preparing weapons that he put in strategic places around the motel room so he would definitely be able to find at least one. Fire had seemed to really bother Freddy Krueger when the girl lit him up, so he also put out a lighter underneath his pillow, hoping he would have the presence of mind to grab it.

Just then, his cell phone rang. Absently, he picked it up and answered. "What?"

"I'm sorry about that, Sam," Bobby's voice said clearly through the line. "Whatever you need, I can help you. What's going on?"

"I already told you. Besides, I know you'll think I'm insane and I don't have time to deal with that right now. Call back tomorrow, okay?" And then he hung up again. He would just turn the phone off so he could concentrate, except he needed the alarm on it to work in order to wake him up. With any luck, it would wake up Dean, too. Then he might have extra help.

When everything was set up acceptably, he dropped onto the bed with more force than he had intended. His body was aching and sore, and he could barely move. "Here's hoping I have enough adrenalin to finish this," he whispered as his eyes drooped closed. Within only a few seconds, he was asleep.

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Sam suddenly sat straight up in bed, looking around the motel room. Everything was as it had been when he'd fallen asleep. Dean was still sprawled unceremoniously across the other bed. The weapons were still strewn across the floor, tables, and chairs. Checking his phone, he discovered that he had been asleep only two minutes. So what had made him wake up so soon? Surely something had happened. What if Michael Myers was back already?

He listened intently for sounds outside, cringing when he heard shuffling footsteps nearing the door. He rolled easily out of bed, snagging the lighter on his way and reaching for the nearest gun with the other hand. Armed, he was ready for when the door would swing open. Then, he stopped and got a confused expression on his face. Did he just roll out of bed easily? He'd just had how many stitches put into his body, and he was standing here feeling just the slightest twinges of pain? Standing on a leg that Freddy Krueger had gashed with his claw-like fingers only a short time before? It took a lot longer than it should have, but realisation finally set in, and Sam knew he was still asleep. But man, that was weird. Who knew how much time he really had to be in this dream world?

In spite of all that, the door still opened, and it was definitely Michael Myers standing there. The young Winchester prayed that this wasn't what was happening in reality. Both he and his brother were pretty helpless at that moment. Out of morbid curiosity more than anything else, he jerked up his gun and fired. Myers flinched from the shot, and went down shakily, rising again slowly. At least he had proof that it was a dream.

Freddy Krueger appeared at the door just behind where Myers's body had fallen and was struggling to get back up, stepping around the murderer and entering the room.

"Hi, Sam," he said, a wicked smile crossing his scarred cheeks.

"Not again with the conversations," the hunter muttered.

"You think you can really stop me this time, don't you?" he went on, as though there had been no comment made.

"Actually, I am going to stop you. One rather annoying quality about Winchester hunters is that we don't let things go easily. So I'm going to kill you before you do anything to hurt anyone else."

"And what about brother Dean?" Freddy asked. "Don't you wonder what we've been up to while he wasn't awake?"

Sam faltered momentarily, then regained his composure. "Doesn't matter," he said. "I'm going to kill you regardless of whether or not you've gone near my brother. You should feel lucky, actually – I'm going to make it quick. If I knew you had hurt Dean, it would be a long and painful death."

He glanced down at his cell phone again, seeing that he had only one minute until he alarm went off. He hoped this dream was realistic in that respect, because if that phone was right, he should be waking up in that one minute. And in order to drag Freddy out of the dream world, they had to be physically touching when it happened. Throwing the gun he was holding and shrugging his shoulders carefully for twenty seconds (and yes, he did count), Sam suddenly dove at a rather surprised Freddy Krueger. They collided heavily and hit the ground. Michael Myers was, by this time, on his feet again and coming at them, knife in hand. Sam was sitting on top of Freddy when he saw the swipe out of the corner of his eye and rolled himself underneath his opponent. The knife slashed across Freddy's back.

And then the alarm went off.

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NOTE: Wow – my humblest apologies, everyone! I had a pathetic case of writer's block. I was still having issues with it when I decided to sit down and write this chapter anyway. I hope to get that all ironed out so it doesn't happen again in the future.

In the meantime, I have a random question for people – would anyone be interested in reading anything I wrote that had original characters and storylines in it? I was pondering posting stuff on another site but I don't want to do it if no one is going to read it. Don't worry about hurting my feelings; I'm pretty hearty.

I have to say something to Heather really quick: Thanks for keeping me straight. I actually forgot that Dean probably couldn't drive with both legs like that, so I added the scene at the beginning just for you. Again, thanks for reading and giving me your comments!