Coming down from the high of her fear, Freddy Krueger let his cackle finally die down. His head lowered only to find that Jennifer was no longer cowering on the floor. The floor was empty, signifying that the girl had awakened. In his moment of amusement, Jennifer had entirely faded away back to the waking world. It seemed she had been released from the nightmare he had conjured, still screaming.
Freddy brushed aside his sweater sleeve to look upon a watch that hadn't been there moments prior. With a satisfied grin, he tapped the smooth glass with a seared fingertip; "Just in time." Another though much shorter laugh seeped through his lips while he smoothed the sleeve back over the shape of the wristwatch. Once completely concealed, the watch disappeared regardless.
The dream demon was almost tempted to pat himself on the back. While time had a confounding way of working in the Dreamscape, Freddy had been at this shit long enough that he could accurately guesstimate just how long he had to work his magic. And despite his long hiatus from the Dream Realm, it seemed as though he hadn't lost his edge at all.
He wasted no time flicking his wrist at the mass of insects he had magicked. Their incessant noises were even starting to grate on his nerves. As if snagged by something invisible, every one of them stopped in exact unison to fall dead. The bastardizations of her family members remained in their places on the set that he had created, oblivious to the deceased bugs.
"Did I do good?" Asked Jennifer's sister, her bloodied mouth beaming at their mother from across the island. Lily Caddie returned the little girl's smile with a loving nod; "I'm so proud of you, Ally."
Max however seemed to pout. His shoulders drooped as he asked; "What about me?"
Scott chuckled and shook his head, flipping a page in the newspaper he had resumed to read; "You played your role great, son."
Alysson laughed gleefully; "She was soo scared!"
Yes she was. Freddy let a pleased grin rest on his mouth.
With a casual wave of his ungloved hand, Jennifer's kitchen melted away and dissolved into an environment that was far more familiar and welcoming in comparison. The bloodied figures of her family along with the flies just as quickly followed suit, vanishing and disintegrating into nothing. Freddy wasn't much the sentimental type, but even he had to admit that being back in the boiler room felt good. More than good. He felt at home.
Though 'boiler room' wasn't really accurate. It wasn't so much a room, but rather an endless cavern. It was meant to imitate the feel and scale of the power plant he had spent the last of his human years working. Yet the comparison was night and day. The real power plant had never been this size and thus had never been even half this foreboding. 'Boiler room' was just a generalization to name the space in which his dreamers had become acquainted with. He could count on one gloved hand how many times he had let anyone see the massive space from the outside. Though it was a dream trick, the landscape of twisted metal and rumbling machinery at times often felt more than just that. It was his world. His realm to rule.
Freddy Krueger inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring to take in the scents he had grown accustomed to. Raising both arms as if to enjoy a rain that never came, he looked up into the expanse of red, green, and orange stories above him. Even he failed to find the ceiling of the colossal room he stood in. Should he have looked over a railing on the level he was on, he imagined the same illusion of a ground floor so far down below that it would never be seen. Two wild howls in the distance assured him that he had been missed. Ohh, Blocker and Deeks...He could always count on those two to run their traps.
Letting the breath he had taken be slowly exhaled, his eyes momentarily closed. The feeling of terror he had stolen from her, the almost mouth-watering screams he had earned coursed through him. The high hadn't entirely dissipated, and coupled with the thought of what was to come, had him in a good mood. Better than he had felt in a while.
And it was made all the better now that he wasn't around all those other jackasses to keep him from enjoying it.
The immediate area in which he stood was almost a clearing, devoid of furnaces, pipes, machines, and bubbling vats. A metallic mesh floor was beneath his boots. There was no telling what level of the factory he was on, but that wasn't important enough to ponder. The clearing opened up into multiple passageways, boasting an array of options for a guinea pig of his choosing to wander through. The matter of selecting said guinea pig, now that, that was the current objective. And from where he stood, with his cruel playground of metal at his fingertips, it was only a matter of who. Who would be the unlucky first of many to come play?
A pattering of footfalls stole him from his thoughts. He half whirled to his left, his eyes narrowing at the sounds. Although before he could contemplate his questions and his murderous intentions, he stilled. Across from him, slowly spilling from the single file formation that one of the railed-in passageways allowed, were the children. All seven of them.
They gathered in a small crowd, all dressed in their usual attire of white lace and formal wear. Miniature replicas of the Elm Street Children stood before him. Freddy had almost forgotten that they would surely be awaiting his return. He had created them as any other dream trick, merely humanoid tools to be used, instruments of his malice. While they were only ghosts of their former selves, somewhere deep within resided some shred of the original's soul. He had initially created them as a way to forever bastardize their image, to forever conform to being helpless beings to wander his domain for all of time, never to know rest; Barred from any hope of achieving peace.
Though there were moments when the children sought not to aid him, but rather the dreamers he terrorized. They helped in small ways: Revealing paths to escape, singing his nursery rhyme as a way to warn the dreamers beforehand, vaguely hinting secrets to help sway the balance of power. While their interference could be annoying, it often was just that. A slight hindrance; A fly buzzing around a giant's head only to be swatted away.
And oh, how he enjoyed swatting down their hopes to help.
Freddy turned to face them fully, his eyes drinking in every face: Kristen Parker, Roland Kincaid, Will Stanton, Taryn White, Joey Crusel, Nancy Thompson, and-
A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Jennifer Caulfield.
What a small world.
He had elected to damn the seven of them and not the rest of the original Elm Street Children due to the simple fact that this group of brats had been the ones to evade death the longest. Their 'Dream Warrior' grouping had made for the most worthy of adversaries, and now to see how the mighty had fallen..It was an eternal punishment that never failed to bring a smile to his lips. He never forgot a name, let alone a face. The hundreds of lives he had claimed and ruined were with him always. They were like trophies, their souls all his for the taking. Whether it be his first victim or ever his last, Freddy Krueger would remember them all.
A humored squint came to his gaze, his head lulling into a tilt. His arms found their way back to his sides as his glove rested on his hip. "Well isn't this sweet. Ya came to see your Uncle Freddy. Ya shouldn't have." They really shouldn't have. Despite the humor that laced his tone of voice, he was growing ever so slightly impatient. The last throes of Jennifer's fear were finally dying away and he was quick to wanting to chase the remains. Slaughter was a taste he had been aching to savor again, but he couldn't get down to the meat and potatoes of a promised meal with them here.
Kincaid shuffled a step closer away from the rest of the children, one arm in his trouser pocket and the other up by his shoulder. His little hand uncomfortably massaged his neck, as if bothered by the itch of a phantom rope. Though one wouldn't know it by looking at him, the boy was struggling to hold himself up. The display of body language he fought so hard to convey, this façade of 'casual', couldn't mask the tremor in the arm rubbing at his nape. The brat was insistent that he not let the others see though. For someone so small, and Freddy had to hold back a laugh at the thought, he had a lot of pride. His previous strength was long gone, more than a bit sapped. Freddy had seen to that. Even Kincaid's voice tried to sound unaffected, tried to sound not so tired at having walked the distance; "You been gone a while." Some of the others nodded in agreement at the statement.
Freddy raised his chin, his scarred lips pursing together; "I have, haven't I?" It was true. He'd been gone far too long for his liking.
"We almost thought you were never coming back." Joked Will. There was a moment where his face had been lit by the thought, only for his eyes to scan the dream demon across from them. Will's eyes lowered to the floor, the punchline not so funny anymore. For him maybe, but for Freddy? The sight of his backfired joke hit home. His despondent expression appeared almost magnified behind the lenses of his laughably large glasses.
With a hearty chuckle, Freddy gestured about with a single blade; "Well I'm here now, and I'm not goin' anywhere." Flickers of despair lit the majority of their faces like candles placed in front of graves. The moment was rushed aside as Taryn pushed her way through the crowd of children to stand beside Kincaid, her poorly bandaged arms helping clear a path. Hastily casting away the messy locks from her face, Taryn asked; "Well where did you go?"
Unwanted memories flashed in his head of where he had been. He scowled at the imagery, banishing it away for the time being. He had better things to think about than the endless frustrations that had been Hell's waiting line. "Hell, where else?"
"But h-how did you get back?" It was Will that spoke again, his weight being supported by Joey Crusel standing at his side. While Will Stanton's dream power had been the ability to walk and use magic, Freddy had made sure to strip the boy of his 'Dream Warrior' abilities when he had first refashioned them all into children. That included all of their powers. Now his legs were once again useless to him, and Freddy hadn't been thoughtful enough to give him a wheelchair or crutches to get around since. It was usually Joey or Taryn that helped the disabled boy on his way to and fro.
Impatience was continuing to rise within the Elm Street Slasher, but the concept of letting the brats see that they were getting on his nerves wasn't one he found pleasing. He always wanted to maintain power, in every sense and in every occasion should he desire otherwise. So he stamped out the fire of his growing vexation, instead opting to give an answer that would open the door to no more questions:
"Good things to those who wait," Some of them went to open their mouths to insist upon answers, but he stopped them by wagging the same singular steel claw; "You'll get your answers, piglets. But for now, your Uncle Freddy's going to be busy. And ya know what happens to bad children that bother me when I'm busy, don'tcha?"
Several of them swallowed and shifted nervously, but their answer was one that replied in a well-trained unison; "Yes, Uncle Freddy."
Freddy Krueger smiled, more than pleased by the power he still held over them. He waved them off; "Well off ya go. You'll know when I'm finished." They didn't need to be told twice, Nancy especially. She was the first to leave, the one most eager to tear her gaze from his damning familiar visage. The rest of the Elm Street Children ran off from the way they had come, leaving only Joey and Taryn to help haul Will away. Kincaid hovered behind, no doubt wanting to help but not being physically capable to do so. Watching their well dressed forms leave, Freddy at last turned away to observe the boiler room again. His gloved hand twitched.
He glanced down at his partner in crime. The knives gleamed from the malicious lights the setting produced, more than ready to serve him. The well worn leather around the inside of the palm gave his hand an all too enjoyable itch: He was itching to shed some blood.
Just then the nagging feeling he had had earlier last night chose that moment to return to him. He wasn't the least bit interested in entertaining the emotion so he cast it aside for later. He had little patience to expend on anything that nagged him.
Deciding he had waited long enough, he closed his eyes and focused.
The Dreamscape was a plane of existence too immense to be properly fathomed. Traversing it, even for a dream demon of his expertise, was not an easy thing to do. Connecting to it had always given him the feeling of being blind. It wasn't something that could be described through vision, but rather with the other senses. Thankfully he had had plenty of time to hone the skill to do this and not only had time assisted him, he had the help of three other dream demons when it was needed. In the way Freddy Krueger made sense of the Dreamscape, it was through imagining it as an enormous spider web. Additionally he imagined himself as the spider that sat at its core.
Using the imagined web as a sensationalized map, Freddy would feel in which direction the nearest dreamer was located. In his head he imagined each dreamer as a captured fly marring the expanse that the web boasted. He would follow the silken lines leading henceforth, getting closer and closer until he happened upon said fly. From there he would select the innocent victim, and concentrate on its energy to draw it forth into his realm.
If he were successful, which nine times out of ten he was, the energy of the dreamer would melt into the humid atmosphere of his territory and soon enough he'd be able to conceive the sound of a heartbeat; The official sign of his success. Every person had their own kind of energy, very specific to themselves. Like a snowflake or a fingerprint, energy was highly customized to the owner. So once he got familiar with a certain energy, he would know just who he had pulled into his web.
Speaking of..
His eyes snapped open.
His figurative spiderweb lay empty.
Freddy narrowed his eyes fiercely, almost threatening to form them into slits. Now what the Hell was the meaning of this? Just as quickly as he had opened them, his eyes were screwing shut to try his hand at connecting to the Dreamscape a second time. Not even a minute later, his eyes once more flew open. He tore his head around to look from left to right, a snarl on his lips. Were the children to blame? No, no, he held the power here. Those pathetic shits could never have the power to restrict him from doing this. Something was amiss.
The nagging feeling returned.
Now pausing to contemplate this emotion, his mind rummaged for answers. Why couldn't he feel any dreamers? What the fuck was the issue? And how long would it take to solve said issue, before he could enjoy the feel of shoveling his blades into someone's intestines?
After all, he'd been to Vegas just fine. Been in the real world without much issue. No one had given him a second look thanks to the doll's know-how when it came to voodoo, however rusty it was. The only inconvenient thing about the glamour he had worn for the boys trip had been seeing his human self in a mirror again. So what..
As his mind flipped through the mental notes of the trip, he happened upon the most annoying parts of it; The most relevant segments. Every single time he had tried to slink off to the Dreamscape for a little fun of his own, they had put a stop to it. Every. Single. Time. Whether on purpose or entirely by accident, they hadn't let him go. He had been cockblocked from invading the dreams of those that lived in 'Sin City'. Both Voorhees and Myers had gotten their own kicks out of preventing him from it the most. Excluding the use of alcohol or narcotics, Chucky had insisted that they stay lucid for the trip.
Freddy could almost envision the shorter killer in front of him now as he recalled the other reason he hadn't been allowed to enter the Dream Realm at that time: 'You can't leave anyhow. The minute you leave this realm, that glamour I gave you is gonna wear off. And I ain't makin' you another one. Hate to admit it, but this Good Guy ain't as good as he used to be at that shit. So you're stayin'. Get over it. Now get your pants on and let's hit the strip.'
As a result, he had never gotten to run into this roadblock.
His frustration outpaced his patience to think rationally. It had him inhaling sourly through his nose, his gaze turning heavenwards which was ironic; "A little help here, fellas?"
The howls and shouts of the other three dream demons came to him before they themselves did. Screaming like banshees, laughing like mad men, the demonic trio hurtled like malevolent comets through the air. Their tiny shapes soared through the heights of the boiler room, looping, racing, the skeletal bodies wriggling in earnest to get to him. Through the shadows of boilers and titanium beams they emerged, one in particular bumping a chain along the way causing it to swing idly, the red pinpoints of their eyes glowing like the heat of red hot coals.
Freddy watched their gleeful entrance with a hardly contained eyeroll.
At last the three of them hovered in the air in front of him, their bony tails moving back and forth like monstrous tadpoles as if to keep themselves afloat.
"Freddy." They greeted simultaneously. Their bodies were small, but their voices were anything but. While they looked like deadly triplets, their voices were in no way similar. Telling them apart based on looks was a lost cause seeing as they were all identical. And looking the way they did, it was next to impossible to tell what gender they were. The only way to successfully tell them apart from one another was only when they spoke.
Nidra: The one with the highest voice.
Somnum: The one that balanced between the deepest and the highest in tone.
Alu: The one with the deepest voice.
Those were their names.
Freddy had never known much else about the Dream People. And despite their eagerness to aid his cause and to fuel his need to maim the innocent, they hadn't explained much about themselves. Not that Freddy asked. Though their answers were often vague enough to kill any motivation to dig deeper. All that mattered was that they helped him do what he did best. Which right now he apparently was unable to do.
"What seems to be ailing you?" Hissed Nidra.
"I wanna know why I can't sense anyone. The Dreamscape feels empty, but I know that ain't the case. Why can't I pull anyone in?"
The three demons exchanged glances.
"Do you not recall?" Asked Alu curiously.
Freddy put both of his hands on his hips, more than a little annoyed that he hadn't received an immediate, straight-to-the-point answer; "Do ya think if I recalled whatever it was that I needed to, that I'd be askin' ya this in the first place? Recall what?" He asked dryly. The demon on his left, the only one that had yet to speak, flew closer to him. That left no doubt that it had to be Somnum that did so.
"You have been forgotten, Freddy." Stated Somnum gravely.
Forgotten.
The word sat like a boulder inside his stomach. It was a concept he loathed, one he utterly detested. He had only ever been forgotten once, asides from his jilted offspring. And that hadn't been since-
Freddy almost growled his displeasure. Not since maggot-head Jason Voorhees had gotten involved. Forgotten. Hell, he had forgotten about being forgotten. The realization hit him then. That's right, he was in an entirely new state. Freddy wasn't in Ohio anymore. His home town was a ways away. He was in Georgia now, and as far as Augusta, Georgia was concerned, there was no Freddy Krueger. Never had been. Point blank, his problem was that no one knew of him. At least not yet.
Freddy Krueger snarled a slew of curses. He spun and threw down his right arm in a vicious swipe at a mass of pipes that were closest. While he was feet away, his rage reached out for him. As though they had been clawed by a giant, not-able-to-be-seen animal, their metal bodies burst apart from four identical lines. Steam surged forth from the open wounds to their surfaces. Additionally the other colors of the boiler room waned and dimmed to be substituted with an ominous, lurid looking red. The three dream demons watched him do this silently, their gnarled bodies shifting to watch. He faced towards them again, his shoulders being enveloped in a cloud of white, hissing steam. He felt no pain, only rising anger.
And hatred.
Hatred for the thing called Jason Voorhees.
If only the dumb goalie had played his role accordingly. Then he wouldn't be in this situation! The big, dumb fuck didn't need to be recognized in order to spill as much blood as he wanted. Whereas Freddy on the other hand, had been signed into a sort of contract; One that had a limited amount of loopholes.
Loopholes.
It replaced the other, less enjoyable term. Just as quickly as his fury had surged forth, it was easing, being replaced with calculation in its stead. The heave of his chest slowed. His gloved hand rose in thought to trail the flat end of his index blade under his nose. There had to be loopholes. Damned if he were going to make the same mistake twice. Unlike Voorhees, he was an old dog that could be taught new tricks.
"You have been in this scenario before, Freddy. All is not yet lost." Alu was reminding him. It was a vague prod in the right direction, but one that was ultimately unnecessary. Freddy knew right then where his loophole was, and exactly how to utilize it. He had done it before and he would do it again. While he could learn new tricks, it wouldn't hurt to employ one he already knew worked so well. Kristen Parker had taught him that already. The little bitch was bound to have friends, right? And her friends would become his stepping stones.
"The girl is the key." Nidra crooned, causing the other two to laugh sinisterly.
So it seemed. His much sought after loophole was none other than Jennifer Caddie, the one that Hell had almost literally dropped into his lap. And Freddy was going to enjoy breaking her down and using her to his advantage.