CHAPTER 8: The Nightmare King

Karen pushed herself into the corner, trying to get away from Freddy Krueger, who was slowly advancing upon her, the blood still dripping from his claws.

She pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, not wanting to watch Freddy kill, not wanting to endure this horror. She closed her eyes, wishing it would all go away, even though she knew it wouldn't.

When Karen opened her eyes she wasn't huddled in a corner, shrinking away from the Nightmare King, but inside a car. She was in the backseat, and she was the only person in the car.

Karen slowly let her legs drop to the floor, leaning back against the seat. Outside it was too misty to see anything clearly.

Suddenly she heard the car start up, feeling it stutter into action. Seatbelts appeared from nowhere and wrapped themselves around her so her arms couldn't move and she couldn't move from the seat. She struggled against these bonds as the lights flared on, pointing a direct beam through the mist, yet she still couldn't see anything.

"Sit back, your taking a ride in Christine Krueger!" Freddy's voice surrounded her, coming from the car itself.

As the car started to drive forward Karen saw that they were at the end of an alleyway, and a frightened girl was at the other end, where a solid brick wall that stretched into the sky blocked any escape. The alleyway was only just wide enough for the car to fit through, but it started to accelerate anyway.

Joanna saw the car, the red and green car, and tried to run, but crashed right into the brick wall behind her. She pressed her back onto it, praying that the car would crash, as long as it didn't hit her.

But Karen knew it wouldn't crash. She saw the speedometer from her restrained seat and saw it climbing up towards 100 kilometers an hour. The alleyway was long, but Christine Krueger didn't need long to speed up, after all this was his world, his nightmarish world.

Karen screamed as more tears poured down her face, but the Freddy car only laughed, accelerating even more.

Joanna gave out one last scream as the car slammed into her, splattering blood all over the front of the car, painting the windshield a bloody red.

Karen had shared Joanna last scream, shrieking out in terror and horror as the gore splattered onto the car.

Anna reached the bedroom door and opened it. There was her best friend, lying on the bed, tears pouring from her eyes. She was whimpering, Anna realized, something was happening in her dream.

"Wake up Karen! You have to wake up!" Anna screamed to her friend, but her eyes didn't open.

Cory stopped at the door and stared at Karen, feeling guiltier and just a little scared, his friends bumping into him and stopping in the doorway next to him. Billy ran underneath Cory's outstretched arms and into the room.

Anna saw Billy and said in surprise, "What are you doing – never mind, grab me a tissue!"

Billy yanked one form the tissue box on the bedside table and passed it over to Anna, who proceeded to wipe off the tears on Karen's face.

They heard another shriek from downstairs and turned around. She didn't know why but they were falling like flies. Anna thought this had to do with Freddy Krueger, the Nightmare Man, and Karen could be his next victim…

Karen sat in the car, tears rolling down her cheeks; the seatbelts had slowly crawled back into the seat a few seconds before. She stared at the front window, at the gore covering it. The girls limp body was crushed between the wall and the car, a look of horror frozen on her face forever.

Karen was scared now; she was scared of Freddy Krueger and for her friends.

Suddenly the door opened, creaking softly in the silence. But there was no Freddy there. Karen edged closer to the door, still crying. When she was only inches from getting out a hand shot forward, Freddy's hand, and grabbed her by the hair.

Karen screamed as she was pulled from the car, but she wasn't pulled into the alley, she was pulled into another room.

Josh Matthews walked through his door, and into a cage. This cage was gigantic; it stretched up at least 15 meters and was at least twice as much in width and length. Suddenly the door slammed behind him, and a second later he heard another identical slam across the room.

Mike Duntres had chosen a door way down the corridor, but he came out on the other side of the room Josh was in. Mike waved and Josh waved back, very confused about this place. He was confused and scared, scared of what was happening to the other people, and where Freddy was, if he was real.

Josh looked up to find that while the cage's roof was 15 feet up, there was no roof above it, just an unending stretch of darkness. The darkness spread each way, up, down, left, right. It was as if this was in the center of darkness, as if there was nothing else here but a cage and 2 scared teenagers. They would have fallen straight down and into the darkness if there wasn't a glass floor between each of the bars on the floor. The bars of the cage weren't particularly close together, but they weren't far apart either. But there was no way either Mike or Josh would risk climbing out, neither wanted to fall into that blackness which may or may not end with a hard landing.

Josh wasn't scared it would have a concrete floor at the end of the darkness, that way he would die without pain, if he landed right of course, he was scared that there was no ground, that he would continue to fall forever.

"Where are we?" Josh called over t Mike.

"I don't know, all I can see is black! It looks like in a theater with no movie playing!" Mike called back, looking out into the everlasting darkness.

Josh put his hands on the bars, and found they weren't cold but warm. There was no heat here of course, only the cold feeling that came from being nowhere.

"Well this sucks!" Mike called to Josh, who smiled in spite of the situation. Mike could do that, he was a person who radiated happiness no matter how scared he was.

Mike turned back to his door to try and open it, but it was gone. There was only cage where the door had once been.

"Hey Josh, please tell me your door is still there" Mike called out, a look of shock on his face.

Josh was puzzled, but he turned around anyway, after all his door had to be there. But it wasn't, it had disappeared. They were stuck, suspended in a cage over who knows how much blackness.

That's when Freddy appeared. Neither of them were looking at the center of the cage, they were staring dumbfounded at the place where their doors used to be, but they whirled round when they heard Freddy cackle.

There he was, the Nightmare King himself, standing in the center of the cage, Karen sitting at his feet crying. Freddy had one hand holding Karen's hair and the other, the one with the horrible knife-glove, was hanging absently by his side.

"Karen!" both Josh and Mike yelled out.

"Help!" Karen screamed back.

Freddy pulled Karen to her feet by her hair and wrapped an arm around her neck. He put on of his knife-fingers under her chin, pointed up.

Freddy chuckled again and said, "Go ahead, be a hero, save the little bitch!"

Freddy slowly brought the knife-finger from under Karen's chin and pressed it onto the top of her chest. He slid the finger across her skin, cutting it as easily as butter.

Karen screamed in pain as the wound started to bleed. She brought her hands up to it and started to cry harder.

"Let her go asshole!" Mike screamed at Freddy, his hands curling into fists.

"What did you say?" Freddy asked with a smirk on his face, and stabbed 2 of his knife-fingers into Karen's side.

Karen screamed again and doubled over as far as she could with Freddy's arm holding her neck, one of her hands was now pressed onto her side, the other tried to push Freddy's arms off.

"I said let her go! Dig the wax out of your ears you bastard!" Mike yelled at him.

Freddy laughed and said, "Come and get her then."