Chapter 9

Back to the Real World…but Not to Safety

But what they didn't know was that it was all too easy.

Hopefully, they can't read my killer mind, Freddy thought. "What are you gonna do with me?", he asked, trying to keep his tone as worried as possible, fighting an urge not to laugh out loud at their gullibility.

"What we should've done a long time ago, Krueger", another familiar voice said, as more people began to appear beside Johnson and Chambers, and the one who spoke- he should've known.

He still had his chainsaw over his wrist, the old shotgun in his hand, and that smart-aleck attitude that ticked him off so much.

"Good to see you too, Ash-hole. How's that hunt for the book treating you?" Freddy's retort rang out on deaf ears as he grabbed hold of him on one side, while an unfamiliar woman in a BSAA uniform grabbed him on the other. "Wakey, Jakey", she said in another horrible pun as they went through the tunnel...

…and woke up back in the White House room. Leon, hearing the noise, snapped out of it big-time, hand reaching for his gun. Ever since his last encounter with Krueger, he hadn't been able to sleep heavily enough to dream. But what he saw made him almost refuse to believe that this was real.

Ash was now in a sitting position on the floor, with Rebecca and Jacob connected at the hip a couple inches away. But now they'd brought 2 people with them: Jill Valentine, whom Leon didn't have the first clue how she got there. She had been knocked out, but Leon didn't know that either. And, o'course…

"Freddy…" The name was barely out of his mouth, before Krueger snapped up to his full height. Leon brought the handgun up to aim, and squeezed the trigger, a cough of fire sending a piece of death metal into Krueger's brain.

But it still wasn't enough. Krueger's red eyes looked up toward his own forehead, and he took his burnt, clawless hand, and reached for the bullet, his hand melding with his forehead. At this, everyone in the room, excepting Ash, looked on in frightened wonderment. Leon looked first to Krueger, who flicked the useless bulled down to the floor with a smirk, to Ash, who just looked on with a complexion of pure hatred.

"The Necronomicon never let me go, bitches", Freddy retorted, as his clawed hand swiped out for Rebecca. "Die, you little-!" But what he didn't count on was Jacob standing in front of her, and instead, the claw raked across his upheld wrist, a cry escaping his lips.

Ash revved up his chainsaw, bringing it down to slice Freddy up—

-but his claws, now streamed with blood, met with the chain and made the chainsaw stall. For almost too long. But keeping with what opportunity he had left, Ash unholstered his boomstick and gripped it by the barrel, smacking Krueger across the gut with it, the claws releasing from the chain, letting it run smoothly. Ash flipped the boomstick back to shooting position—

-but 2 of the bloody talons stuffed themselves down the barrels. Ash, a stunned look on his face, looked down at the barrels, then back to Freddy, an evil smirk on his face. Jacob and Rebecca began to lunge at Freddy, but he ripped their grips from his arm and swatted them away with almost inhuman strength. This same result met with Angela after she tried tackling him with all the desperate strength of a linebacker for the Pittsburg Steelers. Noticing that Ash was trying to get away in the meantime, Freddy grabbed Ash's soaked blue shirt and pulled him close with a demonic whisper…

"This is my world now, goody little 2-shoes."

At the last, the evil smirk grew wider, broader, Freddy's remaining, rotting teeth transforming into a full set of jagged demon jaws. His eyes even took on a demon-like shape, as fire seemed to burn from within them. The burns seemed to grow worse on Freddy's face, almost showing the bone underneath. Freddy's claws still remained in the barrels, but he ripped them out with such recoil that ripped Ash from Freddy's grasp and flung him to the wall. But the fight wasn't completely out of him yet.

"Whoa, Freddy…were you born that ugly?" The exclamation left Ash's mouth as Leon quietly crept up from behind Freddy, but just as he was about to take aim, he noticed an irregular rectangle-shaped mound underneath Freddy's tattered sweater. Curious, Leon drew the gun, forced it into the mound, and pulled the trigger twice. Immediately after that, something no one expected took place there…

Freddy's back bent inward as his head flew back with a shriek of pain. But it wasn't just him doing it. Joining him was a chorus of demonic voices that seemed to Leon as if they were coming from the mound on his back.

Wait... Freddy said that the Necronomicon never let him go. Could that be it, stuck on his back? But just as he was about to tell the others, Freddy turned around to Leon and smacked him to another wall with his claws, leaving 4 shallow marks in Leon's left side, slightly below his ribs. Amazingly, they weren't life-threatening, but they'd hurt like a son of a bitch. Leon, looking like he was holding up the wall with all the pain, stood himself up…but too late. Freddy was gone, and Leon thought he could almost see the waves in the air where Freddy once stood.

"Where'd he go! Where the hell is he?" The scream went out amidst everyone else's unknowing shrugs, but Leon noticed that Ash and Jacob were looking at each other, and then nodding. This made him suspicious, not knowing what these 2 knew already.

The suspicions were about to rise on Leon's lips, but Rebecca was already there. "What are you 2 thinking?"Angela's curious gaze, brought on by Rebecca's inquiry, was followed by Leon's visible qualms. What could Jacob and Ash be up to?

"To answer Leon's question, where do you think Krueger would go that would get the most rise for him? That would send your mind reeling with fear and anger?" At first it was inconceivable to Leon, Rebecca, and Angela to comprehend. There was no way he could've gone back there. And yet…it seemed to make perfect sense.

"Of freaking course", Rebecca finally whispered, as what she was thinking was paralleled with everyone else as they said, with one voice…

"Raccoon City."

Leon could almost feel the gauntness in his face coming back as he grabbed Angela's hand and looked out toward the direction of the hell on earth he'd been through. Rebecca turned to Jacob as she held on to him, Jacob following suit. Ash looked down at the floor, wondering what they were going to do about this whole fiasco, when he noticed that Jill was coming back around. Unscrewing the chainsaw from his nub and replacing it with his gauntlet hand, he knelt down beside Jill.

"You okay, Jill?" She looked up at her with a determined, yet quite scared gaze, and nimbly wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in her shoulder. Ash could just barely hear her whisper of "I've been better." Jill pushed herself back and let Ash pull her to her feet, as Jacob looked out in a different direction from Leon. Everyone noticed the change in his complexion, and everyone turned to him wondering what he was feeling.

"What's going on, Jacob?" Jacob turned to Angela in response to her question, as he answered, "Krueger's trying to kill someone else now. It feels like the victim's a former S.T.A.R.S. member from Raccoon City. He's putting up a good fight…" He trailed off for a second, noticing Jill's frightful, yet hopeful, eyes looking at him. Obviously, she knew the guy in question.

Jacob delivered the last, shattering all but a shard of hope from Jill.

"…but it feels like Krueger's winning."