Nightmare on Elm Street

By: Taneshia Heineman

It's nearly midnight; the moon is casting a pale glow over the little space it reaches in my dark room. I'm just finishing up the last few sentences of the newest chapter to the story I've been working on. As I save it twice, just to be safe, a yawn escapes the confines of my chest. I form a fist with my hand halfway to my mouth, an old habit I picked up from my Uncle, but the yawn has passed by the time its slow decent reaches my gapping mouth.

My mother calls from the living room, telling me it's time for bed. I groan exhaustedly as I stand from my chair, stretching my arms above my head and walk around the desk to collapse into bed, not even bothering to change into my pajamas. I can feel my consciousness slipping as I maneuver over the covers, a feeble attempt at settling under them so I don't freeze over during the night.

Finally I get my legs up high enough to lift the blanket and slip beneath it, sighing lazily as I do. My eyes close and I drift off, hopes for a dead and dreamless sleep running through my head. Those hopes go unanswered though, for the moment I'm out I see an abstract of colors, dark and disturbing. Swirling and spiraling in a tie-die fashion that makes me dizzy. They spread and form a long tube that seems to go on for ages, never ending. What is this, what's going on? I'm spinning in circles, it feels as though I'm descending through this dreary tunnel of color, but the end just get's further and further away. I close my eyes against the dizzying motion, nausea spreading through my stomach, painful and slow.

When I open them again, it's from the sudden jolting stop of my forward movement. I seem to have collapsed, but my body is suspended mere inches from the ground, the tip of my nose

brushing against the cold concrete. My breathing grows heavy as I think of all the logical explanations for this, even though I know there are none. But of course, I'm only dreaming. This can't be real, if it were I'd have to question my own sanity.

Oh, but it feels so real! Where am I? Why haven't I hit the ground yet? Isn't that how it always happens, the victim stops just above the ground before falling again? Apparently my story isn't that simple. I breathe out a frustrated breath and let my knees bend, touching the ground and suddenly by body swings up and I'm sitting on the backs of my legs. This dream just gets weirder and weirder.

I look around myself, noticing that there are metal shelves and what look like water heaters and furnaces lining the walls, and a few standing, lonely, in the middle of the room. The air is damp, and smells of mildew. A chill runs through the air and my spine tingles. I'm suddenly very glad I didn't wear my usual baggy shirt and skimpy pajama shorts to bed.

Sparks erupt from one of the furnaces, floating into the air before falling and bouncing off the concrete, and I'm struck with the strangest sense of déjà vu. Suddenly, just as I'm rising to my feet, a high pitched screeching sounds from the distance, like sharp, thick metal scraping together. My heart rate increases and, suddenly, I know exactly where I am. Elm Street, or more specifically, a dream that was had on Elm Street. I can see him in my head, his scarred face, that hat that almost falls over his eyes. His smile makes him all the more menacing, and it's stuck in the back my mind, taunting me, infecting my every thought like a slow moving virus through the body.

My eyes widen and I turn and run in the opposite direction, his cold steely laugh bouncing off the walls around me. I see a door in the distance and my stride becomes clumsy, desperate to reach it before he finds me. The moment I'm within arm's length, I reach out and grab the handle, slamming into it and feeling a cold steely pipe raggedly brush against my jean clad leg as my wrist wrenches into a twisting motion but nothing happens. It's locked from the other side. I slam my body into the door repeatedly, but it doesn't budge. It stays in place like the bully's right hand man, laughing as he blocks my path to freedom.

The screeching has silenced now, everything is quiet but that's worse than the earsplitting noise, because at least then I knew when to expect him.

"Help! Please, somebody help me!" I scream as I pound harder against the door, this time with the side of my closed fist. That menacing laugh sounds from behind me, deep and disturbing. I turn abruptly, my jeans snagging on the broken pipe and filling the air with the sound of material breaking under pressure.

He's getting closer, raising his clawed hand and wiggling the blades at me, that evil smile spread wide across his face.

"You're not real!" I scream, moving to the corner in a lame attempt to put as much distance between us as possible. "This is a dream, I know it is! You can't hurt me!" His face goes serious then, and he retreats backwards, the spine tingling glee replaced with anger and hatred.

The irritatingly familiar sound of an alarm going off rings softly through the concrete room and slowly eases me back into consciousness. I breathe a deep sigh and look around through half lidded eyes. My room, just the way I left it. I need to stop writing horror fics before bed.

I spot my phone connected to the charger on my bedside table and reach a lazy hand up to grab it, turning on my side and releasing it from the chord. I turn the screen on and read the time; 5:30. I groan and swing my legs free of the blankets and over the edge of the bed. I put my alarm on the other side of the room so I would have to get up to turn it off. Usually I hate myself for it, but today I'm just glad I have an excuse not to fall back to sleep.

The cool breeze hits a spot on my calf, and I look down and examine it to find a rip in the fabric of my jeans, exactly where it had been in my dream. I bend over and touch it with my index and middle finger.

"What the heck?" But my mom is calling to me again from the living room, announcing that breakfast will be ready in ten minutes and I need to start getting ready for school. I decide it's probably just a coincidence, that it probably only appeared in my dream because it happened in reality, the way things do sometimes.

As I'm walking past my open closet to head to the bathroom, a towel and school clothes clutched lightly to my chest, I swear I see a pair of dark yellow eyes staring at me, but when I look back no one's there. I really need to get my mind off that stupid dream and just get on with my day.

Just as Taneshia exits her room, the eyes appear once more, and Freddie Crugar's head slips from behind the closet door to watch her disappear into the bathroom…