(The following is a nonprofit work of fanfiction and is outside of the original canon. All names, characters, businesses, places, events, and/or incidents of any kind depicted within this story are being used for entertainment purposes only.)

(The Loud House and all related characters were created by Chris Savino and all rights belong to Nickelodeon.)


- Chapter Seven -

A Nightmare on Franklin Avenue

The sound of thunder crackled far off in the distance from outside. A huge blanket of darkness surrounded us, and the school hallways were so eerily quiet that one could almost hear a pin drop. Layered coatings of oozing green slime were painted over the rows of lockers that expanded across the hallways.

I took a steady yet nervous breath as Lynn, Clyde, and I stood shoulder to shoulder before the front double-doored entrance which led into our school's cafeteria. We were outfitted in our Ghostbusters uniforms and equipment, our now active proton packs securely hanging right behind our backs. The double doors loomed over us, acting as if they were the main gateway that led into a secret underground dungeon. It was like they were daring us to enter inside.

"He's in there," I muttered aloud, staring ahead at the school building. "I know he is."

"Are you sure about that, Lincoln?" Clyde questioned; his voice peppered with concern. In response to that, I swiftly drew out my P.K.E. meter from my utility belt. When I aimed it directly at the double doors, the lights sure enough blinked fast and brightly, signatures glowing a bright shade of green at the nearest presence of ectoplasmic energy. This instantly proved that my gut instincts were indeed correct.

"Oh yeah," I answered. "He's definitely in there, guys. No doubt about it."

"Then what are the three of us standing around here for?" Lynn said impatiently, moving past me with her proton wand held closely at the ready. "Let's go inside and just bag him already!"

"Whoa, Lynn! Wait a minute!" I accosted my sister, quickly grabbing her by the shoulder. "We still don't know exactly what he's actually capable of yet!" Lynn looked at my with a frown.

"Lincoln, come on! You know this is Slimer we're all talking about here, right?" she tried to reason with me. "The only thing that ugly little spud is capable of is gorging himself into a stupor!"

"Well, I think we should still be careful about this, Lynn," Clyde spoke up, adjusting his glasses. "You never know what kind of surprise that green butter ball could actually do."

"Pfft! Like what exactly? Pilfer the entire kitchen ice box in a matter of seconds?" Lynn jibed with a little snort.

"If I know Slimer—and I do," I spoke, putting away my P.K.E. meter, "that's more than likely what he's doing right about now at this very moment. Alright, guys. All three protons at the ready?" In response, Clyde—and me included—drew out and switched on his proton wand as Lynn activated her own.

"Ready as we'll ever be." Clyde said.

"Okay then," I muttered, as we steeled ourselves for anything. "Let's get to work."

With that, the three of us rushed on through, kicking the double doors inward. What we saw was just quite an interesting spectacle to behold; the whole cafeteria appeared like it had been seriously ravaged by a violent tornado. Some chairs, benches, and also a certain number of half-eaten food—be it corn, diced carrots, peas, and mashed potatoes—lay scattered around the beige tiled floor. Ectoplasmic slime dripped almost everywhere on the tables, and the brick walls. It was like we had stumbled upon a terrible crime scene.

"Oh yeah. Slimer's definitely been here." Clyde declared, his gloved fingers curling around the handle of his proton wand.

"Gee, Sherlock! What was your first clue?" Lynn grunted almost annoyedly at his obvious statement. Suddenly, an abrupt rattling sound was heard, grabbing ahold of our attention. It was coming directly from the kitchen up ahead of us.

"You might want to scratch that, Clyde," I said. "Because I think he still is." As quiet as we were able to make ourselves be, we noiselessly made our way over to the kitchen, proton wands held closely at our sides. After carefully entering inside through the kitchen doorway, we saw that every possible food item we could think of were disseminated almost everywhere on the floor. Some ripped open packages of hot dogs, cans of corn, peas, peaches, and a large steel pot of whatever bubbling leftover monstrosity Chef Pat was saving for later, you name it.

Dead ahead of us, we saw that the kitchen refrigerator was opened as wide as it was allowed to be and we could see that Slimer himself was ferociously rummaging through all the shelves, scarfing down anything and everything that he could get his grubby little ghostly fingers on. The three of us stared in absolute disgust at the floating green blob, large chunks of food spilling over the corners of his giant maw, his oversized tongue flailing everywhere like a giant pink slug.

Sheesh, this little creep will eat just about anything, even Chef Pat's cooking, I thought, losing my appetite.

"Alright," Lynn muttered readily, smiling broadly. "Let's get him!"

"Lynn, no! Wait a second—" I exclaimed. But it was already too late, for Lynn had dashed ahead of us, her proton wand held at the ready.

"Hey, slimeball!" she yelled, as Slimer was about to take a big bite of a large ham. "Let's see you try and gorge on THIS!"

In a sudden flash, her proton stream shot forward, orange lights glaring almost brightly. But sadly, the little green ghost swiftly dodged the incoming attack, causing the proton stream to hit the side of the refrigerator instead. When the dust had quickly settled, we saw that there was nothing else left of the kitchen ice box. After rushing over to Lynn's side to get a better look at the damage, I turned to face her with an annoyed glare.

"Wow! Nice shooting, Tex!" I grunted sarcastically. Before my sister and I could even begin to argue, we saw that Clyde had just started to chase after Slimer. The ghost flew closely next to the right-side walls, his large pink tongue now flailing out like a dog, while my best friend let out a proton stream of his own. Unfortunately, he was leaving behind a smoldering black heart monitor-like line across the stone walls.

"I could sure use a hand over here, guys!" he called out to us. Wasting no more time, Lynn and I made our way back out to the cafeteria. We immediately shot our own proton streams, following after the escaping Slimer, and also quite possibly doing a lot more damage to the entire room than he did.

"Oh, no you don't!" I shouted, as my stream finally lassoed around him in the middle of the air. "A little help, Lynn!"

"Not a problem, bro!" Lynn answered. She shot out her own stream again. And this time it actually incapacitated Slimer. No matter how hard he tried to fight back our hold over him and escape, the little bugger found it to be useless. So long as we kept our streams firmly on him, he wasn't going anywhere.

"Clyde, ready the trap!" I commanded. "Hurry! I don't think we can hold him for long!" As quickly as he could be, Clyde unhooked the little box-shaped trap from his belt, and he slid it right underneath the captured Slimer. As we lowered the disgusting little potato-head closer to the ground, that was when Clyde placed the trap's activation petal on the ground.

"Lynn, shorten your stream!" I ordered my sister. "I don't want my face to be burned off!"

"Alright, guys!" Clyde shouted; his left foot now poised at the ready. "On the count of three, I'm going to open the trap! So, whatever you do, do not look directly into the trap! One..., two..., THREE!" And right after saying that, Clyde pressed down on the petal, the little double doors of the trap opening as wide as it could. A white light shined brightly out from it and a swirling little vortex started to grow right below Slimer.

"I looked at the trap, Clyde!" Lynn admitted worriedly, eyes staring wide at the little metal box.

"Lynn, please focus!" I barked out. With as careful and precise ease as we were able to make, we gradually lowered down Slimer, all the while trying not to cross our streams and create an even bigger problem than what we already had.

On another count of three, Lynn and I finally let him go, only for the little spud to get immediately pulled down by the little trap and then sucked inside like that of a vacuum cleaner. Clyde quickly pressed down on the petal again, closing the double-doored lid of the little contraption, trapping Slimer inside for good. When the dust had finally cleared up, we three cautiously maneuvered over to the trap. I knelt down and gave it a gentle nudge with the tip of my proton wand.

Thankfully, nothing happened.

"Yep, he's in there," Lynn stated. A wave of relief instantly washed over us. I wiped away some sweat that began to form around my brow.

"Well, that wasn't such a chore, now was it?" I asked while smiling, after standing back up to my feet.

"Looks like another one just bit the dust!" Clyde commented, giving me a high-five.

"Oh yeah!" Lynn exclaimed excitedly. "We came! We saw! We kicked its butt! Score one for the Ghostbusters! And a big fat zero for Slimer!"

"I don't know about you guys, but I think this calls for a well-deserved celebration!" I declared just as Clyde judiciously picked up the trap with his gloved hands. "What do you guys say we head on over and buy ourselves some Pizza Hut? My treat!"

"Oh, now we're talking!" Clyde agreed, licking his lips hungrily. "What's say we get ourselves one of those pan pizzas, huh?" But just when I was about to open my mouth to say something, I stopped short for a moment. And that was when a terrible feeling abruptly came over me. It was a feeling that caused a freezing cold shiver to run all the way down my spine, filling me with a growing sense of pure dread. Clyde and Lynn looked at me with concern.

"Are you okay, Lincoln?" Clyde asked.

"I don't know, guys," I muttered, exhaling a now trembling breath. "I can't explain it, but for some weird reason, I've got this scary feeling that... we're not alone."

"You've got that right, kid!" a deep and demonic-sounding voice suddenly echoed throughout the room. A voice that sounded very familiar and it caused every single hair all over the body to stand straight up.

The light of the full moon shined its bright rays into the cafeteria, blanketing itself across the opposite wall. And that was when we saw a large shadow of a lone figure emerge from one darkened corner and stand right into the moonlight. On top of the head was what appeared to be the shape of a fedora hat. When the figure raised its hand, we saw that there were bladed claws protruding from each finger. The shadow let out an evil laugh, one that chilled me right to the bone.

"No...!" I murmured, completely frozen in fear. "It can't be...! Not him...!" All of a sudden, Lynn and Clyde let out terrible screams of their own. I whipped behind me just in time to see them fall to the floor and be dragged by their heels by some invisible force. Their screams were loud, filled with nothing but unadulterated terror as they disappeared into the deep and surrounding darkness until I was the only one left alone with the menacing shadow in front of me.

In an instant, the shadow swiped its bladed hand out, easily tearing through the wall like it was a bedsheet. And lo and behold, looming above me was the giant form of none other than Freddy Krueger himself. A broad and evil smile spread across Freddy's burned up face, his demon-like eyes burning fiercely through my petrified form and into my very soul. I swear, it was like I was staring straight into the blazing abyss of Dante's Inferno.

"Hello, Linky! Did you miss me?"

Freddy's right bladed-gloved hand twitched very eagerly as he moved ever closer to my direction. I tried whatever I could to desperately will myself to move, but nothing happened. I looked down and saw that a shadowy tentacle was coiling tightly around my skinny legs, keeping me firmly on the spot. I realized to my horror that I was now the one trapped. With sadistic glee, Freddy Krueger lifted his giant right foot, his sharp teeth glistening from that terrifying smile of his.

"Come to Freddy!" his deep and bone-chilling voice boomed. Desperately, I let out a blood-curdling scream at the top of my lungs as the bottom of his massive foot came down right upon me, my entire world going black in an instant...


My eyes shot wide open before I was able to quickly sit straight up, gasping for air. A film of cold sweat began to form all around my head. My breathing was labored, and my heart was pounding so fast, closely imitating the kind of sound that a spinning propeller from a helicopter would make. I looked down at my trembling hands before coming to realize at last that it was only a dream. And what a relief too. But then, a scary thought unexpectedly popped into my head.

If you die in your dreams, you die for... I tremblingly lifted my shirt up, inspecting to find a terrible slash—or something worse—cross my belly. But thankfully, I did not find bloody claw marks, smashed organs, or any other kind of physical damage around my body. With sweet relief, I laid my white-haired head back down, resting snuggly on the fluffy pillow on... my bed?

Hold on just a second here...

I stood erect one more time and closely examined my new yet familiar environment. I was now in my own bedroom. I was no longer downstairs watching Ghostbusters. And that was when my mind wandered off back to that dream from earlier. I groaned under my breath, realizing exactly what it meant. I laid the side of my head back down on my bed.

Come on, Freddy! Why are you choosing now to come back into my life? I thought that I'd gotten over you at this point! In case that it wasn't pretty much obvious already; yes, I saw A Nightmare on Elm Street. Though it wasn't at all because I was allowed to. You see, R-rated horror movies were strictly prohibited from ever being watched in our house—for a lot of very good reasons, mind you. Of course, I didn't truly understand that, nor did I know any better at the time.

I thought at first that Mom and Dad were just completely exaggerating and making a really huge deal over nothing. None of us were allowed to go near the likes of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween, The Evil Dead, The Thing, Night of the Creeps, Friday the 13th, Day of the Dead, The Fog, not even the 1986 remake of The Fly starring Jeff Goldblum. The list continued to go for as long as Mom and Dad wanted it to be.

And of course, A Nightmare on Elm Street was at the very top of their list. Yep, all of us were pretty much outlawed from ever watching those kind of movies, even if they were safely edited-for-TV. To keep a long story short and simple, I saw the movie one night in the middle of October. I was by myself in the living room and everybody was already asleep. On that night, the station was having a horror movie marathon, one which included about half the movies I just mentioned.

After I was finished watching the movie… Well, let's just say that I no longer assumed Mom and Dad were exaggerating any more. I've had nightmares for weeks on end since then. And based on the dream I had just now; it would appear that even after a year of being absent, erroneously believing he was gone for good, Freddy seemed to have decided that he was not quite done torturing the living daylights out of me just yet. I breathed out a sigh in utter frustration.

Great! Absolutely perfect! Just the very thing I'm looking forward to living out all summer long. Why in the world did I choose to watch that stupid movie in the first place?

That was the thing about having a strong and childish sense of curiosity. You know for a fact that you were not allowed to watch something your parents specifically said no to, and yet you could not bring yourself to look away because you wanted to see what happened next. And boy howdy, did that bite me so hard in the tender side of my scrawny backside.

I've got to seriously get this out of my mind right now! What time is it? I glanced up at my alarm clock, and a light groan escaped my lips. The time was now a quarter half past seven o'clock. I had been asleep for more than an hour. Which meant that I had missed Ghostbusters. I let out yet another groan and I buried my face into the surface of my pillow. After about a minute doing only that, I finally made up my mind.

Well, no use making a big fuss about it now, since I can always watch it again some other time. So, for now, let's go and see if I can find some leftovers from dinner.

And so, I hopped up out of my bed and walked outside my bedroom and into the hallway, the inside of my mouth starting to water at the thought of whatever Dad had cooked up today.

"I wonder who's going to be tonight's host for Saturday Night Live?" I murmured randomly.


Monday, June 1st...

One of the many perks about not going to summer camp, other than what I had already listed beforehand, was that there was no set of rules to keep us firmly in line like a group of soldiers at bootcamp. We were basically free to run amok and have fun however we liked, whether it would be riding our bikes across town, playing in the front or backyard with our sprinkler raining all over the grass, relaxing in the kiddie pool that was overfilled to the top with cold water, or throwing out a frisbee for Charles to jump up and catch with his mouth.

We had lots of fun almost all day, however, until the sun began to set, and the streetlights would turn on at the last minute before it disappeared into the distant horizon. But on that lazy Monday afternoon, I wasn't doing any of those things right at that moment. Instead, what I did was sit on the top of the wooden stairs of our house's front porch, my head resting in my hands, humming Corey Hart's Sunglasses at Night to myself. Today, Lori and I were stuck babysitting Lola, Lana, and Lily while Mom, Dad, and the rest of the girls were out and about driving around town.

No doubt that they were—hopefully—doing a little bit more birthday shopping before tomorrow.

A kid can hope, can't he? I took a quick peek down at my wristwatch; it was five thirty in the afternoon.

They had been gone for almost more than an hour now—almost reaching up to two. It was the first full week of summer vacation, not to mention today was also the first day of June, and I was already bored out of my mind. After putting Lily to sleep in her crib, and getting Lola and Lana to take their naps, I didn't have anything else specifically planned for today, so that pretty much left me free to do whatever I wanted. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of anything off the top of my head. It honestly felt like I had done almost everything, even though it had only been one week after school ended.

Tomorrow is my twelfth birthday, and I don't know what I want to do right now until then, I thought to myself. I swear, if I don't do anything real soon, I'm going to seriously wig out at any given minute. And honest to goodness, I truly meant every single word of it. As much as I wanted to do nothing and just sit there peacefully all by myself outside on our front porch, the desirable feeling of wanting to actually do something was beginning to grow a lot stronger as more time passed.

"Ugh! I swear, I will run across the entire neighborhood in my underwear if I have to." I muttered under my breath. If that was going to help relieve me of this much boredom, then so be it.

It would seem that the Good Lord Himself had been listening to my predicament, for my ears perked up when I suddenly began to hear a very familiar sound draw very close to my general direction from my left. It eventually became a bit louder to the point where it could now be clearly hearable. It was a song, possibly one of the most beautiful songs that any young kid my age would easily recognize in a New York minute, a song of any childhood...

Turkey in the Straw.

That carnival song-sounding jingle could only mean one thing and it brought a giant smile to my lightly freckled face: ice cream. My mouth began to salivate with a growing sense of hunger. Wasting no more time, I quickly ran inside my house and into my room upstairs to find whatever change I still had left over from last week at Gus' Games & Grub. After collecting the appropriate amount, I ran back downstairs and outside to the front yard. I stood out close to the curb, almost frantically waving my arms up to get the attention of the incoming ice cream truck. I even let out a loud whistle.

"Hey, over here!" I called out. When the ice cream truck got a lot closer, Turkey in the Straw still playing through the bullhorn right at the top, the vehicle drove up and parked itself closely against the curb to where I was by a few feet. I walked over to the side of the colorfully pink-and-white vehicle and carefully studied the large pictorial menu that was all stickered on the side window. As if I did not know what I wanted already.

The menu had a really good selection, almost a whole lot to choose from. Many of them ranged from long time classics and old favorites like Klondike's ice cream sandwiches, Flintstones push-up pops, chocolate fudgesicles, creamsicles, Nestle's ice cream Crunch bars and Drumsticks, Little Debbie's Nutty Buddies, cherry-flavored Screwballs, and a whole smattering of others.

Oh man, they all look so good! I mentally said to myself, licking my lips, my eyes glazed with hunger. Right when I was finished reading the menu, the window slid open to the side, revealing a nerdy-looking teenager whom I happened to know. He was fair-skinned, with a head of dark curly blond hair, and he had a couple of small moles around his face; one close to his left eye and the other to his chin. He wore a pair of black pants and a pastel-blue polo shirt. Worn over his clothes was a lightly stained white apron with pink hems. The teenager looked down at me and he smiled almost broadly.

"Hey there, Lincoln," he said in a slightly cracked-sounding voice.

"Hey, Grant," I greeted. "Good day today so far?" He lightly scratched the back of his head.

"Well, so far, yeah," he admitted. "What about you? Do anything special?"

"Nothing really special right now," I said. "Just sitting on the front porch completely bored out of my mind."

"Yikes," he commented.

"Yeah, 'yikes' is just about right. I was this close in deciding to run around the neighborhood in my underwear." To help emphasize what I meant, I displayed my thumb and right finger, both about a quarter inch from touching each other.

"Wow, really that bad, huh?" Grant asked after whistling. "Guess it was a good thing that I came along when I did, huh?"

"Oh, totally," I said. When that was finally done and out of the way, he finally asked me what I would like to have today. After studying the menu one more time, I made my decision vocal.

"I think I'll have one of your Screwballs, please," I said to him. Grant looked at me with a hesitant yet apologetic frown.

"Sorry, dude," he said. "We just ran out of that one." I stared up at him, eyes almost wide as dinner plates.

"What?!" I nearly exclaimed, my shoulders slacking.

You gotta be messing with me! Summer has just started, and you have run out already?

From there, I was forced to make a secondary choice.

"Okay..." I sighed. "Do you at least maybe have a Choco Taco or two?" As he was about to open his mouth to speak, he quickly stopped himself for a moment. It looked like he was about to tell me that he was out of that one as well. But that might not be the actual case, judging from the unsure expression he was making.

"Hold that thought, dude. I'll be right back in a second," With that, Grant disappeared further into the truck, and then less than a minute later, he came back with a single plastic package in one hand. "Boy, are you in luck, dude. This is the last one I've got in stock."

Oh, thank goodness, I thought, my face lighting up.

"Can I also get a Flintstones push pop and a Mousketeer bar?" I asked. "I sisters Lola and Lana love those. Might save them for later if they want them."

"Can do, little dude," After handing me my Choco Taco, Grant disappeared into the back of the truck and appeared with both the Flintstones push-up pop and the Mousketeer bar in his hands.

"There you go," he said with a bright smile. "That'll be one dollar and fifteen cents."

After handing him the appropriate amount of change I had with me to match the price, he gave me the two other bars before saying very cheerily, "You have a great day, Lincoln!" He then closed the sliding window shut and he moved on up back to the driver's seat of the ice cream truck. And just like that, Grant drove away from the curb and returned to the road, heading off into the distance until he was almost a small pink-and-white dot.

I looked down at the three little treats in my hands and a large smile broadened across my face.

It was almost like I had just hit the jackpot at some casino in Las Vegas. I walked back inside the house and went over to the kitchen through the dining room and put Lola and Lana's frozen treats inside the freezer. And for the third time today, I went back outside and sat down on the wooden stairs of our front porch, this time in much better spirits. I carefully opened the wrapper of my Choco Taco and stuck half of it out at one side, before finally taking a really big bite.

After helping to babysit Lola, Lana, and Lily today, I think I totally deserve to have this little treat, I thought blissfully, the wafer shell, nuts, and vanilla ice cream swishing around inside my mouth.

Happy early twelfth birthday, Lincoln...