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“This must be his room.“ Nancy said, when she found a side entrance to a slightly elevated space.
“Okay, he bought us here for a reason.” she continued, as Quentin stepped up behind her. While Nancy was shedding some light on a small bed, covered with a floral blanket, Quentin had found a workbench on the other side of the room. Holding up a gardening tool, which had been sitting on top of it.
“This is definitely his room.” he remarked. Just a moment later he heard Nancy call him.
“Quentin.” it seemed like she had found something of her own.
“What?” he asked, hurrying to her side. She had found a smaller side-room with a sink in it and was looking at a big pin board, covered with pictures painted by children. They were typical children’s pictures, of rainbows, flowers and smiling people. One picture showed a larger figure holding the hand of a smaller one and on the top right of it was written in the spidery writing of a child: ‘For Fred’. As Nancy looked closer, she could make out her own signature at the bottom. This all started to feel familiar, she thought. Then she noticed that the board, which was about her own height, was leaning against an entrance to another room.
“There is something back there.” She told Quentin and was suddenly certain, that they would find all their answers, whatever they may be, in that room.
In a joint effort they pushed the dusty board aside and stepped inside the hidden room. Right away Nancy felt a wave of ‘I’ve been here before’ sweeping over her and told Quentin so. It was a room with near to no furniture, aside from a child-size table with some equally small chairs and a kind of bench on one wall. As Nancy stepped closer to one wall, her lamp risen, she could make out, that it was entirely painted with pictures by children. It was the same kind of naive and cheerful motives as on the pictures on the pin board outside.
She turned around, seeing that Quentin had found something: He was holding a bunch of Polaroid pictures.
“What are those?” Nancy asked.
“What are those pictures of?” she pressed when he didn’t respond.
“They’re all of you.” Quentin answered, sounding broken.
“Let me see.” She said and took them from him.
“No, oh God!” she cried out, as she saw what was on those pictures, and as all of her memories came rushing back at once.
“No!” she cried again and crumpled to the ground, tears streaming down her cheeks.
The pictures showed her on her sixth birthday, wearing her favourite pink fairy dress, holding up a plastic wand, with a sparkling star on top and in the background one could see the painting of an almost life-size unicorn. She remembered that day now, as clearly as it had been yesterday…
Fred knew that her birthday was coming up and had asked what she would wish for, assuring her that it could be anything she wanted. So she had told him, that what she really wanted, if she could have anything, was a unicorn. She was old enough to know that unicorns didn’t really exist, but he had asked her what she would want if she could have everything.
“Okay, no problem,” Fred spoke smiling and she got excited. She knew that Fred would never let her down.
On the day of her birthday, he had taken her aside and told her that he had a special surprise for her. Nancy had smiled, because she had already begged her mother to be allowed to wear her fairy costume to school. She knew that would go perfect with unicorns. She had followed Fred to his place, where he’d stopped before the entrance to the room she had spent so many happy hours in, painting pictures on the walls.
“Close your eyes.” He had ordered, and she had been so excited. He had led her into the room, and she could already smell and feel that it was adorned with lots of lit candles.
“Open them.” he had said, and before her eyes had been the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. Fred must have spent hours painting it on the wall. She was overwhelmed and turned around to hug the man that had become her best friend.
“It’s so beautiful.” She whispered in admiration.
“Its name is Sparkle and it belongs to you.” He said, his kind ocean blue eyes twinkling at her. He was glad that she liked it and that he could brighten her day.
That had been the day he had taken those pictures – she remembered it all now. All the times he had been nice to her, they had had fun together, and she had felt safe and happy by his side. But she also remembered now, how it had all ended. Things she hadn’t understood as a child now made sense to her.
Her own father had never really been able to show affection towards her. That's why they had never formed a close relationship and lately he had been becoming more and more jealous of the man, that his daughter seemed to favour over him. She didn’t really understand this as a child, didn’t understand why her father would get upset when she talked about what a nice time she had had with Fred.
It had all escalated one day, when she had gotten into a fight with her father about something, and ended up yelling
“Fred would have understood!” At that moment her father’s demeanour had changed.
It had frightened her, that he suddenly had become silent.
“We will see about Fred…” he said in a gravelly voice, it had sounded like a threat.
That’s when the rumours had started, the rumours about what the harmless appearing gardener might have done to the children. Suddenly the parents started asking their children strange questions and whatever they would innocently answer, the parents would take as a confirmation to fuel their fears. Fred took the children to a ‘secret’ room? He was overly affectionate towards them? A child had an unexplainable scratch? It must have been Fred, who had done horrible things to them.
Thinking about it now Nancy remembered when Kris told her about the incident with the scratch.
She had been playing around Fred’s place with Dean, even as they knew that they weren’t allowed to be down there alone. Dean had grabbed one of the tools from the workbench, to chase her with. He had only wanted to scare her a little, but then he had tripped and scratched her back with the small fork like thing. After Kris had stopped crying and Dean had assured her how sorry he was, they swore to each other, that they wouldn’t tell anybody. They knew that they would get into trouble for playing down there by themselves and taking one of Fred’s tools without permission. Because Fred had always been strict about not touching his tools, as he feared that the children might hurt themselves.
That’s why Kris had refused to tell her mother how she had got the scratch. The only thing her mother had coaxed out of her, was that it had been indeed one of Fred’s tools that was responsible for the mark. The shape had just been too obvious, that Kris hadn’t been able to deny. That she had started crying while telling her mother, out of fear that she and Dean would be found out in the end, hadn’t helped either.
Thinking back, Nancy realized that this must have been the turning-point of it all. Because after this - Fred had been gone… From one day to another, his place had been abandoned, and nobody had wanted to explain to Nancy what had happened to him. They told her to stop asking and even to stop talking about him at all, after she just wouldn’t stop going on about it.
“We were right. He is after us, because we lied.” Quentin snapped her out of the flashback.
“He brought us here, so we would remember who he really was.” Nancy whispered.
“Fuck!” Quentin shouted in frustration and got up. He walked around for a while, rubbing his face.
“What does he want from us?” he finally asked.
Nancy picked herself up from the ground, still clutching the pictures to her chest.
“I know what we need to do, come on.” She said, striving towards the bed in the main room.
As they sat down on the torn sheets Quentin realized what Nancy had in mind.
“I should do this.” He suggested.
“I’m the only one who can bring him back.” She countered. Deep inside he knew that she was right, but was still concerned.
“Nancy, I can’t let you go to sleep, you’re not going to wake up.” he tried again.
“I know you won’t let that happen.” was her instant reply. In his eyes she was searching for approval, while silently pleading for trust.
“Wake me, if you see me struggle.” was her last try to reassure him, even if she was sure that it wouldn't come to that.
“We’re going to make it.” he promised, giving in eventually.
He took position in a chair beside the bed, as Nancy lay down on it. He wasn’t going to let her out of his sight, he promised to himself.
As soon as Nancy had closed her eyes, she felt herself drifting away. She really had been exhausted beyond all means, she realized.
When she opened her eyes in the dream, she recognized the burning boiler room right away. The place where the monster must have been created, where its power was as its strongest.
While in school, she had researched vengeful spirits on the net and knew now, that they came to be at the instance of an exceptional unjust and cruel death. Solely consisting of the strongest emotion at the time of demise. The, in this way created, entities had near to nothing in common with the actual person any more and acted only on that single emotion. If that would be pain, they would only want to inflict pain on others. Only the strongest traits of the deceased would be able to still influence its behaviour.
That would explain why the nightmares and killings had only started recently, Nancy figured. Never harming a child had been one of Freds core traits. So it seems like he had been able to hold the vengeful spirit back, at least until they weren’t really children any more. All of them would have turned eighteen this year. She believed, that it had been Fred’s influence as well, that had been trying to stir them towards where they would find out the truth, while the vengeful spirit itself had only wanted to inflict the pain it felt.
“Hello Nancy.” she suddenly heard a familiar husky voice behind her. Not giving her any time to think about how deep the real Fred might be buried in this thing. Her first instinct was to get away from it, as fast as she could. But she knew what she had to do. Why she had come back here. Before she could change her mind, she was twirling around, flinging her arms around the monster, hugging it tight and whispering
“Fred.” Into his disfigured ear. She knew this was her only chance. Her only chance to save him, to reach him, to give him the power to break this dire curse.
For a moment Nancy feared that she might have been wrong, and that the creature would win after all and kill her right there and then on the spot, but then she felt hands on her back – human hands.
She pulled back, and there he was - her Fred. Just as she remembered him, except much younger and a bit smaller. But that was of course, because she didn't see him through the eyes of a six-year old any more.
"You are all grown up." he remarked.
"I'm sorry." she answered without thinking.
"Don't be - you are beautiful." he replied, brushing a streak of her long brown hair from her face. Nancy blushed, and felt how her childish admiration for him shifted into something else.
"What happens now?" she asked,
"I don't know." he answered honestly.
That's when she noticed something strange, the surroundings were changing… starting to fade out. And then she realized what it meant, that she was slowly waking up. Had she taken too long? Had Quentin become worried and tried to wake her, she wondered.
But she didn’t want to leave Fred, not just yet, because she had only found him again. It seemed like he’d sensed her thoughts, because the last thing she heard his ghostly voice say was:
“Don’t worry, I’ll be here. I’ll wait for you.” And then, he and everything else was gone.
Nancy had expected to wake up in Fred’s bed, where she had gone to sleep in, so standing in the kitchen of the ‘Springwood Diner’, with a platter on her hand, took her totally by surprise. How was that possible? Sudden Laughter, seeping over from the guest-area made her almost jump. What was going on?
She set the platter down and slowly made her way to the windowed room, finding Quentin sitting with his friends on one table and Dean and Kris on another. She barely held back a shriek that was forming in her throat, at this sight. This couldn’t be real – she had been at their funeral, they were dead! But then her gaze fell on the calendar on the counter, and it said Saturday the fifth. This was two weeks ago! This was the day that Dean had been killed, as the first victim of the vengeful spirit. Her eyes darted to the clock on the wall Ten past nine - the exact time she had heard Kris scream bloody blue murder. Her eyes darting back to their table mentally preparing for the worst, but nothing happened. They just sat there, smiling and joking, like nothing bad would ever happen to them. That was when Nancy realized, that this was exactly the case. The vengeful spirit was gone and it seemed, all of his horrible doings had been undone. Nobody would die tonight, or any other night.
She sighed in relief, but was wondering if she was the only one to remember how things had gone the first time around. She had to know, and so she made her way over to Quentin’s table, where Jesse was sitting, alive and well.
They were joking around an only seemed to notice her when she lightly touched Quentin’s shoulder. He looked up, wondering what she could want and why she had come back to their table so soon. One look into his eyes, and she immediately knew that he didn’t remember anything. So it seems, like she was the only one.
“What is it?” Quentin asked, after she said nothing and the strange look in her eyes started to creep him out.
“Eh…” she seemed to snap out of her trance. “I… I just wanted to ask if you guys need anything else, because we will be closing up in about ten minutes.”
“Nah, we’re fine.” Jesse replied instead of Quentin, and she left the table.
“Dude, you could have totally...” she heard Jesse say to Quentin, as Nancy retreated back to the kitchen.
On her way home, later that night, Nancy thought about how she felt about the involvement of her, and her friends’ parents, in Fred's tragic death.
Even if her father had started the rumours about Fred, she was sure that he couldn't have wished for his death. He probably hadn't even thought it through, she figured. Remembering his short-temperedness and his impulsive decisions. But things had totally spiralled out of control.
Nancy also believed, that the parents chasing Fred on that fateful day, had only wanted to bring him to justice for what they believed he had done to their kids. She didn't think that they went out there with the intent of killing anyone. She just couldn't believe that.
But to somehow forgive Quentin's father, who had thrown the lamp, that had set Fred on fire... That was almost more than she could muster. Yes, he had truly believed that Fred had done unspeakable things to his son, but to set a man on fire? Nancy paused a moment on her way, to literally shake the image of a burning Fred that had popped in her head, from her mind. He is fine now, she told herself - conjuring the memory of him smiling at her. He was fine! She realized how her steps had taken up pace at the memory of what he had promised her. He would still be there, waiting for her in her dreams. She wondered if that would be true, if she could really see him again.
At home, she had barely time to prepare herself for the encounter with her mother, because she was greeted with her mom’s voice calling
“How was work?“ from the kitchen, right after she'd stepped inside.
"Mom, do you remember Fred?“ she started, thinking: I should better do this right away. As her mother didn‘t reply she added:
“Fred from grade-school, I mean.“ there was still no answer.
Nancy knew that this wouldn‘t be easy and wasn‘t surprised to find her mother looking very concerned in the kitchen.
“Honey, what do you remember about Fred?“ she asked, since denying his existence was of no use at this point.
“He had been the nicest guy ever, always very kind to us children.“ Nancy replied and continued, since her mother wasn‘t convinced “You know, I wonder how I could have forgotten about him. Because he had been sort of my best friend. I wonder whatever became of him, because I remember that one day he had just been gone.“ Her mother’s jaw clenched.
“Thinking back now, I wonder if it had perhaps anything to do with Kris getting hurt. She‘d told me about it. You know – how she and Dean had sneaked into Fred‘s place on their own. How Dean had accidentally scratched her with one of the tools and how afraid she had been to get into trouble. She had made me swear that I would tell no one about it.“ looking up, Nancy noticed tears in her mother’s eyes, but wasn‘t sure what they meant.
“Mom, what‘s wrong?“ she asked.
“Nothing,” she wiped away her tears “it‘s just... are you sure that‘s all you remember about Fred?“
“Mom...“ Nancy started her last attempt and looked at her as serious as she could “Mom, listen to me. Whatever you might think, there had been nothing wrong with Fred, or the way he treated us. He had been just a really nice guy!" That's all she could say, if her mother wouldn't believe her now, there was nothing she could do about it. Still she could see how doubt crept into her mother’s eyes and as she covered her mouth and silent tears started to stream down her cheeks, Nancy knew that her mother believed her.
"Mom, it's okay."Nancy assured her, as she gave her a hug.
"It's just," her mother started, as she could talk again. "there were these rumours about him and then Kris... so I had thought..." The tears started to fall again.
"It's okay Mom." Nancy said again. She knew that those tears weren't just relief, because her daughter was unharmed. They were also remorse, because of what had happened to Fred. That alone was enough for her to forgive her mother.
It was the night after her eighteenth birthday and months since Fred had promised her that they would meet again. She had almost given up hope that it would ever happen, but that night when she woke up in her dream, there he was – sitting beside her on the bed, his face ghostly lit with soft blue moon-light.
“Fred.” She whispered, extending her hand to touch his cheek, but then hesitating, because she didn’t know if it was okay.
“Don’t be shy.” He reassured her, and so she touched him, to make sure that he was real.
“I had a lot of sleepless nights, thinking of you.” Nancy admitted. He smiled and bend down to whisper low in her ear
“I had to keep you awake long enough so when you finally slept... You’d never wake up again.” she giggled at that joke, but when he had mentioned waking up, she suddenly remembered Quentin had promised to call her. She wondered if she had set her phone to ‘silent’, so that it wouldn’t wake her. The thought let Quentin’s picture flash up on the phone in her dream.
“Do you think your boyfriend will wake you up?” Fred teased her after noticing it.
“He is not my boyfriend!” Nancy insisted. What Fred whispered next sent shivers down her spine.
“I’m your boyfriend now?” his low voice whispered. "We're gonna be here for a long time, I swear." he dispelled any worries she might still have, about prematurely waking up. His lips now ghosting over her cheek, so that she could feel his breath on her face and the warmth of his skin.
A smile danced over Nancy’s sleeping face, as he was finally touching her with faint and soft kisses in her dream..