Dream Team
Chapter 5
Kim couldn't exactly explain why but when the taxi arrived she made sure that Ron sat on the far side of the back seat and she made sure she was next to him and Shego was on the opposite end. She wasn't jealous of how close Ron and Shego were getting, really she wasn't. It was just maybe she wanted to be the one in the middle for a change?
In any case Kim was feeling very tired so she allowed her eyes to close while Ron and Shego attempted small talk with the taxi driver as he drove them to the mental asylum that Nancy Thompson had been confined to.
Ron never being too tactful came right out and asked the cabbie if he had ever heard the name Freddy Krueger. The cab driver had glanced back at Ron through the rear view mirror and with a very thick Hindu accent had replied he had not lived very long in Springwood so he didn't know the people very well but that he was an excellent driver and would get them where they wanted to go.
Shego gave him the name of the mental hospital Westin Hills and asked if he knew where it was located. The man smiled at her through the mirror, nodded his head and repeated that he was an excellent driver and would get them where they wanted to go.
Shego looked over at Ron who just shrugged and settled back. All they could do was hope that their driver was an excellent driver and he would get them where they wanted to go.
With the gentle motion of the driving and the silence that descended after Ron's failed attempt of conversation with their driver, Kim felt herself start to drift off. She tried to hold it off, what with Ron and Shego's ridiculous theory that this Krueger person could somehow attack a person while they were asleep but she was tired.
Feeling a sudden jolt Kim opened her eyes to find the cab had stopped. Not only stopped but she was the only person now in the vehicle at all! The driver's compartment up front was empty and looking around she noticed that Ron and Shego were no where to be seen in the back with her either. Peering out the windows she could see that the cab was parked in a nearly empty parking lot with what looked like a hospital nearby. That is a hospital if hospitals had large bell towers in the center of them.
"Ooh! If Ron and Shego have left me behind while they went in to talk to this Nancy person alone I'll kill them!" Kim ranted out loud. She certainly would never actually harm either one of them but it made her better to say that out loud anyway.
"Don't worry darling. I'll be your new boyfriend now!" A gravely voiced called out in the empty car.
Looking widely around Kim spotted nobody but she did notice that the upholstery of the back seat which had been a plastic looking mock leather was now a red and green striped pattern that looked like a Christmas sweater she had once gotten from her Nana. As Kim was noticing this a arm tipped with finger knives grew out of the upholstery and impossibly wrapped itself several times around her waist and arms pinning her. Quickly turning her head she saw that she was no longer alone in the back seat but a horribly burned man was sitting beside her. It was his freakishly long arm that was wrapped around her.
Kim didn't freak out. She was well used to dealing with super freaks every day of her life. She merely raised an eyebrow. "I take it you are Freddy Krueger?"
Freddy's grin faded a bit at the way Kim was being nonplussed but he inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment. "That's me sweet cheeks." He then ran a desiccated tongue over cracked and rotting teeth. Kim thought to herself if he was trying to scare her he wasn't succeeding but he was grossing her out.
"I'm not afraid of you." Kim told him defiantly.
Freddy seemed to consider for a moment. "Well it is more fun when they are scared but not a prerequisite."
Kim swallowed nervously when she saw the knife tipped glove hovering near her face and her eyes.
"Just think how terrified your little friends will be when you suddenly have no eyes sitting next to them." Freddy snickered.
As Freddy's arm, which was still wrapped around Kim's waist pining her arms, reared back like a cobra about to strike. Kim resisted the urge to close her eyes but couldn't stop the tear that appeared at the corner of her eye. At least Ron would have Shego to look after him after she was gone and to her surprise Kim was actually relieved by that fact. She would have hated dying knowing that it would leave Ron alone.
Suddenly a pink blur scrambled up Freddy's arm and latched it's teeth into Freddy's arm between the sweater and the edge of the glove, Rufus rode as the arm began to thrash about making it seem even more snakelike.
Freddy's eyes grew wide and with a yell his arm began to retract, rapidly unwinding around Kim.
Rufus let go and landed in Kim's lap.
Kim suddenly found herself free as Freddy clutched his now normal length knife glove hand with his other.
Now standing on Kim's leg Rufus bared his teeth at Freddy and angrily squeaked something out.
Kim wasn't certain what it was Rufus said but she had the feeling if she could have understood him she would have been tempted to wash his mouth out for using such foul language.
"Freaking little rat! I'll use your guts for bootlaces!" Freddy hissed and raised his finger knives to slash.
Suddenly Kim felt a strong warmth on either side of her. A sense of love and protection flooded into her. As Freddy's hand shot towards Rufus a barrier of green and blue sprang up around Kim and Rufus and Freddy's hand doubled up as if it slammed into a solid brick wall.
"Princess! Wake up! Don't you dare leave us!" Kim could hear faintly Shego's voice calling to her.
"KIM! Oh god! Kim wake up! Please!" Ron's also faint but frantic voice could be heard.
scene change
Ron riding in the taxi stifled a yawn with an effort. The sun was starting to go down and he was very tired but no matter how tired he was, he wasn't going to go to sleep while they were in Springwood. Glancing across he noticed Shego was as wide awake as he was, while Kim seemed to be nodding.
Reaching over he nudged Kim and Kim murmured that she was awake.
Turning he watched the scenery as the taxi left the city of Springwood and started out to the countryside.
"Westin Hills must be outside the city limits?" Ron mused.
"Not many people want a loony bin or a prison in their city." Shego agreed.
Ron turned to look over at her. "I don't think we should refer to it as a loony bin when we meet Nancy do you?" He asked jokingly. He suddenly stopped when he noticed Kim was sitting with her eyes closed and was sweating. As he watched she twitched as if struggling to be free of something.
"Shego!" Ron shouted.
"What?" Shego asked turning her attention away from the window she had been looking out of. As she turned she saw Kim. Reaching out she clutched the younger woman. "Princess! Wake up! Don't you dare leave us!"
Ron clutched desperately at Kim's other side. "KIM! Oh god! Kim wake up! Please!"
Kim with a mighty gasp woke up and looked wildly around. Finding herself once again back in the car with Shego and Ron she tried to slow her wildly beating heart but a sudden thought caused her to stiffen once again.
"Where's Rufus?" She asked turning to stare fully at Ron.
Ron blinked for a second and then reaching into his pants' pocket he pulled the naked mole rat out and seeing him with his eyes closed he gently shook him until he woke up. Rufus awoke with his teeth bared and for a moment Ron was reminded on how Shego had almost took his head off with her plasma fire as she awoke from one of Freddy's dreams.
"Easy buddy, easy! It's me! You are awake now."
Rufus's obvious fear disappeared and he ran up Ron's arm to wrap his tiny hands around Ron's neck in a hug before scampering over to Kim and hugged her. To Shego's surprise, he even ran over and hugged her as well.
"Well I take it you and Princess have both met Freddy too?" Shego asked unnecessarily.
Rufus now standing in her lap nodded his head and making a face he waved one of his tiny hands as if slashing something.
Kim's rational mind now that the nightmare was over with tried to reassert itself. She wanted to argue with Ron and Shego once again that Freddy wasn't real but she could still feel the memory of the pressure of his arm wrapped around her so she remained quiet and just wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.
"Its obvious now that Freddy knows who we are and is hunting us. We have to find someway to defeat him and quickly! We can't stay awake forever."
Shego looked down at her hands. "I can take him! I know I can. Whatever that freak can do he won't be able to stand up to my fire."
Kim shook her head at Shego. "No. That's a bad idea. We don't know if your plasma fire can work in dreams and it is more than likely that Freddy will just trick you into attacking Ron again like you almost did at the restaurant."
Shego frowned. "Then what do we do Princess?" Resorting to using her pet name for Kim the way she always does when upset or nervous.
"What happened in your dream Kim?" Ron asked.
Kim Possible shuddered slightly in remembrance but then began to relate how she had found herself pinned in the back seat alone and how Rufus had appeared and saved her from having her eyes cut out. She then told how Freddy had been about to slash Rufus when a bubble of green and blue light sprang up around them and Freddy's knife glove had bounced off of it.
"What caused the light?" Shego wondered.
Kim shrugged but then said. "I don't know but then I heard you and Ron's voice begging me to wake up."
"Rufus was able to enter your dream because both you and him were asleep at the same time. So far Freddy has only attacked us separately because we were never asleep at the same time before! Maybe if we all go to sleep at the same time we can join forces and fight him?" Ron asked.
Shego shook her head. "Maybe as a final solution if it comes down to it but speaking as a ex-villain, it is never a good idea to face your enemy on their turf. Who knows what he can really do in our dreams?" Shego said conveniently forgetting that just a few moments ago she was all ready to fight him alone in her dreams but she wasn't ready to risk Ron or Kim in the same manner.
The sound of the Kimmunicator went off startling everyone in the backseat of the cab. Pulling it out of her pocket Kim looked at it and said, "Go Wade. What have you got?"
Wade's face appeared on the screen and both Ron and Shego leaned towards Kim so they could all see him.
"I was doing some checking on Nancy Thompson and found something interesting that I thought you might like to see. It seems her mother checked her into the Katja Institute for Sleep Disorders about a week ago. I hacked into their files and found some footage they recorded of her during a sleep test."
Wade's image was replaced by footage of a young woman lying in a bed while some kind of doctor and a nurse attached electrodes all over her face.
This was the first time Team Possible had a chance to see Nancy Thompson and all three of them bent their heads over the Kimmunicator to get the best look they could. She appeared a normal enough looking young teen. Brown hair framed a attractive face, or what could be an attractive face if it wasn't for the fact that fear, worry and obvious lack of sleep were affecting her. She had dark rings under her eyes and it was obvious to all that she must not have slept in a very long time.
The group continued to watch as Nancy after a few moments fell asleep.
She looked fairly peaceful at first but then she started twitching as if running or fighting someone off.
Finally she awoke with a scream and the video camera recorded the doctor and what could only be the young woman's mother as they ran in to the view of the camera and tried to calm her down.
The tape had no sound but it was obvious that Nancy objected most strongly to the doctor's efforts to inject her with something. Most probably a sedative to try and put her back to sleep.
Suddenly the young woman reached under the sheets covering her and pulled out a old dusty looking hat.
Ron, Shego and Kim could see the obvious shock of recognition that crossed the mother's face at the hat and they didn't need sound to conclude her mother was demanding to know from her daughter where she had gotten the hat.
Wade's voice suddenly came over the Kimmunicator while the footage continued. "I had my computer do a lip recognition scan, a sort of lip reading by computer and the transcript says that Nancy told her mother she pulled the hat off the man attacking her in her dreams."
The footage ended.
"The records of Katja clinic show that Nancy's mother pulled her out after that incident." Wade's voice added as he came back on screen.
Shego shook her head in disbelief. "Is it possible to pull something from your dreams into the waking world?"
Wade on the screen shook his head as well. "I would have said absolutely not before this. I mean if you could grab a hold of something in your dreams and pull it out with you, I would have dozens of super models living with me." Wade's eyes grew wide as he realized what he had said and coughed and avoided looking at Kim, Ron and Shego as he typed at his computer.
Even with all the danger and fear going on about their situation, Kim felt a tiny smile tug at her lips. Wade was reaching the stage where he no longer thought girls were icky and was becoming interested in the opposite sex. She made a mental note that when they got home to make sure she never left the Kimmunicator out in the open when her, Ron and Shego had another one of their 'parties'. Wade maybe entering puberty but Kim was damn sure her and Shego weren't going to help him with it. She noticed out of the corner of her eye that Ron was nodding his head.
"And I would have hundreds of Kim and Shego clones living with me already." Ron muttered to himself. He had hoped that it was low enough that Kim or Shego hadn't heard him but a glance to the side revealed Kim frowning at him and Shego smiling.
In an attempt to get the images of dozens of Shegos and Kims from his dreams, Ron concentrated on what they had seen of the Katja video footage. Suddenly his eyes grew wide.
"That's it! That's what all those traps were in the Thompson household for!"
Kim and Shego looked over at Ron is shock and Ron could even see Wade looking at him curiously from the Kimmunicator screen.
"Nancy pulled Krueger's hat off when he attacked her in that dream at Katja, right?"
Kim and Shego could only nod. It certainly looked like that was what had happened.
Kim's eyes grew wide as she too followed Ron's reasoning.
"Nancy's mother took her back home and put up security bars around the windows and doors so she couldn't rely on help from the outside so..."
Shego contiuned. "She planted booby traps in her house and then went to sleep and when Krueger attacked her she grabbed a hold of him and somehow forced herself awake pulling Krueger out of the dream world into ours!" Shego blinked. "But what happened then? Why didn't her booby traps take Krueger out and how did he get back into the dream world again?"
Ron shrugged. "I guess we'll have to ask Nancy that ourselves."
Feeling the taxi pull to a stop Kim looked around and noticed they were in a nearly empty parking lot. The sun was starting to set and the lengthening shadows cast an ominous gloom over everything. She could just make out a sign that said Westin Hills on it. It would seem that their taxi driver was an excellent driver and had gotten them to their destination. That the parking lot looked a awful like the one in her dream made Kim shiver slightly but the presence of Ron and Shego on either side of her comforted her.
Shego looked at the frankly spooky looking place. "Let's just hope Nancy can answer our questions. She is after all been locked up by her father in a mental asylum. Maybe Krueger drove her around the bend?"