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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Dean's eyes snapped open when he heard the wailing sound of his brother's phone alarm. There wouldn't be very many reasons why Sam would have set the alarm, especially in the middle of a hunt like this. His mind registered things quickly as he sat up and took in the weapons scattered all over the room. Then he saw his brother, sitting up on the bed, breathing heavily from his sudden return to the world of consciousness.

"Where is he?" Sam panted.

"Who?"

"Freddy Krueger! He should be here! I know I did it right this time!"

Dean glanced around, but everything seemed untouched. Then they heard footsteps at the door, exactly as they had been so recently in Sam's dream. Dean started to open his mouth when Sam interrupted, "It's Michael Myers!"

Not even bothering to ask how the younger hunter would know that from three footsteps, Dean grabbed the two nearest guns and a knife. He was aware that he wouldn't be able to get up and around much unless it was absolutely necessary. His broken ankle and stabbed leg just didn't seem to want to cooperate with him. Meanwhile, Sam had similarly armed himself, with guns and knives and holy water flasks surrounding him. In one hand, he was wielding a lighter. Just when Dean was getting ready to ask about when that had become a weapon, the person behind the door knocked.

Stunned, Sam whispered, "Why is Michael Myers knocking?"

"He wouldn't knock, idiot," Dean snapped back in his own whisper. "Go get the door."

Glaring, the younger brother got up slowly – and painfully, which helped him to be sure he was awake – and headed for the door.

"And stop freaking me out like that. You could have given me a heart attack," Dean added unnecessarily.

Sam risked another dirty look at his brother. "I know Freddy is around here somewhere," he announced to Dean. "And Myers should be back any minute. Just watch yourself." A few feet away from the door, where the knocking had resumed, Sam called out, "Who is it?"

With no verbal answer, splinters of wood flew at the hunter's unprotected face as the door burst open from the force behind it. "Sam!" Dean yelled from the bed, finding himself involuntarily on his feet in spite of the agony it caused.

Sam had instinctively thrown a hand in front of his face and turned away from the explosion of wood when he saw what was happening, and gratefully he was unhurt. However, he very clearly heard the voice of the man standing in the doorway when he called out, "Sam, I made it!" The voice of Freddy Krueger gave him chills, and he shuddered. By the time he recovered, Freddy was standing next to him with that horrible grin on his face. The claws came at him, and Sam dropped backwards, landing hard but rolling over to come back to his feet a suitable distance away.

"Better you than Michael Myers," he growled, bringing the lighter forward as Freddy continued to come at him.

"You can't stop me, Sam," the Elm Street killer hissed. "So many have tried, but all have failed."

"How cliche, since you've said that to me once already," Sam answered, flicking the flame on with his thumb and holding it out until it touched Freddy's hand and the sickening stench of burned and rotting flesh filled the room. Freddy recoiled, screaming, and Sam advanced on him, lighting his clothes and then his face. Those knife-like fingers struck out again, blindly, and the hunter, knowing he couldn't get all the way out of the way, leaned forward. Instead of the claws slicing his skin, Freddy's hand crashed into his shoulder, throwing them both off-balance enough that they fell in a heap.

In spite of his adrenalin and his good intentions, Sam's body refused to move when he tried to get back up. Or when he tried to roll away. Or when he attempted to bring the lighter back toward his enemy. In fact, he could only manage to lift his head and see Freddy staggering back to his feet before even that became too much of an effort and it crashed back to the floor. Dean started shooting frantically at Freddy, especially when he saw that his brother had collapsed. "Sam!" he shouted while shooting.

"Yeah," came the answer, so quiet and raspy that no one heard it. The only reason Dean even knew his brother was still awake was the coughing that started just then.

Surprisingly, the bullets seemed to be affecting Freddy Krueger. Apparently, he was more human when he was in reality than the other horror movie villains. He dropped back to the ground, twitching from the shock of being shot so many times, way too close to Sam for Dean to feel comfortable. Dean was almost going to try to walk over when another sound drew his attention, and he turned to the doorway, where Michael Myers was slowly entering around the wooden carnage that used to be the door.

"Damn it!" he yelled, more as a stress-relieving mechanism than as a comment expecting an answer. "This is ridiculous! SAM!" He looked to his brother once more, cursing when he saw blood seeping from the stomach wound again. "Do you know how hard I've worked on those stitches . . . TWICE?"

Sam somehow found the strength to sit up when his roaming eyes locked on their latest guest – Myers. Leaning against the wall, he said, "Do we have an axe, Dean?"

Straining to hear the quietly spoken words coming from his brother, the elder hunter looked over in disbelief. "What?"

"An axe," Sam repeated. "Do we have one?"

"I don't think so. Why? Are you really going to try to chop him up?"

"I don't think we have any other choice at this point." With one hand on the wall, Sam dragged himself to his feet. "What happened to the knife I had?" He took a faltering step forward, not noticing the slight movements of the weakened but not dead Freddy Krueger on the ground near him. As what might have seemed like a last-ditch effort, Freddy's arm wrapped around Sam's good leg and jerked. The hapless Winchester grunted in surprise and collapsed back to the carpet again, having lost the last of his already-waning strength. Dean finished off the clip in his gun on Freddy, waiting until even the twitching had stopped. He had his own knife, but Myers was all the way in the room now. And unfortunately, Sam was between them.

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Note: I know, this is a short chapter, but it seemed like such a good spot to leave you hanging that I couldn't resist. Don't worry, folks – chapter 10 is just around the corner! And your reviews are so appreciated!