Chapter 12: Monsters Fighting
Fred Krueger growled with anger and impatience. Just HOW long does it take three teenagers to slam a stake into a vampire that's lying helpless in its stinkin' coffin, anyway . . . ?
Impatiently, Krueger went to the boy and girl he held captive, clicked the blades on his Glove, and released the boy, who slid down the wall to the ground, able to move once more.
"W-what do you want?" said Allen fearfully. Krueger savored the boy's terror as he put his burned face inches from the frightened boy, close enough for the kid to smell his foul, decaying breath.
"I need you to go and check on my three little piggies that I sent out to stake that leech-lipped tooth fairy! They had ONE JOB, and they've been gone way too long for such a simple task!
"I'm going to let you wake up, Allen. Go to my house, and find out what's taking them so long. Then, I expect you to fall back asleep, and report everything you saw to me!
"I'll give you half an hour. But if you're not back here by then; I'm going to work on the girl!"
Pamelynne, too tired and traumatized already, barely made a whimper. But Allen said, "Fall back asleep? After everything that's happened? How am I supposed to do that?"
"I don't give a rat's ass how, kid! Take sleeping pills if you have to! But I want to know what's happening on the other side! That bloodsucking tick should have been dust, by now!"
"L-let Pamelynne go instead of me," said Allen. "I'll be your hostage."
"Nice try, kid," growled Krueger. "You know I won't be able to kill you while my deal with Manx is in force. I'm taking a risk just holding onto you now. But that slut on my wall is fair game!
"Now, wake up and come back in half an hour!" Once again, Krueger clicked his blades, and Allen realized that he was on his Aunt Karen's bed, lying next to a sleeping Pamelynne Conroy. After trying (and failing) to rouse her, Allen went to the rear window, and saw the ladders that his cousin and her friends must have set up to go after the vampire.
With no real options, Allen changed into jeans and a shirt, threw on his sneakers, and was out the back door and over the fence in about five minutes. He now had less than twenty-five minutes to find out what was happening, and fall back asleep before Krueger harmed Pamelynne.
Allen prayed for a miracle, or at least a break.
When the boy left the dreamworld, Krueger went over to the still restrained Pamelynne with a salacious laugh. "You'd better hope that the boy comes back, and with some good news for me, bitch, or I'll show you my 'special work.'
"Heh, part of me actually wishes that the boy doesn't come back within the half-hour, so we can have a little, ah, 'private time.'
"But no matter. He'll have to fall asleep eventually, so either way, you're both still mine, bitch!"
Dracula said, "Frederick Charles Krueger."
Freddy was startled by a voice coming from behind him that called him by his full name, and when the bogeyman rounded away from the girl, he saw his new nemesis standing about thirty feet behind him, but looking different than the last time they faced each other.
Instead of regular clothes, the vampire now wore the Renaissance-Era armor of a Wallachian Warrior Prince, complete with longer hair and a moustache, and a sword at his side.
"Bloodsucker . . . ," said Krueger. "How did you get here, in my dreamworld?"
"I, too, possess dream powers, foul bogeyman . . . .
"Your attempt to assassinate me in my coffin as I slept has failed, Sodomite Pig! Your 'minions' now serve me. I have come to you now to repay the attempt, and your disrespect."
"You can't kill me in my dreamworld, fang-boy! Here, I am the master!" Krueger brandished his Glove for emphasis, but the vampire didn't even reach for his sword.
Instead, the vampire laughed derisively. "I am not hear to 'slay' you, Pederast! I shall leave that particular task to the exorcists sent by the Archdiocese of Springwood. They have been summoned to come over tomorrow morning to repeat their cleansing. Only this time, they shall also attend to your hidden room in the basement at 1428 Elm Street; severing your tenuous hold on the physical world, forever.
"This time, you will be banished! But for now, I shall pay you the wages of your insolence!"
Krueger growled, and turned back to the girl, raising his Glove high, ready to plunge the blades through her heart to take her soul for power. Though he would have preferred a slower, more 'creative' approach with this particular victim, Krueger knew that he needed quick strength for the battle the vampire threatened.
But before Krueger could strike, the girl vanished as his fearsome blades plunged into an empty wall, sticking fast.
The vampire said, "Awaken, girl. Your presence here is no longer required!
"And when you have awakened, dress yourself appropriately, and go to the basement of the house behind this one, where you shall await further instructions with your companions."
Furiously, Krueger wrenched his blades free, and turned back to the vampire. "SHE WAS MINE, BITCH, MINE! YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO TAKE HER FROM ME!"
"Now, prepare to face the wrath of Vlad Drăculea!" The Vampire Lord emphasized his point by drawing his curved sword – a sinister-looking kilij – from its scabbard.
An enraged, Krueger responded by brandishing his razor Glove high. "JUST SHUT UP AND BRING IT, YOU OVERGROWN MOSQUITO!"
Dracula held his ground steadily as the bogeyman charged with a roar, slashing with his Glove. But the Vampire Lord easily parried the strike, and sparks flew as homemade razors struck Ottoman steel. Again and again, the bogeyman tried to slash his opponent, only to have each strike efficiently and expertly blocked.
Then Dracula shifted his attack, and struck at the bogeyman's wrist with his kilij, severing Krueger's hand and Glove with a single stroke.
"MY WEAPON!" screamed Krueger, clutching the stump as he scuttled back in surprise. Dracula grimaced at the bright green liquid that was the bogeyman's 'blood' as it spurted from the stump in pulsating squirts. Though this would undoubtedly frighten any of Krueger's teenage victims, the Lord of the Undead was merely disgusted. But not just because of Krueger's green 'blood' . . . .
"Weapon . . . ?" said the Vampire Lord incredulously. "Weapon? You claim to wield a weapon, you foul pervert?" Now the point of Dracula's kilij was pressed into the scarred flesh of Krueger's throat. "This is a weapon, bogeyman! A true weapon of war!
"I carried all before me with a warrior's weapon such as this, and my father's famed Toledo Steel blade! I fought against hordes of Ottoman Janissaries when I was alive, doing for thousands of thousands, and this before I became a vampire and the Lord of the Undead!
"Your 'glove' is merely a torturer's implement used to frighten helpless, restrained children. But you know nothing of instilling real fear!
"Now, behold my greatest work if you dare, and tremble!"
Freddy Krueger's nightmare boiler room wavered and transformed into an entirely new nightmare, crafted by Dracula when he was alive, now recreated in exacting detail in the dreamworld.
It was a scene of Medieval horror. Behind Dracula, Freddy saw rows and rows of people impaled on wooden stakes for as far as he could see. Most, but not all, were dead. Many were dying slowly, in ways that the Springwood Slasher couldn't even aspire to recreate in his most extravagant dreamworld.
It was a literal Forest of Corpses - thousands of thousands of corpses; just as Dracula had claimed. It was almost too gruesome and macabre for even the sadistic Springwood Slasher to fully take in, much less comprehend, even in his worst nightmare scenarios crafted for his young victims.
All Freddy could say was, "Uh . . . wow . . . ."
"Do you like my masterpiece, bogeyman? My "Forest of the Impaled?" It was a special greeting I had arranged for Sultan Mehmed II, when he and his Janissaries sought to invade Târgoviște, Romania, in 1462. Yes, bogeyman; I am that old!"
The Vampire Lord shrugged indifferently. "Historians claim that I impaled 24,000 of my enemies on that day. Actually, I lost exact count, myself; even though I supervised the spectacle myself as I took my supper among the dead and dying.
"Suffice it to say, you are hopelessly outmatched in every conceivable way, Frederick Charles Krueger.
"Contemplate this, as you explain yet another one of your failures to your masters; Satan and the Dream Demons!
"Now, I leave you to the exorcists of the Church, Frederick Charles Krueger!"
Dracula willed himself awake as he felt something strike him, only too late realizing that it was the Springwood Slasher, grabbing onto him as he woke . . . .
. . . . pulling the bogeyman out of the dream world, and into the physical world as Dracula awoke, lying in his coffin, with Freddy Krueger on top of him, pinning him down. Without enough leverage to dislodge his attacker, the Lord of the Undead was trapped with Krueger's knees firmly pressing down on Dracula's arms and chest.
Surprised, Dracula hissed, "You here? No! This is not possible . . . !"
Smiling, Krueger snarked, "WAKEY-WAKEY-EGGS-AND-BAKEY, BITCH!"