by A. Eggleston
After only a second, the man had turned to his right, and disappeared into the dark. When he turned away, the entry to the bedroom he had been standing in front of was now revealed to her eyes.
Feeling safe enough to go out, Evelyn opened the door just enough for her to slip through, and raced across to see what was on the other side. Her body stiffened and she stopped just a few feet from the door when she saw that, sitting in the middle of the bed, was her mother. "Mom?" Evelyn called to her in disbelief.
Her mother was like an older image of Evelyn. She had long, dark, hair, and had beautiful, full, red, lips like her daughter. The only difference was in the eyes. Evelyn's eyes were a glimmering emerald color. Her mother's eyes were a grayish blue color. Also, her mother's face had become sunken, with red lacerations across her forehead and cheeks.
She wore a white, silk, nightgown that reached to the bottom of her feet. She had been covered in bruises, all the way from the outer corners of her eyes to her arms, and probably more hidden underneath her gown. She sat there, stiffened, as tears ran down her face. The woman looked as if she was being held in place by an unseen captor. Her breath was short, like she was being suffocated. Evelyn's mom looked at her, smiling with false reassurance. "Don't worry, honey." she said in a light voice. "Mommy's fine. You're dad and I just had a little disagreement."
Evelyn took one step closer, nearing the entrance. "Mom, what did he do to you?" At this point, she herself wasn't sure if "he" meant her dad, or Freddy.
"Baby, it's nothing." her mother said. "You didn't have to leave home because of what happened."
Evelyn was shocked. "What?"
"How could you leave me, Evelyn?" Tears streamed down her mother's face. "Now I'm all alone. Why could you do that to me?"
Evelyn stepped back, horrified. "No. No." She shook her head. "This is a dream. You would never say that."
"You ran away. You left me here to die." In that instant, four large lash marks raced down from her left shoulder, diagonally to her stomach. Bright, crimson blood gushed from her body, covering her white gown in red. Soon after, stab marks appeared on her ribs and arms.
She screamed in terror as tears stung her eyes. "Aaaaaaaaaah!" Evelyn couldn't see who was doing this to her mom. She could only see cuts happening. Before she knew it, she door had been slammed shut, and the hall was quiet.
As she slowly stepped back, she hit something with her feet. Something made of glass that rolled and clinked against another glass object. She looked down at the floor and saw that it was strewn with glass containers of tequila, vodka, and beer. Her father's usual nightly drinks.
She covered her head with her hands. "This isn't real! This isn't happening!" she forced herself to say.
Suddenly, the echo was back again. It started as a whisper. "Evelyn." called Freddy. Then a quiet laugh. "Ha ha ha ha..." Finally, in a booming, graveled voice that reverberated both in her mind and in the hall. "Daddy's home..."
Her eyes widened. Her stomach dropped. She felt every bone in her body shake. The first thing she thought to do was run. She fled as fast as she could, racing down the hall, through the living room, and finally out the front door into the dark of night.
When she escaped out the door, she gazed across the porch, the lawn, and the houses in front of her. She didn't remember this place. She wasn't on her old street anymore. Evelyn stepped down the brick steps, and turned around the see the house she had been sent to in her dream.
The white paint, the green roof shingles, six windows on both stories, the bright red door, and the gold address plates to the right of it: 1428. Evelyn was in front of the house on Elm Street. The very same one dozens of other kids had lived in before. Where Freddy caught them in their dreams, and murdered them. The same one Freddy himself used to live in, and plan his next kill.
Her mouth gaped. She couldn't believe her eyes. But, now she knew. He is real.
"One, two, Freddy's coming for you..."
Evelyn turned around to see three little girls in white, frilly dresses, playing jump rope, and singing hypnotically.
"Three, four, better lock your door..."
The more she observed them, she realized something about them was strange, other than the fact that they were singing about Freddy coming to get her. Their voices sounded otherwordly, like they were ghosts of themselves. They moved and jumped slowly, as if in slow motion.
"Five, six, grab your crucifix..."
She walked closer to the little girls. She looked at their faces, determining that they couldn't have been older than eight years old. She made a conscious effort to keep a distance between her and the girls. This was a nightmare, after all. She didn't know what might happen next.
"Seven, eight, gonna stay up late..."
Their dresses, she thought. they're all ripped and bloody.
The ends of their dresses had been frayed, with speckles of blood. Some of that blood had dripped down on their white dress shoes. "Oh my God." she whispered. She felt like she wanted to cry. Freddy did that to them. she realized.
"Nine, ten, never sleep again..."
As soon as their song was over, out of nowhere, Evelyn saw Freddy's charred hand reach out from the shadows and grab the rope as it swung to the top, stopping it in mid-swing.
Evelyn felt her heart race again. She slowly backed away, but kept her eyes locked on him.
Freddy emerged from the shadows. First, the sleeve of his ratty red and green sweater came into view. He stepped forward, allowing Evelyn to see his black work boots and greasy slacks. He didn't show his face at first. As he strode out from the darkness, he kept his head lowered slightly, his brown, wrinkled, fedora covering most of his face. He walked closer to Evelyn. He lifted his head, revealing his burnt face. With his left hand, he swiped the brim of his hat. It sat there, crooked, covering the top of his face and concealing one of Freddy's blue eyes while the other stared straight into hers.
Evelyn reacted in a mixture of fear and disgust from the sight of him. She watched him, petrified, as he got closer to her. She didn't know what to do. She could have ran away, but she was in Freddy's world now, it wouldn't have made a difference.
Freddy slung the rope over his shoulder and smiled at her. As he grinned, he revealed his teeth. They looked like...fangs. Sharp, pointed, bloody, fangs. He struck his glove in front of her and wiggled the knife blades around, as if he was waving "hi" to her.
She gasped, and began to step back as Freddy stepped forward. "It's true." said Evelyn. "You are real." But, she didn't want it to be true.
"Oh," said Freddy, disapprovingly. "Didn't your daddy ever tell you not to go lookin' for trouble?" he growled. "Or, was he too busy getting drunk?" Freddy grabbed the rope and held it end-to-end with both hands. He laughed maniacally. "Haa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
Evelyn screamed and turned around to run away from him. For a second, she thought she was able to get away, until she felt the rope swing over her neck. She was pulled down to the ground, causing her to lose her breath.
Freddy wrapped the rope around her neck, constricting and strangling her. He used the last foot of rope to drag her across the lawn.
With each tug, Evelyn felt immense pain. She gagged and choked, but couldn't breathe. She stared up at the stars, listening to Freddy tell her in a sing-song voice,
"I'm gon-na get you, I'm gon-na get you...
Not another pe-ep, time to go to sle-ep!"
He stopped when they reached the base of a tree next to the house. Freddy unwrapped the rope around her neck. He grabbed the back of her head and slammed it against the tree.
SLAM!
SLAM!
SLAM!
She coughed up blood and spit it out on the ground. Her forehead was cut and bleeding. She cried as Freddy took the rope and tied her hands by the base of the tree trunk.
Evelyn laid on the grass, not able to move her arms. The more she tried, the more the rope would cut and scrape her wrists. Her eyes welled up with tears. She felt hopeles
s.
He kneeled beside her, admiring her scraped, helpless body, and her teary face. He flicked one of his razor fingers up, and used it to caress her face. Her sweet, little face. The blade stroked her softly, but he pressed hard enough to make little scratches where he touched her. Then her neck. He watched the sweat slide down her neck as he lingered his blade on her jugular vein. Finally, his razor blade traveled down to her chest. He breathed heavily on her.
Evelyn cried. She wanted proof that Freddy was real, and she got her wish. And now, she was going to die for it.
His blades trailed down her shirt. The razor-like edges cut through the thin cotton of her Black Sabbath jersey, shredding it. Her shirt now looked like strings across her chest, leaving only her black bra to cover her.
Freddy turned away from her, spread her legs apart, and kneeled over them. "Next time you see Ash," he growled. "tell him I have a message for him." Freddy started cutting her inner thigh with his blades.
Evelyn shrieked in agony. "Ah!" It felt like she was having surgery done on her without any anesthesia. She felt him slicing her left leg in quick, tiny cuts in different directions. She couldn't see what he was doing, but she could tell he must have been writing something on her leg.
She wanted to cry for someone to wake her. She didn't think it would work, but she had to try. "WAKE ME UP!!!" she screamed. "WAKE ME UP!!!" she screamed louder. "PLEASE!!!" She closed her eyes and sobbed.
She felt someone touching her shoulders, lightly pushing her. When Evelyn opened her eyes, she saw Cooper standing above her, looking frightened. "Evelyn?" he asked. "Are you okay?"
Everyone was kneeling at the edge of the couch. They all looked shocked, like they had just seen a ghost. When they heard her screaming, rushed over to her and woke her up as fast at they could. They all had seen her, shaking and convulsing on the cushions, screaming like she was being murdered.
Cooper was about to say something else when Evelyn wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. She feared that she would never be able to do that again.
Her hands shook and her eyes were wide. "I saw him." said Evelyn. "I saw Freddy in my dream. He was there."
Cooper pulled back and looked at Evelyn in horror. When he saw her face, he didn't need to be convinced. "Evelyn," he warned her. "you've got bruises and cuts all over you."
She touched the wet patch on her head. When she looked at her fingers, she saw that it was blood.
"Can you walk?" Jill asked her.
Evelyn tried to get up, but gasped when she felt the stinging pain on her left thigh.
Cooper gently set her back down, and pulled the cover back. The sheets had patches of wet blood on them near Evelyn's legs.
Jill, Steven, and Faith moved in closer to look. They all reacted in horror when they saw it.
Evelyn propped herself up to look at what Freddy had written on her. Carved with his blades on her bloody inner thigh, wrote,
Freddy was here
Chapter Fifteen
It was just after 5:00 AM. The sun had not yet come out. When Steven stood in the living room, looking through the blinds, he saw that the sky was only an indigo blue. The clouds filled the sky, hiding most of the stars. The tall, petrified trees formed black silhouettes in the back ground.
Looking into the horizon, he saw a red dot in the sky. For a moment, he thought it was the sun rising, but he was wrong. As Steven looked more carefully, he realized it was the moon. The moon itself had become red as blood. It didn't shock or frighten him any more than seeing Evelyn convulse on the couch, bleeding before his eyes. It only filled him with dread.
Steven turned away from the window and joined Cooper and Jill, where they stood by kitchen counter. They waited while Faith was in the bathroom, bandaging Evelyn's wounds.
Not all of them waited patiently. After nervously pacing back and forth through the room and biting his fingernails, Cooper leaned against the refrigerator, covering his face with his hands. His dark, blonde hair curtained around his fingers. He didn't want anyone to see that he was crying. He had almost lost his girlfriend that night. And at any moment, he could still lose her, and there was nothing he could do about it.
He felt a hand on his left shoulder, and Jill's voice shortly after. "Cooper?" she asked.
Cooper kept his face hidden. His voice was muffled through his hands. "What now, Jill?" he replied in a monotone.
"Evelyn's going to be fine." she reminded him for what he felt like was the hundredth time.
"It's just a few cuts and bruises." Steven added. "I mean, she's alive. That's what important."
Cooper dragged his hands down from his face, showing his red, teary eyes. He raised his voice this time. "Freddy carved her leg and used her as a punching bag." he told them. "He could've killed her."
Jill got in his face. "But, he didn't." she assured him. "So, why are you still focused on that?" she asked.
He took a deep breath to try to calm himself down. "I could've helped her."
"Oh, really?" Jill humored him. "How?"
He broke eye-contact with Jill and began pacing around the room again. "I don't
know." he replied honestly. Since Evelyn woke up, he had gone through various scenarios in his mind on what he could have done to keep her from Freddy. He kept running them in his head on a loop, as punishment for not doing whatever it is he could have done. The truth was, there was nothing he could do. But, he still kept trying to find answers. "I should have watched her more carefully. Maybe then, I would have been able to see that she was having a nightmare and woken her up before Freddy got to her."
Jill interrupted him. "Cooper!"
Cooper stopped pacing and faced her. "What?"
"You can't control everything." she said.
"Yeah." Steven agreed. "It's beside the point, anyway."
"So what is the point then?" Cooper asked. "Tell me, Steve. What are we gonna do?"
"Well," said Steven. "if Evelyn survived Freddy in her nightmare, maybe we all can. Just long enough to find a way to get rid of him."
Cooper argued with him. "You heard Ash. Freddy's just gonna get more powerful, and who knows what else will happen. We can't stop him."
Steven stared down at the floor. "You sure are a big help." he said quietly. In a matter of hours, his and all of his friends' lives had changed. His biggest worry went from getting to school on time, to wondering if he'll be alive or dead by tomorrow. He felt hopeless. He was just glad that his sister was by his side. They were only a two years apart. Even though they bugged the hell out of each other, Steven and Jill were like best friends.
"Ash mentioned a book, right?" Jill asked Cooper. "The--uh--Necronomicon?"
"Yeah." answered Cooper. "So?"
"So...If the book is destroyed, wouldn't Freddy be, too?"
Cooper hunched over the table. "Yeah, but Freddy's the only one who has the book." he answered. "The only way to find it is to get to him, and there's no way I'm giving Freddy another chance to kill one of us." He stood up straight. "I say we leave town."
"I like that." Steven agreed. "I have seriously been considering that for the past couple of hours."
"Freddy only kills kids in Springwood." Cooper continued. "If we leave, he can't get to us."
Jill started to walk away. "I'm gonna go check on Evelyn while you two make travel arrangements."
She walked out of the kitchen, through the living room, and headed to the first door on her right, in the hall. The bathroom door was open by a few inches. Jill pushed it open, poking her head out the door. She saw Evelyn sitting on the edge of the bathtub with her leg propped in front of her, with a bloody towel under it. Faith sat beside her, wiping off the crusted blood and applying gauze.
Jill entered the room. She jumped up and sat on the counter next to the sink. "How do you feel?" she asked Evelyn.
Evelyn leaned her head against the tile. "Dizzy." she replied. The touched the dried patches of blood on the side of her head. "...and kind of gross." she added.<
br />
Faith turned to Jill, keeping the bandage on Evelyn's leg. "She's still bleeding." she said. "I'm hoping the bandage'll stop it."
The bloody patch on the side of Evelyn's head had dried up and felt crusty on her hair.
The streams of blood on her forehead and nose had also dried up and had gotten darker. She felt defeated. She just wanted to get bandaged, cleaned up, and move on. "Faith," she said weakly. "could you hand me that towel, please?"
Faith reached for the damp rag next to her and handed it to Evelyn.
"Thank you." she said weakly. She wiped off the crusted blood from her face, and then squeezed the excess water onto her scalp. It wasn't much of an improvement. The cuts were still visible and she still had some dark bruises on her, but she felt clean.
"So," Faith asked Evelyn. "what happened in your dream?"
Evelyn closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She didn't really want to relive the experience, but she figured she had to talk about it at some point. "Well," she pondered where to begin. "it felt...real. Like it was actually happening."
Faith lifted her leg up slightly to wrap the gauze around her thigh. She wrapped it around tightly, hoping to stop the bleeding.
"At first, I was here and everything just seemed normal. And then," Evelyn recalled seeing the entity from the Book of the Dead. "I saw this...thing...running towards me."
"Was it Freddy?" asked Jill.
"No," Evelyn answered. "it was something else. It was...like this…entity and it was coming right for me, so I ran. The next thing I knew, I was back in my old house."
Cooper and Steven had been standing by the door, listening. They entered the bathroom as Evelyn described her nightmare. Steven sat down on the floor so that he was next to Faith, and also by his sister. Cooper sat on the floor next to Evelyn.
"He knew all about me." she continued. "He knew everything." Her eyes became watery and she felt her bottom lip quiver from the images of her dream running over and over again in her head. "He took me to that old house on Elm Street. And there were these little girls, they looked like Freddy did something..." she didn't want to finish that sentence, because that meant she would have had to imagine what Freddy did to those girls. "They were singing." She repeated the song exactly as she remembered in her dream. "One, two, Freddy's coming for you..."