Chapter 42: The Nightmare Becomes Reality

Chapter 42: Chapter 42: The Nightmare Becomes Reality

Chapter 42: The Nightmare Becomes Reality

The familiar boiler room glowed with an ominous red light while steam hissed from rusted pipes overhead. Freddy Krueger paced furiously between the furnaces, dragging the blades of his right-hand glove across the metal until sparks scattered across the floor. "Damn it," he snarled as his burned face twisted with rage. "Since when did Holy Water become so cheap that people hand it out like tap water?"

Just thinking about Axel Vance made Freddy even angrier. The new forest ranger had turned an entire night of nightmares into wasted effort, protected Freddy’s intended victims, and somehow chopped the waking-world monster Freddy had dragged into the situation into pieces. Jason Voorhees had been meant to keep Axel occupied, not end up stuffed into a bag like biological evidence.

"Worthless hockey puck," Freddy muttered while scratching the burned skin beneath his fedora. He had gone to considerable trouble awakening Jason, only to watch the silent brute lose to one man armed with guns, an axe, and enough blessed water to fill a church fountain. The humiliation alone made Freddy want to tear something apart.

Then his expression slowly changed.

There was still something useful left.

Jason’s body might have been reduced to regenerating bones, but the rage tied to him had not disappeared. Decades of death, hatred, and violence had left a soul filled with exactly the kind of darkness Freddy understood how to exploit.

A crooked grin spread across Freddy’s face. "If I can’t have those kids tonight, maybe I’ll snack on my partner instead." He raised the bladed glove toward the darkness and curled his fingers as if catching something invisible.

The boiler room distorted.

Red light bent inward.

A massive figure was violently dragged from the surrounding darkness and dropped into the dream world.

Jason Voorhees stood silently beneath the pipes.

His huge body looked strangely indistinct compared with his physical form, almost like a shadow given weight, yet the weathered hockey mask remained fixed over his face. Jason tilted his head once as though trying to understand where he had been taken.

Freddy swaggered toward him with renewed confidence. "Hey, big guy. Looks like your little field trip didn’t go so well." He circled Jason with a mocking grin and added, "Don’t worry, though. I know exactly what to do with what’s left of you."

Freddy thrust his bladed hand toward Jason’s chest.

A huge hand caught his wrist.

Freddy froze.

Jason had raised his head.

The hollow darkness behind the hockey mask was now fixed directly on him.

"You can still move?" Freddy blurted.

For the first time, uncertainty crossed his burned face. Freddy had expected Jason’s spirit to be weakened after the destruction of his body, not strong enough to stop him inside his own nightmare domain. His eyes flicked toward the hand around his wrist before his personality changed with almost comical speed.

"Good!" Freddy exclaimed with a forced laugh. "That’s exactly what I wanted to see. I pulled you in here so we could go after the bastard who chopped you up."

Jason did not react.

Freddy waved his free hand in front of the hockey mask. "Hello? Anybody home? I’m the guy who got you out of the lake."

Jason’s other hand suddenly closed around Freddy’s throat.

"What the—"

Jason lifted him completely off the ground.

Before Freddy could use the dream world against him, Jason slammed him downward with monstrous force. Freddy crashed into the boiler-room floor hard enough to send a violent tremor through the entire nightmare.

The red glow flickered.

Pipes twisted.

The walls fractured like scenery painted on broken glass.

Freddy’s eyes widened when brilliant white light suddenly pierced through the collapsing boiler room. The heat vanished, sunlight flooded his vision, and the nightmare around him shattered before he could regain control.

Freddy opened his eyes on hot pavement.

He stared up at a blue sky he had not expected to see.

Directly in front of him sat a Ford pickup truck.

Behind the windshield, Axel Vance was staring at him with open disbelief. Paquita Sanchez, Lionel Cosgrove, and Paquita’s grandmother looked equally stunned from inside the damaged escape vehicle.

Freddy slowly sat up.

"What the hell?"

He looked down at his hands.

They were solid.

The warmth of sunlight touched his burned skin.

Freddy’s expression changed when he realized what had happened.

He was in the waking world.

Before he could process that disaster, a violent rattling erupted from the back of Axel’s pickup. The reinforced bag containing Jason’s bones began jerking so hard that its straps snapped one after another. Axel twisted in his seat just as the entire bag burst apart.

Bones shot into the air.

Paquita screamed.

Lionel flattened himself against the seat while Paquita’s grandmother began muttering something Axel could not hear.

Jason’s skeleton assembled itself above the road piece by piece. Vertebrae locked together, ribs snapped into position, and long bones rotated through the air before joining the structure with sickening precision. Within seconds, a complete human skeleton stood upright in the middle of the street.

Then flesh started growing.

Dark red strands erupted from the bones and twisted around one another like living cords. Muscle formed across the skeleton, connective tissue stretched over the joints, and new flesh rapidly wrapped around the expanding body.

Axel stared through the windshield.

"You have got to be kidding me."

Jason’s massive physique rebuilt itself completely in seconds.

Tattered clothing formed around his body as the supernatural regeneration finished. Last came the weathered hockey mask, appearing across his reconstructed face as though whatever curse sustained Jason considered it as much a part of him as the bones underneath.

Jason Voorhees stood in the road again.

Freddy happened to be lying directly between Jason and Axel’s truck.

For several seconds, nobody moved.

Even Paquita’s grandmother appeared to have forgotten how to speak.

Then Freddy slowly pushed himself to his feet and adjusted his battered fedora. He looked toward Jason, then toward the people trapped inside the pickup, and a delighted grin spread across his scarred face.

"Well, would you look at that," Freddy said. "Maybe today is my lucky day after all."

He spread his arms toward Axel. "Fresh meat right in front of me, and my favorite hockey puck is back together." Freddy turned toward Jason and gestured dramatically at the truck.

"Come on, big guy. Remember why I woke you up?"

Jason remained motionless.

Freddy pointed toward Axel. "That’s the guy who chopped you into pieces. Go tear him apart."

Jason slowly turned his head.

Not toward Axel.

Toward Freddy.

Freddy’s smile weakened.

"Hey."

Jason continued staring.

"I’m talking to you, you deaf son of a—"

Jason charged.

Freddy barely had time to raise his bladed glove before Jason’s fist smashed through his defense and connected with his face. The impact launched Freddy backward like a rag doll.

He flew directly into Axel’s pickup.

CRASH!

Freddy struck the front of the Ford with enough force to cave in part of the hood and spiderweb the windshield. His body bounced off the truck, flipped once through the air, and landed face-first on the pavement several yards away.

Axel stared at the crushed hood.

His expression slowly changed.

"My new truck."

Nobody inside the cab said anything.

Axel’s eye twitched.

"I just bought this thing."

Jason was already moving again.

He stepped beside the driver’s side of the pickup, wrapped one hand around the door, and pulled. Metal screamed as the entire door tore free from the frame.

Jason tossed it into the street.

Axel’s heavy experimental handgun was already coming up.

BANG!

The enormous round slammed into Jason and interrupted his advance long enough for Axel to move. He grabbed a prepared bottle of Holy Water, ripped off the cap, and threw the entire contents across Jason’s chest and face.

Black smoke erupted instantly.

Jason recoiled as the blessed liquid burned into his regenerated flesh.

Axel seized the opening.

He brought up his shotgun and fired.

The first blast hammered Jason backward.

The second tore open his shoulder.

The third struck his torso and sent pieces of corrupted flesh across the road.

Jason still refused to fall.

While Axel and Jason resumed their violent fight beside the battered pickup, Freddy finally pushed himself off the pavement. He shook his head, adjusted his jaw with both hands, and looked toward the battle with an irritated expression. "Fine. Let them beat each other stupid."

He decided there was no reason to interfere immediately. Whoever won would already be weakened, and Freddy could deal with the survivor afterward. Being trapped in the waking world was inconvenient, but at least it gave him a chance to let someone else do the dangerous work first.

Then Freddy felt something behind him.

A lot of somethings.

He slowly turned around.

Dozens of figures were moving down the street.

Men and women staggered forward with vacant eyes, slack faces, and unnatural movements. Some were covered in dried blood, others had obvious wounds, and several looked far too damaged to still be walking.

Freddy’s smile returned.

"Well, hello."

The infected continued toward him.

Freddy spread the fingers of his bladed glove. "And here I thought this town had run out of volunteers."

The first infected woman lunged.

Freddy casually slashed through her torso.

His blades cut completely across the body and sent the upper half tumbling away.

A second infected man reached him from the side, only for Freddy to turn and carve straight through his waist. Both victims collapsed in pieces across the pavement.

Freddy threw his head back and opened his mouth expectantly.

Two streams of liquid sprayed across him.

He froze.

The foul substance hit his face and entered his mouth.

Freddy immediately spat it out.

"Ptooey!"

He wiped his tongue with his sleeve and stared at the blue-green fluid coating his glove. "What the hell is this?"

The smell was unbearable.

It was not blood.

It was thick infected pus.

Freddy slowly looked down.

The woman he had cut in half was still moving.

Her hands clawed across the pavement as her upper body dragged itself toward him.

Beside her, the second infected victim twisted at the waist despite having no lower half attached.

Freddy stared at them.

Then at the approaching horde.

Then back at the blue-green slime covering his sweater.

For perhaps the first time all morning, Freddy Krueger looked genuinely offended.

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