A Nightmare On Elm Street

the first encounter

(EDITED 14/08/22)

Libby Ramshackle, a strong girl of fifteen who was dressed in a thin night dress, moved down a dark concrete corridor. Her steps quickening as she grew eager to see what was down there.

Distant insane laughter and slamming iron doors caused Libby's breath to hitch in her throat. A animal cry, a lamb, white and blank-faced, skittered across her path and ran on into the dark.

Then, another sound was heard, much nearer -- the slithering scrape of something like fingernails across slate. Starting to panic, she set off into a run. Her tiny figure was running among huge boilers, steam pipes and catwalks -- a shadowed forest of iron and stone. She stopped, listening intently as the sound of tiny hooves suddenly warped into the rattle of distant rain.

She then heard ripping fabric. Someone was shouldering behind ragged screen of dirty canvases, slowly approaching her.

Soon enough, long curved finger-blades punch through as fast as lightning, flashing in the firelight, ripping through the thick fabric, as easy as scalpels through flesh.

Libby made a run for it, hands over her ears. Then the canvas flapped free. The blades were gone. Everything was silent.

The light from a nearby boiler poured through Libby's thin night dress, leaving her naked and vulnerable. A deep, ragged voice whispered out to her, "One two, Freddy's coming for you."

Libby opened her mouth to scream but only a dry, yellow dust flew out. At that precise moment, a huge shadowy man with a grimey red and green sweater and a weird hat pulled over his scarred face, lunged at her. His fingers that were tipped with the long blades of steel, glinting in the boney light and giving the hulk the look of an otherworldly predator.

Libby dodged away, her legs suddenly elephantine and slow. The man seized the trailing hem of her nightgown and hauled her back. Libby managed to tear free -- but the man lurched after her with a hoarse shout.

___

Libby convulsed in bed with a scream, looking around wildly as her eyes adjusted to the dark as well as someone knocking on her door.

"You okay, Libby?" Her mother stuck her head in with a worried look. 

The young girl sat up and blew out a breath, which was groggy, "Just a dream Ma, damn dream, is all."

She ventured into the room as her father stood hovering in the hallway but my quickly waved him away without looking, shoving a strand of bleached hair behind Libby's ear.

Her eyes trailed over my body, "Some dream, judging from that", she exclaimed, nodding at my night dress.

The blonde looked down at her sleepwear only now aware of the chill penetrating it from the room. There were four long slashes up its middle, cleanly cut as if by scalpels.

"You coming back to the sack or what?" Her father's voice rang out.

"Hold your horses." Mother shot back. Before leaving, she lowered down to me, "You gotta cut your nails or stop that kind of dreaming, Love. One or the other."

She shut the door behind her and took a glance at her night dress. "Oh, shit."

Libby suddenly snatched the cross that hung over her head, face as white as her sheet and held it tightly against her body.