A Nightmare Reborn Ch. 05

Lori looked at the older woman.

"Mind over matter," Alice said and allowed herself a secret smile.

"Can I ask you something?"

Alice leaned against the railing of her porch. "Sure."

"You said something my father mentioned earlier," Lori looked at her, "You talked about balance. Freddy is one end of the equation. Does that make you the other?"

Alice smiled sadly. "At one time I was. But that was before, when I had power. I don't have power anymore."

"So the equation has been unbalanced since you left Springwood?"

"Since the father of my child died," Alice looked down, "That's why I couldn't beat him that last time. It was my son Jacob who defeated him really. Not me."

Lori thought for a minute, "So since there was no Dream Master, there was no one to keep him in check. That's why he has been able to come back again and again."

Alice nodded. He eyes were filled with guilty years.

"So how do we balance the equation?"

Alice wiped her eyes, "There has to be a Dream Master."

"And that's you, right?"

There was a long silence as Alice looked out across the front yard, her eyes not really seeing the grass or the trees beyond or even the fiery dramatic sky. She was seeing the past and remembering the moment she had lost her confidence as the Dream Master. When Dan Jordan had been killed, not more than fifty feet from where she was waiting for him to pick her up, she had felt the power slip from her. It had been so insidious she hadn't even been able to notice it at the time. Seeing the burning wreckage and seeing his dead body had been a dagger through her heart.

For a long time, she thought maybe Freddy killed Dan because he just wanted another soul, another victim. But now she realized that Dan had been killed because Freddy knew his loss would weaken her. Freddy knew that as long as Alice was around, as long as there was a Dream Master, he would never be able to carry on with his murderous ways. And if Dan weren't enough, then certainly being reborn in the form of Jacob Johnson would have broken her.

'It didn't break me,' Alice remembered, 'He failed, but he won anyway.'

Discovering her unborn son was under attack from Freddy Krueger in his innocent dreamlike state for so long had been a terrifying revelation for her. No one was safe, not even an innocent baby in the womb. Jacob had come only that close to being Krueger's pawn. She had saved him, but she had not been able to save herself. Jacob had found the power within to save her. He had found the way to save her and send Freddy back to his dark beginnings. And there was peace for a time.

After her interview with Neil Gordon, she had left Springwood. She knew she would not be able to stop Freddy if he came back again. By then, Jacob was getting sick and she would not risk him being exposed again. It was her love for her family, it was her compassion that Freddy twisted into a weapon against her. When she began doubting herself, she lost her ability to fight as the Dream Master.

And here she had remained, alone and isolated and only a fraction of the woman she had been. She looked at Lori and saw the same grief in her eyes. The pain of losing Dan was equal to the pain Lori felt over losing Will. Alice knew the power was within her, and she had seen this happening in her dreams many times before. She sighed and said, "Only the Dream Master can put Freddy in his place."

Lori asked again, "That's you right?"

"Not anymore."

Lori looked at her, "Then who?"

Alice returned her gaze to the angry clouds in the distance, "I think if Jacob had lived, he would be the one..."

"But?"

Alice looked at her, a quiet encouragement to realize the truth unspoken yet powerful in her eyes.

Lori was quiet for a minute, not wanting to say it out loud. It was something she had first felt in the church in her dream. She had begun to understand when all the dead people spoke to her. When Freddy attacked her and she was able to repel him, it had become more and more clear to her. Now, as Alice's words echoed in her mind she found that she knew it as fact.

She felt scared and yet exhilarated. The world seemed to grow quiet around her as the truth birthed from her mind and demanded her attention. She began to understand why she had come back to Springwood and why she had ignored all the warnings to stay away. Her new point of view made her feel exposed and apart, even more alone than she had been before. And still, there was something self-sufficient about it, something warm and comforting. It wasn't all that different from falling in love, she supposed. She remembered the head over heels euphoria of falling for a young boy named Will Rollins.

Alice looked at her patiently.

She could find no words to describe it with any intelligence, and instead only whispered the obvious, "It's me."

Alice nodded.

"It's me," Lori repeated.

"You can't choose to be the Dream Master," Alice told her, "You're chosen for it."

Lori shivered and looked out into the night.

Somewhere, the pieces were being moved into their final place.

Lori looked into the sky and prayed.

...to be continued...