A/N: So I missed my self-imposed deadline but have you guys SEEN the news lately? Holy shit. I feel like WW3 is already starting and all I can do (aside from ceasefire protests, which I encourage all of you to participate in) is watch and wait. This author's note feels so out of place on an NOES fic but this is what's been on my mind as I've been writing, and the main reason why it's been so hard to focus on anything.
But anyways. Enjoy the story!
Chapter 12: Tick-Tok
The caged clock above the door ticked too slowly. Glen sat slumped against a white padded wall, arms crossed over his chest and tied to the back of his straight-jacket. He'd stopped thrashing hours ago. It didn't do anything except tire him out, and exhaustion was the last thing he needed right now. He knew what waited for him if he fell asleep. But the cell was so warm and soft—maybe resting his eyes for a few seconds would refresh him for the rest of the night? His lids closed. He was slipping. He shook his head, trying to get the monotonous tick-tok tick-tok out of his ears.
Is this what it was like for Nancy? This hell? He wanted to scream when he thought about the night she'd called him, ranting about the man with the claws. She had sounded delirious. He knew she'd stopped sleeping, and he thought he was being kind when he hushed her and told her to lay down and rest. That it was all in her head. That she was safe. He still didn't believe her even when his own nightmares had started. He rationalized and rationalized until he woke up screaming that third night with a fresh set of razor marks on his arms.
She must have felt so alone.
For a moment, the thought of falling to sleep and letting that monster rip him apart didn't seem so bad. At least then, it would be over. Maybe he'd see Nancy again too.
Stop it, he snapped at himself and shook his head again. The fog was settling thick in his mind, calling him into oblivion. He teetered on the edge.
From the other side of the observation window, Dr. Gordon watched the skinny teenage boy struggle to keep his eyes open. His tan baby face was whithered, his brown doe eyes now deep-set with heavy purple bags and a spiderweb of red veins.
"Should we administer a sedative, doctor?" asked the nurse at his side. She held a pen to her clipboard, ready for his instructions.
He tapped his foot, appearing contemplative. "How many days has the patient been awake now?"
"Tonight will be the third."
"Let's give the problem a chance to resolve on its own," Dr. Gordon said. He shoved his chapped hands deep into the pockets of his medical coat.
A sedative at this stage of self-inflicted sleep deprivation was hospital protocol, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. The kid deserved a fighting chance. At least, for now. His turn on the operating table would come soon enough. Dr. Gordon caught his own faint, emotionless reflection. He stared through it and sighed as Glen's fluffy brown head of hair sank slowly to his knees and jerked back up again.
It went against everything he stood for as a doctor, but Gordon wished that Glen really was suicidal. That would be a more merciful fate than what awaited him.
He turned away from the glass.
xxxxxx
The steps creaked beneath his brown leather oxfords as Dr. Gordon crept down into the basement. Steady beeping echoed between the dank, water-stained walls. A sheet of plastic hung from the ceiling, hiding the back half of the room, and he pulled it aside like a stiff curtain.
In the center of the cement floor stood a gurney with a small, unconscious teenager stretched out on top. Dr. Gordon's gaze lingered over the boy's skin. It was littered with bandages and compression wraps. He swept past the gurney to the cabinets along the far wall and pulled out some cotton balls, antiseptic, and fresh bandages. Slowly, tenderly, he peeled back the bandage on one cheek and dabbed at the cut. It wasn't infected but it was taking so long to heal. It would scar.
Most of these would scar.
He sighed and stuck a clean bandage over it.
He did the same for all the rest of the injuries, scanning each limb for any new signs of damage. When he was satisfied, he returned to the top of the gurney and placed a hand on the side of the boy's face. His precious baby boy.
"Please wake up," he whispered, tucking a bit of hair behind his ear.
As if in reply, he heard a squelching sound and gasped. The skin on the boy's arm was splitting open. Blood soaked into the clean white wraps, turning them dark red like napkins in spilled wine. He rushed to the arm and pulled everything off of it, wiping at the blood. Underneath, a series of sloppy letters spelled out two words: work faster.
Dr. Gordon pressed his hands to the cuts to staunch the bleeding. Blood trickled from between his shaking fingers as he swallowed a sob.
"Please," he yelled into his son's face, then turned up to the ceiling as if directing a fervent prayer to a cruel, deaf god. "Please don't hurt him. I'm doing as many operations as I can but there are hospital protocols, if I attract suspicion–"
A drop of blood rolled down one of the boy's nostrils as his thin nose cracked off to the left. A purple bruise bloomed across his face.
Dr. Gordon cried. "Okay, okay, I can work faster. I will. Just don't hurt him, Kruger. I'll do anything you want."
xxxxxx
"You're making a mistake," Tina yelled, throwing herself against the cold bars of her jail cell. She clutched them, white-knuckled, and shook the door as hard as she could. The metallic rattling filled Springwood's modest little police station. A lanky, balding officer turned up the volume on the wall-mounted television, slamming the remote back down on his desk and scowling at Tina out of the corner of his eye. He propped his feet up next to his paperwork.
She continued, louder than before and almost in tears. "Please, I didn't kill Rod but I know who did. Just listen to me."
"Keep it down, Grey," The officer shouted. His eyes never left the screen as the commercial break ended and Raiders of the Lost Ark returned.
"It's your job to investigate this shit," she screamed. "You can't just throw me in here and act like it's case closed. You lazy sack of–"
The cop slammed down his boots and stood up, stomping across the floor. "Look here, little miss. Rod Lane was a delinquent, heading nowhere but Ohio State Penitentiary, and I don't mourn him for one second. I almost want to give you a cupcake for what you did." He leered down at her through the bars. "But if you don't shut the hell up when my program is on I'm gonna have to–"
"Take a walk, deputy."
Sheriff Thompson walked through the doorway, tossing a stack of papers onto the other desk.
"Oh, hello sir," the deputy said. He ran a hand over his receded hairline. "I was just–"
"Just leaving," Sheriff Thompson cut him off again.
"Right. I'll run out and get us some more coffee. And maybe some burgers too. Are you hungry?"
The only answer he got was a cold glance. He grabbed his windbreaker and keys, rushing out into the afternoon light.
Sheriff Thompson stood in the center of the station with both hands in his pockets, staring at Tina, studying her face. She knew what he was thinking. Was this the same girl who chased the ice cream truck down Elm Street with Nancy every summer? Who stayed up giggling with her past midnight during sleepovers? Growing up, she had spent more time with him than with her own father. He couldn't think she was capable of murder.
But of course, everyone was a child once, and she hadn't stayed that innocent forever. The sheriff had caught her and Rod with cocaine more than a few times. Hard drugs make people do crazy things.
She imagined scales in his head, weighing her, who she was and who she might be now. Waiting for anything to tip the balance.
It was the closest thing to an invitation she was going to get, and she took it. "Can you listen for just a minute? One minute. That's all I'm asking."
He didn't move. His expression stayed hard like a rock. "Go ahead."
For a second, hope lit up Tina's eyes.
"I need your help. Please, Sheriff Thompson. Nancy didn't kill herself."
Something softened in the rigid line of his mouth, and Tina hoped again that his faith in his daughter would be enough to open his mind. But when he recovered from the shock of the words, he grit his teeth and turned to leave.
"No, wait! I'm telling you the truth. The scumbag who killed her got Rod too, and he's still out there."
He shook his head, reaching the door. "Save the story for your lawyer, Tina."
"His name is Fred Kruger."
With one hand on the door handle, he froze. It took a few seconds for him to turn back and face her. "Where did you hear that name?"
Tina didn't think to ask how the sheriff knew him. She was just grateful that he was still listening to her. She had to make each word count. "He's going after Glen next. All the kids in Westin Hills. We have to stop him."
"That's impossible."
"I know it sounds crazy, but–"
"No. Fred Kruger is dead," Sheriff Thompson said, fixing the edges of his dark, waxed hair. "I zipped up his body bag after…"
"After what?" Tina probed. She tilted her head to the side, eyes locked on his troubled face. "The fire?"
He watched her with a new kind of suspicion. There was a flash of fear in him, a ripple in his stern exterior that she'd never seen before, and Tina wondered what memories were playing back in his mind now.
He turned away again. "Glen and the others are getting the help they need. They'll be okay." He hesitated, softening. "Maybe you need some help too, kid."
And then he walked out.
xxxxxx
Night fell torturously slow for Tina Grey. She sat hunched over on the edge of her flimsy mattress, face in hands. It had been hours with nothing to do, no one to talk to or bargain with. The droning of the television was lulling her to sleep. She didn't know how long she could fight it. Her arms ached as she held herself and rocked back and forth.
Her eyelids sank closed. She groaned and slapped herself on the cheek three times. Sleep was not safe.
Not with that freak waiting for her.
She forced herself up onto her shaky, bruised legs and began pacing a short track between the bed and the wall. Only four steps before each turn. It made her head spin after a while. She sat down again, struggling to keep her eyes open as her vision blurred and the floor slanted.
She thought she heard shouting from somewhere outside.
"Hold on to her, damn it."
Sheriff Thompson's voice.
The door to the station slammed open as he returned with his deputy. They dragged an angry handcuffed girl between them, one on each arm. She looked feral. Blood was splattered across her white button-up shirt, smeared around her mouth, and almost dripping from the ends of her shaggy brown hair. She'd been struggling through the doorway like an animal, but once they brought her inside, all the fight left her. She hung her head like a robot with dead batteries.
Sheriff Thompson didn't seem to know what to make of it. He sighed. "Let's get her processed."
They led her to a long table and took her wrist, pressing her thumb into a sponge of black ink. The short chain between her hands jingled. Tina realized then that they were bloodsoaked to the wrist.
Another officer, a short, muscular blonde with a mustache who seemed better suited to a beach in San Francisco than a cramped small town police station, rushed in from behind them. He was sweaty and panting and trying to hide his inexperience. Sheriff Thompson greeted him with a nod.
"What the hell happened here, chief?"
The sheriff grimaced. "She was just released from Westin Hills this morning."
The bald deputy eyed her as he printed the rest of her small fingers. "Clearly that was a mistake on the part of the doctors. And ten Springwood residents paid for it."
"Jesus."
The sheriff grabbed the edge of the table and lowered his head. "Put her away."
"Yes, sir," said the deputy. He led the mute girl to the empty cell next to Tina's. For a split second, Tina expected her to lash out when he uncuffed her, but she behaved herself with an almost mechanical grace. She sat at the foot of her bed and looked at Tina through the bars. It was Susan Todd. They took eighth grade biology together. She had cried for the frogs on dissection day. Now her eyes were a dry, icy blue, and her pupils shrank to pinholes.
Wait.
Had they always been blue? Somehow that didn't feel right.
"Is it true, what I heard on the radio earlier?" the blonde asked, shuddering as he lowered his voice. "About the microwave…?"
The officers spoke quietly between themselves, but Tina picked up a few words here and there. Hacked, heads, melted.
Unrecognizable.
For a moment she was back in Rod's bedroom, screaming and covered in viscera. She blinked the images away. The girl was still watching her. There was an inhuman glassiness in her eyes, like a camera lense.
She lifted a bloody hand and waved each finger.
.
.
.
To be continued…
A/N: I hope you guys weren't disappointed by how short this chapter was. There was no other way for me to break up the story without the flow becoming awkward, but things are about to ramp up from here to the end. The next update will also be a lot longer. I may take a little break over December to relax with my family though, so unless inspiration grabs me by the throat and makes me write, there wont be a new chapter until after New Years.
Happy holidays to you all!