Goodnight Sweetheart - Prologue/Chap.1

So I know this idea has been done, like the whole Nightmare on Elmstreet deal, but I'm trying to give it a different twist. It's long, just to warn you - this is all I have so far, and I just wanted to get it out there. Let me know what you honestly think, and hope you enjoy the read I'm not entirely sure if I'm even going to continue this, just so you guys know. I'm not getting a good vibe about it, if that makes sense.

Prologue

The bedside lamp sent a soft glow across the old Scooby-Doo bedspread. Humming to myself, I kept my eyes glued to one of the cartoon dog’s eyes and tried not to think of anything at all. Scooby’s eye was crinkled because he was smiling, and I could almost hear his gruff voice howling, “Scooby-Dooby Doo!”

He faced monsters and ghosts all the time, didn’t he? Did Scooby have nightmares? Did he fear them, wake up screaming from them?

Don’t go there Allie, I warned myself. Don’t think of nightmares. Don’t worry about going to sleep. Don’t think at all. You’re blank, you don’t care…

A gentle tap at the door startled me, and I jumped.

“Honey?” Mom poked her head in to smile at me. “Are you okay? Going to bed already?”

Trying to ignore my wild heart, I breathed loudly. “Y-Yeah. I didn’t have a good day today.”

Mom came in and shut the door behind her. She sat on the edge of the bed that Grandma had always had ready for me ever since the first time we visited the cabin. “A bad day?” she repeated, forehead wrinkling in worry. “Was it the rain?”

I nodded wordlessly, trying not to remember. Images flashed past me, of rain beating against a windshield, of a dark figure running towards me. My nervous smile, his burning eyes.

Horrible weather, isn’t it?

Yes, it is.

Noticing the distress on my face, Mom leaned forward to smooth my wild hair back, and I closed my eyes at the comfort of her cool touch.

“It won’t last forever, you know,” she told me. I opened my eyes again.

“Okay.” It was hard to tell whether or not she knew that I didn’t believe her. Mom didn’t like to talk about it, and only offered a few words, a single touch, to let me know that she did care. Dad was the same way—both my parents had trouble coping with the fact that their daughter had been through such a nightmare.

“Did you take your pills?” Mom asked me after a moment, her smile wobbling.

Now I avoided her gaze. I was a horrible liar. “Yeah. I did.”

She didn’t seem to notice anything off. “Okay. You get some sleep, sweetie. I love you.”

“Love you too.”

She stood and moved away. “Goodnight, sweetheart,” Mom whispered. I returned my gaze to Scooby as she left my room, leaving the door open a crack this time just in case I needed her. My parents were a silent, strong force, always behind me and in front of me. It comforted me to no end knowing they were there.

I thought about the pills. I really should have taken them. But… I just hated them. The feeling they gave me during the day, of numbness and oblivion. It didn’t matter what I was doing or where we were going—I couldn’t care on those pills.

“Honey, we’re going to visit Grandma Miller’s again. You love the cabin, so I thought it might be fun for all of us to go for a couple days.” Mom, standing in the bathroom doorway. It had been one morning last week.

I looked at her in the mirror, two pills cupped in my palm. “Grandma Miller’s? Really?” We hadn’t been there since…

Smiling, Mom nodded. I looked down at the pills, chewing my lip thoughtfully. “Do you think Dad could take me jet-skiing?” I looked up at her again. My heart was aching in a combination of both pain and longing.

“I don’t see why not.” Blowing a kiss at me, Mom turned away. “Make sure you’re packed by tonight, okay?”

As soon as I knew she was gone, I clenched the pills in my fist. Laughing as water sprayed my face. Daddy’s arms clutching me close as we sped through the waters. Warm crackling heat of the fire, sweet taste of chocolate in my mouth. Warm bed and hot breakfast when I wake up.

I had great memories of my time at Grandma’s cabin. And I didn’t want to ruin any that could come my way. The pills would prevent me from living, from enjoying the place of my childhood.

So I dropped the pills in the sink and washed them away.

Now I huddled down in my old bed at the cabin, half wishing I hadn’t done it. The one thing I wasn’t thinking of when I washed those pills down the drain was the night. The hard, dark, merciless night. I hadn’t had nightmares since that first night in the hospital, because then the pills had appeared.

“Scooby Dooby-Doo, where are you?” I mumbled to myself, closing my eyes tightly and banishing any thought from my mind. I would just fall asleep, and then wake up in the morning fit as a fiddle—my Dad’s favorite saying.

And it almost worked. I was so close to pulling it off. I was in that place between awake and asleep, hovering on the edge. Oblivion was so close…

Then he popped into my head. I found myself falling, losing myself in my subconscious. There was no going back.

I woke up on a hard, cement floor. For a moment I was dizzy, confused. Where am I? Shaking my head to clear it, I sat up, scraping the back of my palm as I did so. I frowned as I looked around, feeling blind. It was so dark… Wait, there was a light…

He was standing at the end of a long hallway, underneath a single fluorescent light. The veins under his skin seemed to pop out. Nothing about him had changed since that September day. He still wore the wool coat, the pressed slacks. His handsome face was hard and unrevealing as I walked toward him. I gasped at the sight of him, my heart pounding against my rib cage.

“Stand up. Come here,” he ordered. It was as if I had no choice but to obey here, because before I knew it my legs had swung out from underneath me and I was getting to my feet. I breathed heavily in fear as I walked toward him.

“You’re shaking,” he observed as I drew nearer against my will.

It was a miracle I was able to respond. “I hate you,” I whispered, clenching my fists and trying to smother my terror. Brief flashes of memory from that night kept pounding against my defenses, and I bit my lip.

“Tell me, Allie,” Nicholas Barge said, studying my face with a sick intensity. “What would you do if it were to happen again?”

When his words registered, my heart seemed to stop in horror. Calm down. This is a dream, I tried to convince myself. He can’t really touch you here.

“Oh, but I can,” he smiled. “Dreams are merely another, more loosely interpreted reality.”

His words made no sense to me, but the smug expression on his face only served to terrify me further. He’s not the real Nicholas Barge, I thought desperately. He’s just a nightmare. Just a nightmare…

“You’re right.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m not the real man you’ve carried with you these past few months. And I am a Nightmare. I’ve been waiting. Those damn pills have been protecting you… until tonight.

“It really was foolish of you, my dear,” he went on, “not to take those pills. But I suppose your loss is my gain. Because now you’ve freed me.”

“What do you mean?” I was only two feet from him now, and my trembling increased.

His smile grew, and he looked down at me with a fond light in his eyes, as if I were an amusing child. “Must I explain? It’s been three hundred years since the night of Entrapment. It’s ironic, really, that you chose tonight to release me… because it’s time.”

“Time for what?” My eyes wide, I tried to back away. But it was as if I was rooted to the ground and couldn’t move.

Nicholas Barge pursed his lips, forehead wrinkling. “Hmmm. There’s not enough fear to do the trick. I need more…”

“What? What are you talking about? Why can’t I move? What are you?” I screamed the last, pressed my knuckles against my eyes.

“Allie.” He said my name so quietly, but I still heard him. Shuddering, I opened my eyes again. He was tilting his head, eyes glowing.

“W-Why c-c-can’t you just l-leave me alone?” I gritted my teeth.

“Allie.” He took a step toward me, and I reacted wildly, screaming and trying to scramble away. He kept coming. “I need you to scream for me. I need you to cry.”

“Get away from me!” I howled, falling.

He bent down and touched me. Just once, on my cheek. It was enough—I screamed until my throat was hoarse and tears streamed down my cheeks. And through it all, he laughed and laughed, the sound echoing in my ears.

I woke up.

Chapter One

I hadn’t slept at all during the long night. My muscles shook as I huddled in the old dumbwaiter, and my stomach was a hollow ache. The darkness was torture, and I kept picturing steak on the grill or a bowl of hot soup. I had wet myself several times over, and the smell stung my nose unbearably. But I couldn’t move from my hiding place. Not now. Not yet. Not until I knew they were gone.

“She isn’t returning,” a hoarse voice said, and I bit my lip. I hadn’t realized they’d woken up. “We should go.”

“Just one more day,” a deeper, more sinister voice replied. “We’ll wait one more day.” The animal desire and the raw anger in his words terrified me. My shaking increased. One more day? Can I survive one more day? I clamped my arms around my knees tighter in an attempt to stop trembling.

“She won’t come,” the first voice argued, sounding more awake now. “Somehow she knew.”

“Shut up.”

Neither of them said anymore. But the first man—the night before he’d been called Smithy—was right. I had known they were going to come; I’d dreamed it. But as with most my dreams, the details were vague. I had no way of knowing that they were going to come to my house the very next day, just as I was packing to leave.

“Where we going to go next, when she doesn’t show up?” Smithy dared to break the silence.

The Nightmare—the man-like creature that was after me—hissed. “If,” he corrected. “If she doesn’t come back. But she will. I know she will. She has to.”

What hurt me the most, what killed me every time I thought of it, was the fact that I had created this monster. I had brought this upon myself. If only I hadn’t obsessed over what was in the past, if only I had been able to wake up before any real damage had been done. But now it was done. There was no way I could take back what I’d dreamed.

“She has friends,” Smithy ventured. “She could be hiding with one of them.”

The Nightmare paused. “No,” he said after a moment, quieting. “I know the girl. She loves this house. She will return to it.”

Smithy sighed loudly. I faintly wondered who he was, why he was with the Nightmare. And why the Nightmare put up with him. My dreams hadn’t told me that. Nor had the brief conversation I’d heard the night before, when they first arrived.

“Are you going to answer the summons, and go to the capital?” Smithy asked after another pause.

“No.” The Nightmare’s answer didn’t surprise me. “I will wait for Allie. I need her.”

“Because your existence will fade if you don’t have her, right?” Smithy seemed bored with the topic, and I guessed that they’d been over it a few times already.

“Yes.”

The emotion packed into that one word was horrible. The want, the need, the fury. That rainy night last September came to haunt me, and I squeezed my eyes shut.

Do you need some help, miss?

No, no thank you. I have help coming.

Are you sure?

I pursed my lips, fighting against the memories. Thinking about it could produce yet another Nightmare, and I couldn’t have two of them in the world hunting me. This one would be hard enough to destroy. Three days, I told myself. He can only survive without you for three days. It’s already been more than one for him since he appeared. So now just two. Two days. Manage to last that long, and soon all of this will be over.

“Have you seen any of the others?”

“Yes, I have. What about it?”

“Well, what are they like? Any huge ones? Like a giant ape?” Smithy snickered.

“Humans do not fear giants,” the Nightmare answered, disdainful. “Because giants don’t exist. The humans dream of what’s real, or what is possible. Or what they themselves think to be real. Murderers, thieves, ghosts, vampires, cannibals”—he lingered on the last word—“…rapists.”

I pressed my hand against my mouth. Did he know I was there? Was he toying with me? No. He would have taken me out of the dumbwaiter the very first day if he’d known I was there.

“I studied your kind at the university,” Smithy told his companion. “Before there were so many of you.”

“And what did you find?” the Nightmare asked.

I could picture Smithy shrugging. “There wasn’t much to know. Every time a Nightmare was captured and brought in for testing, the machines went haywire. Some even exploded. And after the three days, the subject just faded anyway. So no detailed synopsis was ever written, just the generals.”

“What were the generals?” my Nightmare inquired, a sneer in his elegant voice. “Our kind has no generals. We are as imprecise as your theories about the way this world began.”

“It’s called Evolution,” Smithy informed him. “Weren’t you a professor or something? Shouldn’t you know that?”

“Evolution is but one guess, one wild stab at how the beginning really happened. And I am not a professor—the human my identity stems from is. The real Nicholas Barge. I am… his darker side in solid form.”

“You’re a Nightmare,” Smithy said, as if the other needed reminding. “You’re the girl’s fear, right?”

There was no reply. “I’m not a Nightmare,” he said after a long, long silence. I had to strain to hear him, he spoke so quietly. “I’m just a memory.”

“Whatever,” Smithy said. “It doesn’t matter what label you put on it—the government is going to find a way to get rid of you.”

“Then I suppose it’s a good thing I have you around, isn’t it?” the Nightmare asked dangerously.

Smithy cleared his throat. “Yeah. You should escape the radar out at my uncle’s place. He was a nut like that, building shields because he thought aliens were about to attack—”

“And once you have your payment, you will leave?” the Nightmare clarified.

The human gave no answer, so I assumed he’d nodded. The odd pair fell silent yet again, and this time I was in too much pain to care. My stomach was cramping up again, complaining from a combination of hunger and holding in my processed food. No matter how much it hurt, I was not about to shit in this tiny dumbwaiter.

Maybe he’ll get tired of waiting, I hoped wildly. Maybe it won’t be another whole day. They could leave in an hour, a few minutes, a second…

Tears flooded my eyes as I stared at where the door of the dumbwaiter should be, concealed behind a wall that opened when pulled or pushed. There was no difference in the darkness whether my eyes were open or closed. How had it come to this?

“Bye, honey, we’ll see you soon!” Mom shouted, slamming the car door shut behind her and waving at me through the windshield. Dad grinned at me.

“Aloha!” he added. “When we get back, you’ll think we’re a couple of crazy Hawaiians!”

I pretended to smile at his stupid joke. He tried, but they were never actually funny. “Yeah, hope you guys have a nice trip.” My tone was about as excited as it was when Mom told me it was a nice day for us to clean the house.

My parents didn’t seem to notice my lack of enthusiasm. “Now don’t forget,” Mom called as Dad backed out of the driveway. “If you need anything at all, just call Vivian. She’ll take care of you.”

“I know, Mom,” I replied, waving. “Be safe, you guys.”

“Always!”

And they were gone. I watched the car disappear around the corner, the neighbor’s dog raising a ruckus. I could imagine Mom’s tan and Dad’s new flowered shirt when they walked through the door in two weeks.

Depressed at the image, I turned around and went back into the house. They could have taken me, I thought in resentment, slamming the door shut. Dad just didn’t want to spend the money on the extra ticket.

The rest of the day I spent lazing around, watching TV and eating all the food in the fridge. Most of it, anyway. Finally, at about eleven p.m. during a Brady Bunch rerun, I admitted to myself that one of the reasons I was so upset was because they had never left me behind for so long before. I was close to my parents, wasn’t used to being without them. I didn’t mind Dad’s pointless jokes, didn’t care about Mom smothering me. I missed them already.

But if I went even deeper, delved a little further within myself, I knew the real reason I was so upset. I was afraid. They hadn’t left me alone since that night in September. The house felt too big, was too quiet to have it all to myself. I was afraid my imagination would get the better of me.

I cried for an hour, and then drifted off after watching some movie on TV. I didn’t dream, but I did hope that Mom and Dad would get back home soon.

That had been a month ago. The world had fallen into chaos since then. And Mom and Dad wouldn’t be coming back soon, if at all. I had no idea where they were or what had happened to them. After the airport had canceled all flights in or out of Hawaii, neither of them had called me.

More time passed. It felt like eons, but the grandfather clock in the hallway rang three times, indicating that in reality it had only been two hours. Where I was, two hours felt like two days. Two days two years…

The phone rang, jarring the established silence and echoing throughout my house.

I jumped at the sudden sound, slamming my head against the top of the dumbwaiter. My eyes watered and I held my breath, heart pounding against my chest.

“What was that?” Smithy asked.

“Get the phone,” the Nightmare ordered, and I heard the floorboards creak and groan as he moved toward the wall.

“Hello?”

The Nightmare began to rap his knuckles against the plaster, and I wanted to sob. He was going to find me. I was going to die. Agonizing hours of remaining as still as a statue, ignoring the hunger and the smell and the fear, all for nothing.

“Nicholas,” Smithy said, his tone oddly sharpened. He began talking to whoever it was on the other line again. “Uh-huh. No. Where is that? No. I’m her… cousin. I came to visit and found the house empty. It’s fine. I will. Goodbye.”

“What?” The Nightmare stepped away from the wall, inches away from my hiding place.

“That was one of the girl’s friends,” Smithy said, hanging up the phone. “Melissa something. She called to talk to Allie, and then remembered that Allie was supposed to go up north to the cabin on Wednesday. Apparently she went with a boyfriend.”

“She’s gone?” the Nightmare snapped, moving away completely. “Where is this cabin?”

“Crosslake, I guess. About an hour and a half away from here.”

“Did you get the address?”

“No. The girl sounded suspicious when I told her I was a cousin and wouldn’t say any more.”

“You handled it badly,” the Nightmare hissed. “Any fool would have been able to—”

“Hey, you’re not paying me to take phone calls and make up stories on the spot. I didn’t say I was good at it and you’re the one who told me to answer the phone.”

“So I did.” The Nightmare sounded furious, and I wondered at Smithy’s stupidity. Once his usefulness was at its end, he would probably get killed for saying what he was.

“Look, maybe we should just get going now,” Smithy said, finally showing some sense by the hesitance in his voice, though I still wondered at his bravery to even speak up at all. “It’ll take a day to drive up to my uncle’s,” he informed the Nightmare, “and we’ve already wasted one here. You only have one more day. In fact, I bet Crosslake isn’t too far away from my uncle’s place. Maybe we could swing by there.”

“What if she isn’t there?” the Nightmare growled. “Then I will fade to nothing in the safety of your uncle’s home, no different than if I remain here. I need the girl.”

“Well, what do you suggest, then? We’ve waited here overnight and she didn’t show up, and now we have one of her friends claiming Allie planned on going up to some cabin at Crosslake. I think we should go.”

“I didn’t ask you what you thought.”

“Fine.” I listened to one of them walk into the living room. My heart was calming down again, and I felt my muscles slowing relax. They probably assumed the sound of my head hitting the wall had been a rat or something...

"So we're staying here," Smithy verified suddenly.

The Nightmare growled. "For now."

I clenched my teeth, despairing. So I had to wait some more.