A Nightmare on Birch Street Ch. 02

"Nancy! Wake up!" he shouted, banging even harder. That bastard was going to fuck her! Unless he did something that monster was going to fuck her right now whilst he watched helplessly. He slid right to the end of the branch and tugged the sleeve of his baggy sweatshirt down over his fist as he wobbled dangerously.

"NANCY!" he screamed as he punched the glass, the window shattering, as the branch dipped alarmingly and he struggled to cling on.

He felt a rush of relief as his girlfriend suddenly awoke, sitting upright in bed, her eyes wide in shock as she spotted him through the broken pane.

"He was attacking you," Glen said.

She looked confused for a few seconds staring down at her nakedness. Then there was a look of understanding followed by relief as she pulled her top closed and tugged the duvet back up modestly.

"Thanks," she said.

"What's that noise? Are you okay, Nancy?" he heard her mother shout.

With a loud splintering noise, the branch finally gave way, and Glen suddenly found himself falling, disappearing from sight just as the silhouette of Nancy's mother appeared in the doorway. Luckily, he caught the branch beneath on the way down, breaking his fall. He scurried away into the night, as Nancy's mother rushed over and examined the broken window.

"What on earth happened?" she asked Nancy.

"I don't know, I was woken up by a loud crash," the girl said, still holding the duvet up to her chin.

"How strange! I guess that old branch fell off, and caught the window on the way down," her mother said, peering carefully through the jagged shards of glass whilst clutching at her dressing gown.

"Yeah, that must be it, I mean it's quite an old tree," Nancy agreed. "It's a warm night; let's just draw the curtains and look properly when it's daylight, huh?"

--

Tina glanced at her watch and groaned. It was a quarter past eleven which meant that she was only fifteen minutes into her English literature lesson, she'd been sure more time had passed. It had been a strange morning so far. She hadn't seen Nancy or Glen on the way into school and she kept worrying that something had happened to them last night.

Her plan had worked; she hadn't slept at all last night and so had been spared any more disturbing nightmares. The caffeine pills had been as effective as she'd hoped, but now she was suffering for it, feeling sleepy even though it was still mid-morning.

The lesson wasn't helping her to stay awake. They'd been studying "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for a few weeks and now they'd finally got to the end, her teacher, Mrs Windsor was insisting they analysed the book's conclusion.

She tried to pay attention as one of her classmates read the beginning of Puck's final speech:

"If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumber'd here

While these visions did appear."

"So what's Puck saying here? Anyone?" Mrs Windsor asked.

"Is it something about pretending to be asleep?" the girl next to her asked.

"Well, yes, but let's go through this line-by-line. 'If we shadows have offended', what does that mean? He's saying if you haven't enjoyed the show, isn't he? Do we all understand that?"

"Man, this is boring," Tina thought as she played with her pencil.

She was starting to feel even more drowsy. It didn't help that she was sitting next to the radiator, which was giving off a pleasantly warm glow. She felt her eyelids droop as she tried to concentrate on the textbook in front of her the words on the page beginning to swim and blur.

Some movement caught her eye, snapping her awake. The door to the classroom was inset with a small pane of safety glass, and she watched a figure dart past. It was Nancy! Her friend glanced over at Tina as she passed, a look of dread in her large brown eyes. Seconds later, the strange freak from their dreams appeared, grinning lewdly at Tina as he followed Nancy down the hall.

The teacher and the rest of the class seemed not to notice as Tina leapt to her feet, and ran out into the hall just in time to see the man turn right, disappearing down the steps towards the basement.

Without thinking, she rushed down the stairs, her sneakers squeaking on the bare concrete steps. It was as gloomy as she remembered at the bottom, a single, bare light bulb swinging from the ceiling, struggling to light the huge space.

"Nancy?" she said, peering into the gloominess as she listened for a reply.

"Tina? I'm down here, help me!" she heard Nancy reply, her voice distant and coming from the tangle of heating ducts to her left.

"I'm coming, is he here?" the blonde said as she bent her head, and crept along the gantry between the complex tangle of pipes.

"No, it's just me, he tied me up but I don't know where he is. Please hurry!" the voice said.

Tina scurried along the walkways, following the sound of Nancy's voice. Turning left at another junction, she could just make out a dark shape about forty yards away.

"Quickly, he's tied me to this pipe! I'm so scared, help me, Tina!" Nancy said.

"Hold on, nearly there," Tina said, although something about the voice made her pause. Although it superficially sounded like Nancy, her friend wasn't normally the type to panic or beg for help.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine, but please hurry!" the voice insisted.

Was this a trap? Her doubts grew as she moved closer to the dim figure at the end of the passage. Was Nancy that tall? She'd got to within a few yards when she realised the awful truth.

"Hey listen, I think it's best if I go and get help," she said, trying to keep her voice even and not betray her anxiety.

"Please, help me! I'm right here!" the figure insisted.

"No, I'm going to get Glen, I'll be right back," she said, starting to walk backwards.

"You're not going anywhere bitch," the man said, suddenly lurching forward. She shuddered, her teeth on edge as he dragged the blades of his glove along the metal pipes producing a nauseating, high-pitched scraping sound like fingernails on a blackboard.

"No!" she squealed, as she turned and ran back the way she came, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps as she felt the panic consume her.

"Come back here!" he screamed as he chased her.

"I just want to have a little fun!"

"No, please!" she sobbed as she ran. Was it left or right at the next turn? She jinked right, ducking her head to avoid the low-hanging metalwork.

On and on she ran through the maze of pipes, her heart thumping as she heard his boots clattering on the metal gantry behind her, his rasping voice laughing and mocking her.

She felt a cool surge of relief as she found herself back at the foot of the stairs.

"Just a little further, nearly back to daylight and safety," she thought.

But as she started up the stairs, his maniacal laughter echoing around the basement, she quickly realised something was wrong. The concrete steps seemed to soften as she ran up them, each one more yielding than the last. By the time she was halfway up, they had a muddy feel, and she was struggling to keep her balance. She panted, having to pull each foot free now as the steps became like marshmallow, sucking at her feet. She whimpered as the muscles in her legs ached, hearing him close behind her now, as she struggled to pull her feet free.

"No! Please!" she cried as she felt his hands clutching her. Her feet were stuck, right up to her calves and she reached out placing her hands on the steps as his weight pressed against her from behind.

"What's the matter? Don't you want to play with your old friend?" he laughed as he wrapped one arm around her stomach and held the wickedly sharp blades of his glove in front of her face.

"Let me go! Please!" Tina whimpered, shivering as she felt his hot, smoky breath on her neck.

"I just want to have a little fun," he laughed, as he ran a hand up over her body and crudely groped her breasts.

"Leave me alone, you creep!" she screamed, struggling as she felt him pulling at her t-shirt.

"Hold still! I wouldn't want to cut those gorgeous tits of yours," he said, as used one of the blades to slice through the white cotton of her white t-shirt, slicing through the large black letters that spelled out "Choose Life".

"Stop, please," she gasped, as she watched him slide the blade between the cups of her white bra, her breasts springing free with a deft flick of his wrist.

"Great tits, you know I think they're even better than your friends'," he chuckled as he eagerly ripped open her t-shirt and brassiere.

"Please, no," she mewed as his rough hands crudely groped her plump young boobs and she felt his body press against hers, feeling his steely hardness rubbing against her bottom through her jeans.

"Yeah, you understand what men want, huh? You're such a horny little bitch, much hotter than that tight-assed little virgin friend of yours," she heard him grunt as his blackened, scarred fingers tugged at the belt of her jeans.

"No, please!" she mewed as she felt it loosen.

"You know, I was gonna wait till tonight to finish you and your friends off but you're so hot, I think I'm gonna fuck you right here," he chuckled hoarsely as his scarred fingers pulled open her jeans and began to wriggle them over her rounded hips.

She looked around anxiously, desperate for a way out as she felt the denim sliding over her bottom. Beside her, a pipe clung to the wall, disappearing up into the ceiling. She reached out and found it hot to the touch.

"No, no!" she gasped as she felt him wriggle her jeans over her hips. In desperation, she reached out and grabbed the hot pipe.

She screamed as the hot metal burnt her hand, screamed and screamed at the hot, stinging pain, but grimly held on despite all her instincts to pull away until the pain overwhelmed her and she blacked out.

--

The rest of the class spun around and stared at her as she screamed.

"No, no!" Tina screamed, her eyes squeezed shut, her arms flailing wildly.

"Tina, wake up, wake up!" Mrs Windsor shouted, rushing over to the sleeping girl and shaking her by the shoulder. "Are you alright?"

"What? Mrs Windsor? Where am I?" Tina said groggily. "Ow, my hand!"

"Let me see," her teacher said. "Yes, that looks quite nasty; you must have burnt it on the radiator."

"Yes, the radiator," Tina repeated, groggily.

"Cherry? Can you take Tina to the sick bay please?"

--

At lunchtime, the three friends gathered in the canteen and shared what had happened to them over the last twenty-four hours. Glen told them about how he'd been attacked in the dead of night, and how he'd tried to warn Nancy. Nancy had explained what had happened to her, and that she'd been late to school because she'd been helping her mother clear up and find a glazier to replace her window. Tina told them about her traumatic experience after falling asleep in class.

"I'm sure he's getting stronger," Nancy said, shaking her head.

"Yes, he's beginning to actually leave marks on our bodies," Glen said, lifting his t-shirt to show them the thin scars on his stomach.

"Gosh! Is that an 'F'? What does that mean?" Nancy said.

"I've been wounded by him too," Tina said, rubbing the sore red burn mark on the palm of her hand.

"He seems to be getting stronger and more violent. We've got to stop him," Nancy said.

"Well, to stop him we've got to find out more about him, find out who he is and what he wants," Tina replied.

"You're right, and we've got to work fast. I'll meet you in the library after class. Maybe we'll find something in the old newspaper archives," Nancy replied.

--

At the back of the library was a small room with a desk containing the school's microfiche viewer, and several grey metal cabinets full of archived local and national newspapers. Tina ran her finger along the labels until she found the drawer labelled 'Springfield Courier'.

"How far back shall we go?" she said, sliding the drawer open and finding hundreds of tiny films neatly categorised by year.

"The janitor said the old boiler was condemned about twenty years ago, which would be 1964. Maybe we should start with 1963 and work forwards," Nancy replied.

The Courier was a weekly paper; Tina pulled out the stack of fifty-two films relating to 1963. Each film was a thin, transparent slide containing a matrix of images, each one a tiny copy of a newspaper page. She slid the film into the viewer, where it was lit by a bright light, its magnified contents shown on the screen.

She worked quickly, skimming the text on each page as Nancy looked over her shoulder. After about twenty minutes, they hadn't found any mention of a suspicious death in the school's basement, and they started on the 1964 slides.

They found nothing until they got to the edition for Friday, 10 April.

"Aha!" Tina exclaimed as with growing excitement they read the front-page article under the headline "Janitor Fatally Injured in Accident at Springfield High":

"An investigation is underway after the body of janitor Fred Krueger was discovered in the basement at Springfield High School early on Friday morning. Police officers and paramedics were called in by a member of staff but Mr Krueger was pronounced dead at the scene.

Mr Krueger, 25, was said to be popular with the staff and students at the college and had been janitor for two years. The detective in charge has said that his death is currently being treated as accidental, and has urged anyone who saw Mr Krueger on Wednesday evening to come forward. Several students are helping the police with their enquiries."

"At least we have a name now: Fred Krueger!" Nancy said.

There was a picture above the story, a crowded black-and-white image of police, teachers and students watching as a sheet-covered body was wheeled towards a waiting ambulance on a gurney.

"Hey, isn't that your mother?" Tina asked, her tired eyes picking out a face in the crowd.

"It can't be. Mom said she'd already graduated by '64. It does look like her though," Nancy replied, a puzzled expression on her face as she looked closer. "Isn't that your father next to her?"

"Where? Oh yeah. You're right, it does look like him. It's funny, he's never mentioned it," Tina said. "Let's keep reading and see if there's anything else."

There was nothing in the next edition but in the one after that, they found a small article on page six:

"A verdict of accidental death has been recorded at the inquest of a janitor who died recently. Twenty-five year old Fred Krueger had been janitor at Springfield College for two years. The county medical examiner has determined that his death was caused by extensive burns as a result of a tragic accident involving the school's heating system.

The head of Springfield College described Mr Krueger as a dedicated and hard-working colleague, who will be much missed. It's thought that Mr Krueger was an orphan, but police have encouraged anyone with information regarding his surviving relatives to come forward."

"So it's a real story, this definitely happened," Tina said as they finished reading.

"Yeah, although it might have raised more questions than it answered. Does the 'F' on Glen's stomach stand for 'Fred'? And why did my mother lie about being there?"

"Yeah, and why did my parents never mention it? You'd have thought that kind of accident would stick in peoples' minds."

"By the way, did you notice the date he died? It's exactly twenty years ago today! Tonight is the twentieth anniversary of when he died!"

"It can't be!" Nancy exclaimed, but when she looked back at the first article she saw Tina was right.

"He's sure to try something later; I'm sure he said something about it all finishing tonight!"

"I think you're right, the nightmares have been getting worse and worse. What are we going to do?"

"My parents are out at work tonight and I think whatever happens, it's safest if we're all together. I'm walking home with Glen tonight, so I'll tell him to meet us at my place."

"Right, good idea. I'll see you around nine o'clock. I want to have a word with my mother first. I'm sure there's something she's not telling me."