Chapter 3
Another Secret of Elm Street

"Jill? Everything okay in there?"

The cry rang out through the house, instantly sending Jill awake. The old demon that had haunted her throughout her late childhood days had sprung back…with a vengeance. It wasn't enough that she had to put up with that, but she also had to suffer the Spencer estate and Raccoon City.

She shook herself away from the bed sheets and walked out to the kitchen. She'd been sharing the house with Chris ever since Harvardville had officially become known as 'The Survivor City' because almost all the T-virus survivors had moved there.

Chris was leaning against the counter, his Under Armor t-shirt barely keeping his muscles concealed through the dark fabric. He was also wearing sweatpants, which were his usual bed-clothes.

"What was all that screaming about in the bedroom? You were sweating like a pig after a mud fight; you were shaking so much." Jill looked at him in the eye for a brief second, then trailed off from the gaze, replying, "I had a horrible nightmare last night; I could barely get any sleep in." With those words, she could almost feel her eyelids drooping.

"Well, that doesn't explain why it looked like it seemed so real to you. I'd have thought someone was…attacking you from the inside." The last words of Chris's sentence sprang Jill back awake, because in those words, his head was replaced with that of the demon's: the burns, the hat, the eyes that never stopped burning.

"It did seem real to me, Chris." For the first time that he could remember, Jill had lost herself to fear. "It felt like Raccoon City ten times worse…a monster worse than anything in that city. It felt so real…" She trailed off, obviously scared beyond her wits again from trying to recount it.

Chris rubbed his chin in thought, his fingers scraping across the coarse stubble that decorated his chin. Then he looked over at the refrigerator door, asking, "Did it have anything to do with that?"

Jill looked in his direction, and she saw the same thing: an old newspaper clipping, its picture showing a girl jumping rope while 2 other identical girls swung it for her. The caption below it read:

b1, 2, Freddy's coming for you…3, 4, better lock your door…5, 6, grab your crucifix…7, 8, gonna stay up late…9, 10, never sleep again/b

Jill looked at the clipping, then back at Chris in wonderment and more fear. "How'd you get that?"

Chris, acting like he didn't hear the question, pressed on. "Did this monster have razor right fingers, a red and green sweater, a dark brown hat, and burn scars all over his face?"

"Yeah, that was him! Those girls in my dream kept calling him Freddy." With one stunned revelation came another. "But how do you know?"

"Because I used to live in Springwood…"

uiWhen Claire and I were kids, we used to live in that small town of Springwood. Our parents had warned us about Krueger many times, but all the other kids we knew kept telling us that he was long past dead. They said he'd been burnt alive by the angry parents of the kids that he killed. But he kept invading our dreams, for one reason or another. Maybe it was because he wanted revenge for what they did.

It also could've been because…my dad had a sister that fell prey to Krueger when she was only 5 years old. She was his last victim before he was brought to justice. But all these years later, I never even expected him to come back. I even had a dream about him, when he was chasing me through the bowels of his boiler room. Before I woke up, I had barely enough time to snag that clipping...

"Well, that was years ago. Why's he coming back to us now?" Jill's question was answered by Chris wrapping his arms around her, whispering, "I don't know, Jill, but I'd rather die for you than for you to be his slicing meat." Then he silenced her, her soft lips responding by pressing back against his, believing all that she could…

"Hmm…quite a noble gesture on your part, Redfield", Freddy snarled as he tore open another undead 'citizen', watching it disappear before its very eyes. "Don't worry, you'll have your chance to die for the cause soon enough. I tried to tell you that making sacrifices was bad for you", he continued, delivering the last with a flourish of his blades and the demonlike smile only he did so well.