A/N: Hey "Anon", thanks so much for reviewing! It's been my life's goal to cause fangirl (and fanboy) attacks in my readers. Glad to see I've finally succeeded; check that off the bucket list. :)

Also, thank-you to Darkness Takes Over and thatredheadedchick for reviewing chapter 6. I bless your crops: may your harvests be plentiful. Unless you don't have harvests, in which case: may your purchases from the grocery store be discounted with many coupons!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own A Nightmare on Elm Street or any of its characters.

WARNING: CERTAIN CHAPTERS OF THE FOLLOWING STORY WILL CONTAIN GRAPHIC SEXUAL CONTENT, GRAPHIC VIOLENCE, AND ADULT LANGUAGE. TO AVOID SPOILERS, THERE WILL NOT BE INDIVIDUAL WARNINGS FOR EACH CHAPTER.


Chapter Seven: Balls

A shower of glowing orange sparks spurted out from the grating of stone on metal. They grayed like dying embers before a single one reached the cement floor. The stone slid up a long curved blade, turning within the firm grip of a charred hand. Freddy held the base of the middle blade next, and the worn leather glove attached to it hung limply in the boiling hot air. The other three finger-knives fell away and dangled. If his sweat glands hadn't melted off years ago, droplets would be collecting on his forehead as he leaned into his work. The sound of grinding picked up its pace, becoming faster, more violent. Steel and stone clashed in an angry rhythm like animals copulating.

Working out his frustrations on the next blade, he unhinged his thoughts and allowed them to settle on her again. His greatest trophy. His greatest loss. A loss, because he had taken her and ripped her apart too quickly, and now all he could do was act out the moment of her death over and over like a masturbatory fantasy. The real thing was buried and rotting. Every drop of blood that he could draw from her would be a cheap simulation. A peek into a dirty magazine. And that never satisfied him quite like the thrust of flesh into flesh.

He hadn't planned on this insatiable aching in his groin and in his chest. He had thought he could keep her caged like a pet and stab, slice, fuck the girl whenever the mood took him. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Knowing he could never have her body again made him want her more than he ever had. This craving would eat him alive. He could sense his desire corroding into something charcoal-black, and the festering sack of maggots hanging dead beneath his breastbone almost beat again. But not with any human emotion. For Freddy, untapped lust could only take one form: seething and demonic hatred.

Then an expected interruption.

He halted his work and turned enough to see over his hunched shoulder. Hesitant footsteps came up behind him, stopping a safe distance from the workbench. A pair of doll-sized Mary Jane shoes scuttled backwards as Freddy stood up and pushed the bench aside with his knee.

"Come here, Anne," he said, extending his hand, eager to distract himself from his irritating thoughts. She curled her tiny fingers around it and he led her to the wall on their right. A long antique mirror hung there that Anne recognized as her mother's from the 1960's. The glass was framed with carved ivory, and two little cherubs sat at the top wearing the same mysterious smiles that they had on all those years ago. She remembered the afternoons spent playing dress up and standing in awe of her own reflection, taking pride in the idea that she would grow up to look exactly like her mommy. The Sunday hats had been too big and the dresses had pooled around her feet and drooped over her hands, but the resemblance was there. The hope for a future was there.

She stared at her image with a practiced detachment. The frilly white dress and plaited pigtails were like a second skin for her. They were the markers of a stagnant childhood that had outlasted its own innocence, promising an endless fate of hopscotch, jump rope and singing a nursery rhyme that made her sick.

When she tried to look back at Freddy, who overshadowed her from behind, he grabbed her chin and straightened her head. "Keep watching," he told her.

With his other hand, he tugged her braids out and let her hair fall loose as a tingling sensation crawled through her bones. It rushed from her core to the tips of her fingers and toes before radiating out across her skin. She thought he was picking her up for a moment, but her reflection said otherwise, showing elongating legs and a stretching torso. The years that had been stolen from her flashed by in the mirror as her body changed. The lace dress shrunk around her, hardly reaching her now voluptuous thighs. The row of buttons down her back popped off and scattered on the floor. Both seams on the miniature sleeves tore away from her and the entire front of the dress fell forward, exposing soft, rosebud breasts veiled thinly by wisps of her tousled hair.

Freddy rested a hand on the delicate curve of her waist and pulled her hair back over her shoulder. Not a trace of embarrassment showed on Anne's face; her eyes were locked on her morphed reflection. She didn't seem to notice even when Freddy brought his other hand to her lips and touched them, leaving them in a sultry red lipstick that her mother had promised to give her when she was older.

"Was this what you wanted to see?" he asked. She gave no reply, lost in examining every facet of the body that never was.

"I bet you're angry with me for never letting you grow up," he went on. "You probably spend a lot of time thinking about all the stupid little fuckers you never got to make out with at the movies, and the kids you never squeezed out through that pretty cunt of yours."

He still didn't have her full attention. She continued to stare at herself in silence as if she were afraid that looking away would reverse the changes. Freddy loomed behind her, the rough-textured sweater on his broad frame contrasting with the smooth and almost naked nymph pressed against his chest. His usual sly grin died down into an uncharacteristically flat expression. "But that's not all I did."

The changes continued, subtle yet unmistakable: only a slight drooping under her eyes and around her red lips at first. Then the youthful chest began to sink under its own weight, hanging lower over her stomach. A network of spidery varicose veins spread out across her legs and left small lumps on her swollen ankles. The waves of her sleek hair dried out, becoming brittle and drained of their rich color. Every part of her body wilted and sagged in rolls like the wax of a slowly burning candle.

The face staring back at her was not one she recognized or one she had hoped for. The skin on her forehead was dry and crinkled like old tissue paper, and her lips had shriveled, the vibrant red lipstick now a dull burgundy that flaked at the corners of her mouth. Her vision blurred as cataracts clouded her eyes, and the last thing she saw of her body was thinning white hair, sunken cheeks, and the beginnings of decay.

It wasn't until Freddy turned her around that her sight returned. She was shorter again, but didn't dare to look back in the mirror for fear of seeing her own corpse trapped behind the glass. He stroked down the back of her head somewhat tenderly, which struck her as odd until she felt the more familiar discomfort of his fingers twisting into her hair and her head snapping back to look up at him.

"I saved you from that. Don't forget it, you ungrateful little bitch," he growled. "Now, why don't you tell me what you and Nancy were talking about?"

xxxxxx

Nancy shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her white pajama bottoms, lifting her head as the gust of wind died down. Her hair settled around her cheeks again and hung still. The mountainous skyline appeared though a thinning dust cloud, but it didn't look any closer for all her trudging. She wasn't surprised. Time was a lost concept in this world, and the more she pressed forward, the more the ground beneath her felt like a hopelessly large conveyor belt that had been pulling her back for days. But she didn't stop; she walked on with the determination you acquire when there's nowhere to go but straight ahead and nothing to return to but the impressions of your soles in the dirt that brought you to where you stand.

Let the conveyor belt roll. On and on and on…

Numbed by the monotony, she gasped when her toes caught on something. She stumbled forward and turned to look down at a small copper pipe jutting out of the dusty soil. It was bent into a squared U-shape with both ends in the ground, as if it were only the exposed tip of a larger network of pipes buried deep below the earth. She crouched low and touched it, ripping her hand away from the searing heat as a puff of steam leaked from the joint. The plumbing hummed with the faint sound of rushing water.

When she stood back up, two skeletal walls of thick pipes corralled her in from both sides like a hallway. She stepped cautiously between them, following the narrow trail that had been marked for her. A light breeze stirred up the dust on the ground and carried it away to reveal solid concrete. The floor was hard on her blistered toes, and she heard the echo of her own footsteps before she noticed the dank walls around her. Then all at once, she was pulled forward by a godlike force, rushing forward like she herself were the water that pulsed through the pipes. Catwalks, stairways corroded with rust, rattling valves and gauges, clouds of thick steam; everything streaked past her as she flew by. The smell of mold and metallic smoke filled her nostrils as the rest of her surroundings became a speeding blur.

And then her feet were tripping over themselves as she came to a grinding halt. She steadied her wobbling legs and pushed her hair out of her face to see where she had ended up.

"Have a nice stroll? I thought you could use the exercise," Freddy said, leaning against the black furnace with his arms crossed. Smoke curled from the singeing wool fibers of his sweater as he tapped a long, gleaming blade against his upper arm. His clothing was somehow still intact when he pushed off from the searing hot surface. A faint scent of smoke and ashes emanated from beneath his skin, growing stronger as he approached. It stung in her sinus. Nancy fought the instinct to back up and watched him circle her out of the corner of her eye.

"Where are my friends?" she demanded. "Are they still alive?"

"You tell me. How did they look the last time you saw them?" he asked.

She grit her teeth. "Remind me of when that was."

He chuckled, the sound smoldering and churning out from the hot coals in his lungs. "Poor little Nancy. Now you're wondering which parts were real and which parts were just me fucking with you." He stopped directly in front of her. "Well you don't get to know, bitch. My game, my rules."

She squared up to him, wanting to squeeze the answers from his slimy black tongue. But he rerouted the conversation before she could even try.

"I heard you want to make a deal with me," he said.

The shock lasted mere seconds on her face before she suppressed it, narrowing her eyes into a steely blue glare. She was going to ask how he knew about that when he gestured to the corner of the room. Two steps ahead of her, again.

Always.

She saw a motionless heap of lacey white fabric that had been smeared with soot. The pile moved slightly, reluctantly, as if every second of motion caused throbbing pain. Nancy knew who it was before she saw Anne's face. The child sat up, cradling her shattered elbow. Her lip was split near the corner of her mouth and her left eye was swollen shut. A thin, broken vein twisted across her huge eyelid under the shiny purple skin.

"She needed a little coaxing, but my messenger always delivers. Don't you, sweetheart?" he said, glancing over to the pulverized girl.

"Then let's cut the bullshit," Nancy said. She raised her chin to draw herself up. "I'll help you kill those dream demons, or whatever the hell they are, and in exchange, you let me and Anne out of here. I know you need my help."

Freddy bit back the anger simmering in him at her brash tone and toyed with the idea again. Those fuckers may have been the source of his power at one time, but they had overstayed their welcome. The dream demons had become nothing but a pain in his barbecued ass. Pestering him. Demanding kills he couldn't do. But that wasn't the only reason he wanted them dead…

"How could you even put a scratch on them, the weak human you are?" he sneered.

Nancy smirked, praying her lack of confidence wasn't showing through. "By myself, not much. But I've got some help."

"From who, cunt?"

Her smirk grew wider. "Your mother."

A pillar of blue light shot up through the filthy floor of the boiler room, etching white on the walls, on the leaking grid of tangled pipes, and on Nancy and Freddy's squinting faces. The glow brought a powerful force with it that Freddy hadn't invited, and he didn't try to hide his scowl as an old, familiar face hazed through. The white robes had been almost invisible in the blinding glare until the light faded, leaving Amanda Krueger standing in front of them with her gently wrinkled hands clasped. Her silver cross pendant caught the last flicker of the vanishing beam.

Freddy seethed over Nancy with hatred dripping from his calloused lips. That pint-sized cocksucker Anne hadn't told him everything. "Get her the fuck out of here before I-"

"But she came all this way to visit her son. It wouldn't be right to turn her out," Nancy said in a bold, mocking tone that surprised even her. Freddy's blue irises were suspended in blood-shot white for a second as he stared at the insolent little bitch. Who's fucking Dreamscape was this, anyway?

"This monster isn't my son," Amanda said between patient, measured breaths.

Freddy sneered. "Now there's something we can both agree on."

"Bottle up the hatred for a minute, Frederick," said Nancy, keeping an air of calm but trembling on the inside as she stepped between them. A front of confidence was crucial. "We all have a common interest."

That last sentence snapped a viscous chord within him, and he almost barred his teeth. "I have nothing in common with that shriveled up cum-dumpster."

"Sure you do: You're both dead," Nancy offered with a shrug. "Let's help each other."

"How can this whore help me?" Freddy spat.

Nancy froze, kicking herself mentally for not thinking this all the way through. Anne had promised that Amanda was the key, but Nancy hadn't gotten a chance to speak with the woman yet. It wasn't like she could text her on her cell phone. She stared at Amanda and hoped that whatever she had to say was good enough for Freddy.

Amanda cupped her frail hands and held them out as if she were catching a stream of water. From the center of her palms emanated a soft light which materialized into a clear, marble-sized orb. Freddy took a half step back and snarled, sensing the power within it.

"What the fuck is that?" he said.

Not paying him the slightest hint of attention, Amanda held out the orb to Nancy. The girl stared down at it, mesmerized by the whispers of light swirling around inside. Two white circles reflected in her blue eyes as it softly lit the hollows of her face.

"The dream demons share one power source; they are linked. Only one of them needs to swallow this to destroy all three," said Amanda. "You must be the one to bring it to them because the goodness in you will camouflage the purity of this object."

"Alright, we get it, now get the hell out of here you cunt," Freddy barked.

Then with a side-glance to her lost son, she went on in the same even voice, "He cannot carry it. The contrast would be impossible to ignore, and they would know what you're planning the moment they saw him."

Nancy nodded and Freddy grumbled.

"You done?" he asked in a sharp tone.

Finally, Amanda turned to face him. "If you really want to redeem yourself, I can make another one for you to swallow when you're finished."

"Sorry bitch, but you're the only one here that swallows," he said, grabbing his crotch. "Why don't you demonstrate for sweet little Nancy? She might learn something for later."

Nancy had expected to see anger in Amanda's eyes, but instead she saw only sadness and a trace of regret. She slipped the orb into her pocket as the ghost started to fade.

"Wait," Nancy called, "How will I know he'll keep his end of the bargain?"

"Evil is strong," said Amanda, "but never out of balance with blessed holiness. He does not possess the power to break this agreement. I will return to take you and the child, should you succeed…

Be brave, Nancy."

Those last words reached her after the old woman was already gone. They drifted into her ears like a breath, calming her, fortifying her will.

Silence hung between her and Freddy. Neither looked at the other, and far away the dripping from a cracked pipe reverberated off the cement walls. The heart of the furnace behind them roared to life, consuming the pile of whitened coals inside with a fearsome hunger and glowing brighter through the slots in the door. An explosion of sweltering heat filled that corner of the boiler room as flickering red lights blazed across the grimy walls. Shadows quivered behind the pipes, hiding from the harsh purge of firelight. An unearthly growl rumbled out from the latched mouth of the furnace as if roused by Freddy to remind anyone who had forgotten that he was the god of this place.

She made the first move. He lifted his head and tilted his chin up as she extended her hand. Their suspicious glares locked. He closed his charred hand around hers, but they barely shook once before his other hand shot up and clenched onto the back of her head, pulling her close to him. She could smell his rancid breath as he leaned in.

"You aren't trying to trick me, are you?" he warned. "Because if you are, I've got all of eternity to make you suffer for it."

.

.

.

To be continued…


A/N: I swear, the whole time I was writing the scene where Anne is in front of the mirror, I had that song from Mulan stuck in my head ("Whoooooo is that girl I see, staring straight back at me?).

Anyways, I watched a great short-film about Freddy's origin on Youtube, and I left the link to it in my profile. I wrote a sufficiently long rant about it there, so I won't write anymore about it here.

...What are you still doing on this webpage? Go watch it! And thanks for reading. Please leave a review. :)