Title: Fearless
Rating: M for Language, Violence, Grotesquerie, and General Trippiness
Summary: A girl suffers trauma to her temporal lobe. The result: no fear. ~ Squint and turn the screen sideways for romantic subtext. Less than 1000 words per drabble.
Disclaimer & Important Notes:
I don't own Freddy. I don't want to own Freddy. He's a bad, bad man. I do not own Elm Street, either, though once I stole a sign.
None of the poems in this piece are mine. They are a collection of Mother Goose nursery rhymes, poems from children's books and stories, and songs passed down through generations of children and parents to acquaintances who were kind enough to let me use them.
Entry Two, Night Six: Furnace
Word Count: 536
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Furnace
Night 6
Her hand glided along the smooth metal pipes. She didn't recall how she'd gotten here, or where she was. Her hand gripped the pipe tightly. It was steaming; beads of condensation should have been slick under her palm. Rust and fragmented paint should have bit into her skin.
She felt nothing.
Dream, she decided. Boiler room.
Strange, that. She'd never dreamed of a boiler room before. Perhaps it was because of what Lizard had said, just the day before she died of a brain hemorrhage. At least she'd gone mercifully in her sleep.
The lights were red and dusky. Someone was crying. Screaming, then. Ash tilted her head consideringly. She imagined her heartbeat slowly picking up, thudding faster. She imagined the painful ache of it thumping against her breastbone. She imagined perspiration on her upper lip, trembling hands, clenched teeth.
Nothing.
She followed the sound of the tears, the wet screams. As she drew nearer, they were joined by another, lower sound: chuckling, and masculine grunts, and the sound of metal on metal. And then footsteps: loud and frenzied, rattling the caged metal floor.
She dodged aside as the little girl flew around the corner and stumbled, hitting her bloody knees hard and clawing frantically across the catwalk. She slipped under one of the boilers, trying to stifle her sobs.
Ash hesitated before deciding to play along. She crouched. "Little girl," she said softly. "Why are you afraid?"
"Shhhh," the child whispered wretchedly, snuffling and hiccupping. "You can hide here too, if you want."
Ash reached for her. "Don't be silly," she said softly. "Come out—"
"No!" the girl squealed, then slapped both dirty hands over her mouth. She shook her head in panic instead, her big eyes wide and reflecting the red light.
"It's dangerous under there," Anne said firmly, because she knew it to be true. She stretched further, closing her hand on the little girl's forearm and pulling her out, even as she kicked and protested. On her knees, Ash brushed the cornsilk-blond hair out of the child's eyes. "You're the first thing that's felt real to me in any dream," she marvelled, touching the child's shoulder. "It's going to be okay, kiddo. What's your name?"
The girl trembled. "Annie."
"Well, Annie," Ash said conversationally. "My name is Ash Kindwall. This is just a dream. So don't be scared, okay?"
"But there's a man," Annie whispered. "With a claw! And he's coming to h-hurt me!"
"Coming?" a voice rasped. "I'm already here."
Ash looked over her shoulder slowly. A man was leaning lazily against the pipes, smaller than average but exuding a lean, whipcord-strength. A fedora was pulled low on his brow, and the hazy red glow was behind him. He was nothing but a silhouette, a smudge of darkness against the bloody light.
Ash eyed him consideringly, then looked at Annie, who was a now a sodden mess of tears. "Okay," she said simply, lifted her hand, and brought a ringing slap down on the girl's face.
Annie blinked up at Ash, her mouth forming a startled "o", and then she blinked out of existence.
"Huh," Freddy said, pushing his hat back indolently with a bare, scarred hand. "Funny thing. I didn't feel you coming, bitch."
Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home,
Your house is on fire and your children are burned,
All except one and that's little Anne,
For she crept under the frying pan.
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