A Nightmare Reborn Ch. 03

"Fuck you Renaud," Briggs flipped him off and started walking back to his cruiser.

"Both of you check yourselves now," Don barked, standing between the two policemen.

"Hey," Sean shouted, his heart pounding with righteous anger and laughed, "If Krueger or Jason don't get ya, I will you racist mother fucker!"

Briggs and turned and was about to fire back a retort was he suddenly lurched forward. The officers went silent and jumped back as his chest exploded outward in a spray of blood that spattered to the pavement in a fine rain. Briggs looked down at the massive blade protruding from his ruined torso, eyes wide and jaw working open and closed silently as blood poured from his mouth. Sean watched as Briggs was lifted into the air and he saw the massive figure of the attacker suddenly appear from out of the shadows.

"Holy shit," Sean breathed as Briggs was suddenly flipped to one side and thrown to the shoulder of the road. He landed hard and skidded almost six feet in the gravel before coming to a stop. His limp body did nothing but lie there and drain as blood pooled around him in the dirt. The killer stood in the red and blue flashing lights, built like a damn tank and easily over seven feet tall. The stained white hockey mask sat high on his frame, covering a misshapen head from which a few long strands of gnarled hair grew. The clothes were torn and ruined from dirt and stains that Sean didn't even want to guess about. In his hand he held a huge weathered machete that dribbled with blood.

"Shoot the fucker!" Sean screamed and pulled his sidearm out.

The night erupted as the five officers opened fire on Jason Voorhees, plugging his body with round after round. Jason recoiled and jumped as he felt the bullets penetrate his flesh and yet, he did not fall. Instead, he began moving towards them as gun smoke swirled around him. Ford ejected his spent magazine and struggled to load another quickly. He looked down for a moment but never finished the job as the machete swung down and caught his neck and shoulder. The blade tore through him and severed his head in a single motion.

Sean watched Ford's headless pudgy body stagger as his head rolled away with a series of sick, wet thuds to the heel of Briggs boot. A jet of blood spurted into the air and Ford walked another few feet before he realized he was dead and collapsed in a heap on the ground. His body jerked in violently as blood ruptured from his open neck. Jason turned as a round from Ramirez's gun caught him in the head and whipped it back. Jason stood there for a moment and then grabbed Ramirez by the arm.

"Help me!" he screamed as his bones compressed and snapped under Jason's grip. Sean heard the thick meaty snap and tear of Ramirez's arm as Jason jerked him to left and spun him away. Ramirez's arm remained firmly in Jason's grip as his body reeled into Trent. They collapsed into a heap as Ramirez screeched at the top of his lungs. Don lunged at Jason, his gun blasting away but Jason turned and hit him hard with the severed arm. Don staggered and fell over, his gun spinning away.

"You son of a bitch," Sean growled and brought his gun up, taking aim as Jason began to walk towards him. Sean squinted and calmly squeezed off one round that actually ricocheted off the hockey mask. Jason's head jerked back from the force and slowed him down momentarily, but he kept coming. Sean fired again, this time putting a round into the left eyehole of Jason's mask. The killer paused again, momentarily disoriented as he raised his hand to his face. Blood was leaking from the eyehole like a stream of crimson tears.

Jason tossed the Ramirez's arm aside and raised his machete.

Sean fired again, this time plugging his right shoulder.

"Fuck!" he shouted and fired again.

Jason closed the distance quickly, now only five feet away with no signs of slowly.

"What the fuck are you?" Sean bellowed and started squeezing off rounds randomly as Jason reached out for him. He felt the vice-like grip of the killer's hand grasp his jaw and squeeze. Sean felt his feet leave the ground as Jason lifted him into the air, stretching his neck painfully. Sean cried out and kept firing until his magazine ran dry, uncertain he was hitting anything at all as his vision began to cloud over. He knew any minute now his jaw would shatter under the increasing pressure of the man's grip.

"Fuck you," Sean spit at him as the blade rose high for the kill.

There was the loud report of a shotgun and suddenly Sean was falling to the ground. He landed hard on his ass and looked to see Don, his face torn up from falling head first into the cement holding the single-barreled 12-guage from the cruiser. Smoke drifted from the barrel as he aimed at Jason again. Sean looked back at the huge killer and saw a softball-sized hole in his side, the dingy clothing shredded and bloody. Still, Jason seemed unimpressed as he began to walk towards Don, his heavy Frankenstein-esque boots falling in heavy thuds.

***

Amidst the sliced cartons of hypnocil and the broken plastic bottles, Freddy Krueger dumped the last of troublesome drug into the sink as steam jetted up from the hot water pouring from the faucet. The last half hour had seen the destruction of more pills than he cared to count, and even now he doubted he had gotten all of it. He knew they probably had more somewhere, just in case. Still, this would put a sizable dent in their supply and that was good enough for him.

"Mary your skin is looking rough," he laughed and looked down to see the once porcelain perfect flesh on Mary's arm was burned and red from the scalding hot water in the sink. Freddy laughed. It was no big deal to him seeing burned flesh. As time went on from the moment he was burned alive so long ago, he'd gotten used to it.

Suddenly, he stopped in the middle of dumping out the last few bottles of the dream suppressant drug. He looked around the room as he sensed something different. He dropped the bottles in the hot water and looked into the space around him as he watched the vision unfold in his mind's eye. He laughed at out loud, holding Mary's stomach in a healthy expression of glee.

"Voorhees is back!" he crowed.

***

Don fired a warning shot, just missing Jason's face by an inch.

"Drop the fucking blade and lay face down on the road," Don ordered him, his finger resting pensively on the trigger of the shotgun, "Hands out and away from your body."

Jason kept walking towards him.

Don aimed and fired again, taking Jason in the shoulder. Cloth, flesh and blood ripped apart and spattered down in a hail of gore as Jason's shoulder took the impact of the shot. Still, he moved forward, undaunted and somehow not even slowed down in the slightest. Sean stood up and proceeded to reload his gun. He grabbed the fresh magazine out of his belt pouch as he ejected the spent one. Behind him, Ramirez had stopped screaming and was now silent. He looked and saw that neither he nor Trent was moving. They simply lay there in a pile of broken bones and dead meat.

"Sean!" Don shouted as he began backing up, "I only got three shots left!"

Sean shook his head and slapped the magazine in and chambered a round into the gun. He stood up as the world spun around him and began firing. The first two rounds went wide and zinged into the cornfield. The next few rounds took Jason square in the back and he paused again, slowly turning. He looked over his shoulder and regarded Sean with a cool, bloody stare as if to say, "You again?"

"We're just pissing him off!" Sean yelled and fired three more rounds into Jason's legs. The pants shredded and oozed blood with each impact, but Jason still stood. He turned and raised his machete as Don backed into the trunk of their cruiser. He had nowhere else to go as Jason closed on him.

"Sean!" Don screamed.

Jason brought the blade down but it never made contact. It followed through just short of Don's terrified face. Jason was suddenly jerked backwards and up into the air. Don was on the verge of a heart attack as he watched the impossible events unfolding before him. The giant that was Jason Voorhees rose into the air and as he went, Don saw the legs of this new attacker. He thought for one crazy moment that it was Sean, but when he looked over to his left and saw Sean gaping at Jason, he knew better. Jason convulsed once and Don heard a muted crackling sound, sort of like the sound fresh celery made when he bit down on it. Blood erupted from Jason's chest and a thick length of three inch piping speared through his chest. Jason looked down impotently at the pipe and grabbed it with his hand.

"Holy Mother of God," Don whispered.

The officers watched as Jason was tossed across the road in very the same manner as Briggs had been thrown. The huge man hit the ground hard and rolled across the meridian where he laid still. His machete clattered to the pavement a few feet away. Sean looked and saw another man standing silently in the flashing lights, holding the bloody six-foot length of metal pipe in both hands. He too wore a mask, but this one was different. It was the simple, snow-white face of an everyman, the eye holes cut wide and possessed of a sinister impassiveness. Wild brown hair swept back from the ghostly face as Jason's blood ran down the pipe and stained his hands and blue coveralls.

"Holy fuck," Sean whispered.

He stood back as Michael Myers watched them both, waiting for their next move. He could hear the angry breathing from behind the mask even on the other side of the road. Sean noticed Don standing up and raising the shotgun, but not before Michael did. He turned and started towards Don. Sean fired three more rounds and caught Michael in the legs. He staggered and fell to his side as Don scrambled.

"Get in the fucking car!" Sean screamed and sprinted towards their cruiser. Don followed suit, not needing to be told twice as they slammed the car doors shut. Sean started the engine and the cruiser roared to life. He backed up and smashed into the other patrol car, pushing it off the road. He turned and positioned their cruiser down the road several yards as Michael got to his feet.

"Who the fuck is that?" Sean looked at Don.

"You got me," Don gawked at Michael in pure awe as the killer got up. He stood in the middle of the road in a defiant, eerie silence. Behind him, Jason remained motionless and sprawled on the road. Michael clenched his fists and waited for them. Sean stepped on the gas and the tires squealed against blacktop, smoking and lurching the car forward. The headlights switched on and Michael made no effort to move. He bounced off the hood, rolled and smashed the windshield before he sailed over the roof of the car.

"Hang on," Sean yelled and swerved the car towards Jason's body. They rocked violently as they ran over the killer's body, the shocks trying to compensate. Don held onto the door handle as they cleared the roadblock and sped down the road. He turned and looked out the rear window. Jason wasn't moving, his body twisted and broken from the weight of the car. He looked for the other attacker and could not see him anywhere. He turned and let out a weary sigh of relief.

"Oh God, Sean," he said and rubbed his temples and grabbed the radio, "Four officers down."

"I know man," Sean shook his head and the looked down at the radio set.

"Ah shit," Don moaned and threw the receiver down. The radio was busted beyond repair. Someone had managed to destroy their CB while they were fighting Jason, and Sean knew damn good and well who did it.

"Smart bastard," Sean snapped as he struggled to see through the shattered spider web of cracks in the windshield, "Very smart, you fuck."

Don sat quietly for a moment, the only sounds beyond the hum of the engine being their heavy breathing. He said, "Okay, what now?"

"We get some heavy artillery," Sean said and gripped the steering wheel tight, "We get choppers, call in back up and we hunt their asses down."

"What a cluster fuck," Don closed his eyes, still shocked over the scene that had just unfolded.

"I need a smoke," Sean turned on the siren and for the first time since he had moved here, he felt scared.

***

Jason was in the dark.

It always happened this way, and he was comfortable with that. It would take awhile for him to be able to stand again, for the wounds to heal and for his eyes to open. He had been taken by surprise, something that rarely happened to him but when it did he found himself on the verge of an unholy rage. But there was nothing to be done yet. So he drifted there in the darkness of his dream and waited.

"Hey asshole," a familiar voice called out.

Jason gritted his ruined teeth and turned to see the dream killer standing there in his mind again. The violation of his intrusion seared him to the core, and Jason could not contain the sheer force of his anger. He looked at the dream killer and popped his knuckles so loudly it echoed through the void of the netherworld.

"Aren't ya gonna say hello?" Freddy asked, his fedora pulled down slightly to cover his face as his tapped his blades on his pant leg.

Jason only glared.

"Oh that's right," Freddy chuckled wetly, "The strong, silent type."

Jason stood up, despite the pain and began walking towards Freddy, his machete gripped tightly in his hand. Freddy remained still, smiling smugly as Jason marched towards him with every intention of chopping him up like cordwood. After few minutes, Jason noticed he wasn't getting any closer to his hated nemesis than when he started. The more he walked, the further back he seemed to be.

"You never were the sharpest knife in the drawer," Freddy said casually, his voice booming, "But I gotta admire your commitment."

Jason stopped walking and stared. He could not get him this way.

"You know, numb nuts," Freddy slowly stepped towards him, "I was gonna let you have a little fun in Springwood tonight, but Michael did such a good job on you I think I'll just forget about that."

Jason watched him come closer and readied himself.

"But when this is all said and done, please try to remember that no matter how angry you are with me, no matter how much you think I've fucked you over," Freddy mocked him like a child torturing some stray animal, "I've fucked your momma even harder."

And then there before him Jason saw his mother bent over a table, illuminated by some spotlight. She was naked, her body withered and dusty as Freddy stood behind her and simulated fucking her. Her grabbed her hips and whipped his fedora off in one hand, waving it in the air like a demonic cowboy riding a bronco. Freddy laughed and laughed and laughed as he degraded Jason's mother. Jason could feel his face burning as his cold blood began to boil. If he could have screamed, he would have.

"I'm a bad, bad girl Jason," his mother cooed as Freddy slapped her pruned ass.

Jason raised his machete to strike and Freddy ended the illusion as quickly as he had started it. He shot his hand into the air like a wizard calling down lightning, but instead of a bolt of electricity a flood of water fell from the blackness. The dream began to flood quickly, and Jason stood there frozen.

"Remember this one, you retarded asswipe!?"

Jason felt the water wash over him in a huge splash, sweeping him away and off his feet. He lost sight of the dream killer and tumbled in the rolling waves, gasping for air. He knew this feeling, he had relived it once and now he was reliving it again. Jason dropped his machete as his fingers spasmed and his lungs filled with stagnant lake water.

***

Michael Meyers stood over Jason and looked at him, his head cocked to one side as if admiring his handiwork. In his hands he held the length of pipe he had used to impale Jason with on the side of the road. He knew that Jason was not dead as he loomed over him, his eyes watching his body with a surgical precision. Michael raised the pipe up and over Jason's body, hands tight and powerful on the bloody metal.

Michael would finish him off now and be done with it, and then he would go and finish his business in Springwood.

He plunged the pipe into Jason's midsection and punched though into the concrete beneath, cracking it.

***

Freddy floated deep under the waves of the dream ocean, watching Jason drown slowly. The behemoth of a moron convulsed as he sucked water into his lungs and suffocated, dumbly kicking and flailing about as he tried to swim. Of all the people he had killed in his long career, Freddy thought he might enjoy the death of Jason Voorhees most of all. There was certain satisfaction in watching this widely feared maniac fall under his machinations. He smiled as Jason sank deeper and deeper into the muddy liquid abyss of the nightmare

"All this time," Freddy whispered in Jason's mind, "And you never learned to swim?"

Then it happened.

Jason suddenly went still, his body seized rigid like a piece of wood, and Freddy thought it might be over. Jason's chest punched in under the weight of some invisible force and blood began ribboning off into the dark water as bubbles rolled around him. He roared in anger as Jason shimmered and disappeared from the dreamscape. Freddy looked around for him, tried to follow him. He raged as he realized Jason had been pulled back into the real world again. It was the same as last time, only now it was adding insult to injury. Freddy realized that Michael was responsible for it.

"He was mine!" Freddy bellowed, once again denied the kill.

He floated there for a moment before returning to Mary's body.

"Masked freaks..."

***

Jason woke up as water and blood ejected from his mouth and drained between his face and mask. He felt the pipe enter his body again, but this time he did not wait for a chance to remove it. He sat up suddenly and tore the pipe from the concrete using his own body as leverage. He snapped his head to the side and saw Michael towering above him. Jason pistoned his arm out and swept the killer's legs out from under him.

Michael fell to the ground hard as Jason stood up, the pipe still lodged in his body. Jason gabbed the pipe and pulled it out as blood spurted from the wound in a high-tension jet. The pipe came free and Jason wielded it like a baseball bat. Michael was standing up when Jason plowed the pipe into his shoulder. Michael rolled and fell again. Jason followed him and raised the pipe high in the air before smashing it down on Michael's backside.

Michael tensed and recoiled as Jason beat him mercilessly. He managed to get on his feet in spite of the normally fatal blows Jason was unleashing on him. Jason swung hard and caught Michael in the head, snapping him back and reeling into one of the police cars. The passenger windows shattered as Michael hit. Jason came after him and swung again. Michael stepped to his right and the pipe lodged in the roof of the car. Jason yanked it out, the metal screeching as the pipe scraped against it.

Michael faced Jason, his eyes flared with hate.

Jason swung the pipe again and connected with Michael's face. He went airborne and sailed back into the field, smashing corn stalks and landing hard. Michael knew his skull was fractured but could do nothing for the moment. He simply laid there in the sudden silence and waited for Jason to follow. His anger was seething, his hands shaking not so much in pain but more in his evil wrath.

On the road, Jason waited for at least fifteen minutes, silently watching for the masked man to come out. Nothing moved in the field. He scanned the shadowed expanse for any sign of his new adversary and when nothing happened, he threw the pipe aside. It impaled the already dead corpse of Officer Ramirez and lodged there. Jason turned and walked away. He paused only for a moment to grab his machete off the road.