A/N: My, my, would you look at the time! It's been, what...seven years? I can't imagine my readers from 2016 are still here checking for updates, but I'm baaaaaaaaccckkk. Hope none of you were holding your breath or I might be responsible for a few funerals (X_X)

But on a serious note, I'm so sorry to the loyal readers that I disappointed. Especially my best friend on this site, Darkness Takes Over/Paula, who read and reviewed everything I ever wrote. She isn't even a member anymore so I don't know if she'll ever see this. But I'm really sorry.

Now, without further introduction...


Chapter Ten: Who Are You

"Babe, come back," Rod Lane called from the edge of the bed. Tina glanced over her shoulder at him, buttoning up his green collared shirt. It hung loosely on her with the shoulder seams halfway down her arm and the sleeve cuffs reaching her fingertips.

"I will," she said. "Just grabbing some gummy bears."

With a groan of true martyrdom, he rolled over and tangled himself into the sheets. She wanted to tell him he was acting like a child, but lately they'd been arguing at the drop of a hat. The neighbors upstairs were tired of it too. The only sounds that escaped the thin walls of Rod's apartment were noisy fighting and noisy fucking.

The kitchenette was the same mess of dirty dishes and crumbs that it was yesterday. If he was waiting for her to clean it, he'd better not hold his breath. She wasn't the goddamn maid. Leaning forward on tiptoe, she rummaged through the skinny cabinets and pulled out a colorful plastic bag. Grey drizzling rain spattered the window. She watched the droplets struggle down the scratched glass as she tore open the package.

This was the sort of day she would have spent curled up in her own bed at home, twirling the telephone cord around her finger and spilling her guts to Nancy about her horrible, wonderful boyfriend. Nancy always listened. She liked to pretend she didn't want to hear it, but Tina knew she did. The prudish Ms. Thompson would always ask just enough questions to satisfy her curiosity before retreating to the moral high ground. Tina, he's a scumbag. He's no good for you.

It annoyed her then, but now she missed it. She missed Nancy every second.

It was impossible to swallow the news of her death. To picture sweet, smiling, bashful Nancy in a mental hospital, cutting open her wrists. Why didn't she call? Tina would have driven straight there and broken the doors down if security didn't let her in, and she would have found her friend and held her tight until the feeling passed. She could have saved her. It didn't have to end that way.

The candy in Tina's mouth had no flavor anymore, and she spat it into the trash can before twisting up the bag. Eating was hard for her still. She'd lost fifteen pounds since the funeral. Rod complained about her boobs shrinking.

"Tinaaah," Rod moaned.

She rolled her eyes, pretending to herself that it was out of annoyance, when really it was to keep the tears from spilling. "I'm coming, Jesus Christ!"

The sheets were halfway on the ground when she returned to the bedroom. Rod was lying spread-eagle on the bed in his boxers, staring at the ceiling. A string of quiet groans escaped him as if he were on a boulder in the sun, dying of thirst. Drama queen. She sat on the corner of the mattress and wondered (not for the first time) what he would do if she never slept with him again. If she laid down right next to him and told him not to touch her.

It was the easy thing-the lazy thing-to do, to take his words at face value: I love you, Tina. But when she needed him to hold her and tell her that what Nancy had done didn't make Tina a failure as a friend, he had done nothing. Said nothing. He went home that night and didn't answer her phone calls. She remembered sobbing into the receiver, picturing him on the couch in the dark eating crinkled potato chips and flipping through the television channels. I love you, Tina were words that mysteriously never left his lips unless they were naked between the sheets. I love you, Tina didn't extend to the clothed Tina Grey, the hurting Tina Grey, the Tina Grey that got stuffed-up sinuses and ugly puffy eyes when she cried.

Asking the question to herself was just a waste of time. She knew exactly what he'd do if she stopped fucking him. That was why she left her arms at her sides when he sat up behind her and undid the shirt buttons. She fell into the bed and kissed him with the same fire as all the nights before, which looked like passion but was only anger giving way to resignation. Beneath the covers, she could scream and claw and cry in the acceptable way. The way that wouldn't make Rod disappear.

He squeezed her breast into a nasty shape, panting and thrusting. "Ah God, baby I love you so much."

The orgasm she might have had died inside her. He came and rolled to his side of the bed, tossing the condom into the trash. His fingers locked behind his head, and his hairy chest and armpits took center stage as the credits rolled on his imaginary porno. Wow, look at Rod Lane. What a stud. Did you see the way he banged that chick?

What a goddamn stud.

Tina curled in towards him, laying a hand on his stomach. "I love you too."

Their heavy breathing slowed as the rain outside fell harder against the windows. No sunlight penetrated the thick evening cloud-cover that raced overhead, and the room was dark within the hour. Tina let the weather hush her thoughts, lulling her to sleep like white noise.

She dreamt about Nancy. The girls were in Tina's old bedroom painting their nails with a bottle of bright red polish that they'd snatched from her mother's room. Spreading a thick drop of polish over her thumbnail, Nancy glanced back at the door to be sure no one was watching. "I like it on you better," Tina said. "It looks nicer with brown hair."

"You think so?" Nancy said, fanning her one finished hand out to admire it.

Tina nodded. She tucked in her legs to sit Indian style on top of the blankets. "You should buy some for yourself to take home."

"My mommy wont let me wear it until I'm twelve," Nancy replied, shaking her head. She dipped the brush again to work on her other hand. Tina wrinkled her nose at the smell of it. Nail polish always had a strong scent, but this one in particular made her nose almost burn. But beauty is pain, as her mother always said. Still, she couldn't help leaning backwards to put some distance between herself and the goopy liquid. Nancy hummed to herself and smoothed out the second coat on her pinky.

With each dip into the tiny glass bottle, the smell grew worse. It left a fetid coppery taste in the back of Tina's mouth. Her eyes watered but she said nothing. Nancy didn't seem to notice it at all, dipping and wiping and dipping and wiping until Tina was nauseous.

When the last nail was covered, Nancy dunked the brush again and painted one long red line from her wrist to the crook of her elbow. The skin split open, bubbling with hot nail polish and torn veins as she drew the same line on her other arm. "I think you're right," Nancy said. "Red looks good on me."

Tina thrashed around in the sweaty sheets for a moment before she woke up. The copper smell still hung in the air, but it wasn't from an open polish bottle. It was soaking into the mattress.

"Rod," she screamed. He lay twisting and shaking as four deep gashes appeared on his neck. Nothing more than a gurgle escaped him. He was fighting the air with his eyes squeezed shut, and Tina shook him hard by the shoulders. "Rod-Rod, what's wrong? Oh my god."

A dark puddle spread out beneath them as his life drained out with his blood. Tina covered her mouth, smearing red on herself. Her brain rejected what she'd just witnessed. It was another dream. A nightmare. She looked around, waiting for the room to melt away and morph into something new. But nothing changed. The laundry basket still had three mismatched socks hanging over the rim. His plywood dresser drawer still had one broken knob. The bed sheets remained sopping wet under her. And the rain still fell, drowning the west face of the apartment complex in steady showers.

Rod was dead for maybe two minutes before she touched him again. She nudged his arm, but he was motionless. She shoved harder.

"Open up!" A man was banging on the door. "What the hell is going on in there, Lane?"

Tina froze.

By the time the landlord had called the police, gotten the key, and rushed in with his robe and slippers on, there was nothing in the room but the cold body of his least favorite tenant and an open window leading out to the fire escape.

xxxxxx

Freddy hated the smell of leather bound books. It left a nasty academic aftertaste in his mouth that made him think of the pretentious university boys that were once his snot-nosed classmates, hiding straws plugged with spitballs under their desks-spitballs destined for the back of his head. Anyone who thought a college education made them better than a mailman or a mechanic or a janitor needed to have their head checked. And a physical inspection of their grey matter on the tips of Freddy's claw was the preferred method. It's not like they were using their brains anyway. Four years of sitting around, taking notes on what some dinosaur in glasses has to say about Greek philosophy in exchange for a pretty piece of paper was a shittier deal than any toilet he'd scrubbed in his working days.

And some were even worse. Some dragged their feet around those stuffy old crypts for another four years to get another piece of fucking paper. Then they'd put it up on their wall for mommy and daddy to smile at.

Crossing his legs and tapping his index blade against the wingchair's armrest, Freddy stared at the framed doctorate that hung beside two tall bookshelves. The glass plate reflected streaks of dim yellow lamplight that blocked out parts of the elegant lettering. For a second he wanted to smash it and gut its owner with the longest shard, but that urge was fleeting. He had more important plans to focus on. And his guest of honor was finally falling asleep.

"What's up, doc?" Freddy asked.

Dr. Neil Gordon found his footing and scanned the room, finding every detail identical to his study. Not a book or carpet fiber was out of place. Freddy smirked. He could replicate the entire world if he wanted to, now.

"Don't waste my time with small talk," he snapped.

"So rude, and after I went out of my way to make you feel at home," Freddy said, motioning to the familiar surroundings.

"What do you want, Krueger?"

The demon's eyes gleamed in the shadow of his hat. He got out of the chair, catching the doctor's almost imperceptible flinch. The man hid his fear well, but Freddy could see through the firmest bedside manner. He could smell it. "Who's wasting time now, asking questions he already knows the answers to?"

Gordon looked like he wanted to say something, but he pressed his lips together and stayed silent, wrinkling his long nose in disgust.

"Doc, I don't just make dreams for little brats–I have some of my own," he continued. With a lazy wave of his claw, beady black eyes opened up on the spine of every book. They rustled in their shelves and groaned from their slowly-forming mouths, baring jagged teeth coated in slime. "But as limitless as my power is here, it can't reach past a few sleepy piglets. That's not enough for me."

"Nighttime in Springwood isn't enough?" Gordon stopped himself, cringing at his outburst.

"No. I want all the little fuckers, twenty-four seven. I want this town by the throat," Freddy grinned, his claws dancing with anticipation. "I'm gonna make them walk, talk, and burn down everything in their path like the mindless puppets they are."

"We might need to run some more tests to see if-"

"Enough testing," he snarled. "One seventy-two worked, you're just stalling now you fucking worm. Start the operations."

Gordon stared down at his hands, thinking back to his days in medical school. The sleepless nights cramming for exams. The passion that fueled him to meet and exceed his own expectations. Graduation day, when his grandmother had beamed with pride from the third row as his name was called. It seemed like scenes from another life. The Hippocratic Oath echoed back inside his mind. These hands were meant to help the world, not help this lunatic destroy it. But what choice did he have?

Dr. Gordon dug his nails into the palms of his hands, punishing them for what they were about to do. "I understand."

xxxxxx

Flipping the colorful letter beads of her TINA bracelet around and around, Nancy sighed. Her knobby little knees stuck out from the layers of white tulle and lace as she cradled them against the side of her head. Why was this happening? Where was God, or Krishna or Buddha? Or hell, she'd accept the gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster if it could save her now. So many stories of what lay at the end of the rainbow, but none of them prepared her for that deformed freak or this dank, grimy boiler room.

She listened to the rhythmic drip of a leaking pipe. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine she was curled against a tree trunk in her backyard, counting down to zero before dashing down Elm Street to find her hidden friends. Almost.

The feeling of burnt hands on her skin crept into her mind like spiders. Tears threatened to fall, but she held them in and rocked herself.

What are you doing, Nancy? Stop it. Tina would be ashamed to see you like this. She stood up straight, clenching her tiny fists and planting the heels of her Mary Janes firmly on the cement. Just because she looked like a little girl didn't mean she had to act like one. Her features were smaller and less distinct under the baby fat, but there was no mistaking those thick furrowed brows and the blue eyes glaring from underneath.

She stormed through the pipe-lined hallways, running from her own hopelessness more than anything else. She needed to do something, go somewhere. Even with nowhere to go. If this was a never-ending maze of looping corridors that she was doomed to walk until everyone who remembered her was dust in the ground, she still wouldn't stop looking for a way out. Giving up was not an option.

That's not who she was.

Nancy hadn't realized that she'd reached the heart of the power plant until she rounded the corner. For a moment, she expected Freddy to slink out from the shadows and grab her. But no one was there.

The furnace sat quietly in the center of the floor. She approached it, running a hand over the cast iron belly. The flames that had always lashed against the slots in the little door, screaming and hungry, were gone. It was dark inside. As the heat of Nancy's fear dissipated, fingers of cold crept deep into her bones. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, wandering past Freddy's abandoned workbench to explore the boiler room, for once, without his looming presence.

She sneered. He liked to call himself the God of the Dreamscape, able to conjure anything imaginable with the snap of his burnt fingers, yet this was the home he created. Her gaze settled on the stained mattress in the corner, tucked under a narrow flight of stairs. Talk about self-loathing.

She set one foot on the bottom step, ready to climb the rickety metal structure to the catwalks above, but something stopped her.

A noise. A rattling, faint in the distance.

She scanned her surroundings, eyes narrow with suspicion. Maybe she wasn't as alone as she'd thought. She crept back the way she'd come and turned down an even narrower passageway, one so dark and well-camouflaged that she wouldn't have noticed it if she hadn't been looking so carefully. The sound was definitely coming from the end of that hall. In the abnormal silence of the boiler, without the hissing steam and crackling fire, that single noise called out clear as a bell. Had it been there the whole time? Had she never noticed?

The path ended at the top of a rusty staircase, leading further down into a shroud of darkness. She hesitated.

You're already dead, Nancy, she told herself. What good were self-preservation instincts now? With trembling fingertips guiding her along the wall, she descended.

She wasn't ready for the absolute black that closed in around her. If it hadn't been for a single, flickering oil lamp hanging against the far wall of the sub-basement, she never would have known how big the room even was. A sea of darkness stretched in front of her. She crossed with slow, probing steps, feeling the ground before committing to it. Images of bear traps, spike pits, and landmines flashed through her head but she shook them out. The scariest thing she bumped into, after inspecting its shape with her hands, was a chair. This was probably a storage room.

Almost there. The lantern was getting closer. Now she could see the door beneath it, heavy and forbidding, with a small barred window. In the edges of the weak light she found a bucket and dragged it over, flipping it upside down and climbing on top. She cupped her hands around her face and peered between the bars.

The clanging stopped dead.

She gasped.

"Who are you?"

.

.

.

To be continued…


A/N: Thanks so much to anyone who is still following this story. I'm aiming to have the next chapter up in 2-3 weeks. :)