A smile spread on Mario's face. He had been right. Mel had been trying to pretend he wasn't home.
"I see you, asshole!" he said out loud, and stepped inside the trailer. But Mel didn't flinch. "We're gonna have a little talk. Got anything to say before I beat you within an inch of your life and then turn you over to the police?" Mario laughed cruelly, but Mel seemed to be ignoring him. The feeling that something was wrong finally dawned on Mario. "Let's get some light on the subject," he told Mel, and felt the wall for a light switch. He found it and flipped it up. A lamp near Mel turned on. Mario gasped.
Mel had been tied to the chair and was quite dead. His T-shirt had turned brown from dried blood that had gushed from the wound in his neck. He had been slashed from ear to ear, and the slit curved, giving him the appearance of having a wide, permanent, bloody smile.
Gagging, Mario turned and stumbled out of the trailer. He tripped on the steps and fell to the ground. Using the side of the trailer, Mario finally pulled himself to his feet. He leaned heavily against the corrugated aluminum of the trailer, his mind swimming in horror.
That was definitely not a suicide, Mario realized. Mel had been murdered. If so, then what was going on? He looked out toward Keith's car, but could not see past the headlights. He waved weakly, signaling he was okay, and started to move forward. They had to get to the police now.
The engine of the car roared, freezing Mario in his tracks. With a screech, the back wheels spun, spewing gravel behind them, and the car leapt forward. Mario didn't have a chance. He was struck solidly on the chest and thrown back against the trailer. Despite the pain, he struggled to stand. But before he was fully on his feet, the car struck again, pinning him. Now that he was out of the glare of the headlights, Mario could see the interior of the car. At the wheel was Keith, his face distorted, an almost unrecognizable mask of evil. With insane glee, Keith accelerated, slowly crushing Mario against the trailer.
As the last breath was squeezed from his lungs, Mario managed to croak, "You're killing me, dude." He no longer had feeling below his neck. "I'm dying," he said weakly.
Keith's malevolent smile only widened. Somehow, he had heard Mario's plea over the roar of the engine. "Yes," Keith replied cruelly. "You are." Then Keith started laughing, a deep, horrifying sound. It was not Keith's laugh… or even his voice.
Mario's eyesight faded to black on the image of Keith's twisted face. And the hideous laughter was the last thing he heard before he died.
* * *
By now, the commotion had attracted the attention of the trailer park's other inhabitants. Fearfully they gazed from windows, some tentatively leaving their homes and approaching. At the sight of Mario slumped over the hood of the car, someone screamed.
Satisfied, Keith put the car in reverse. He pulled away, leaving Mario's body to drop limply to the ground.
Chapter 15
Keith burst through the front door of his house so violently that his mother let out a shriek. She appeared to have been waiting for him. Her relief at his return was short-lived. His clothes were torn and his face was bruised and cut.
"Keith, what's wrong?" she asked as she came toward him. "Carrie called…"
"Not now, Mom," he growled as he pushed past her and headed toward the stairs. "Leave me alone!" He glimpsed her stunned look, surprise rooting her to the spot.
Keith entered his room and slammed the door shut. The hammer still lay on the floor where Keith had dropped it days before. He snatched it up quickly and attacked "Mysteria," striking the poster with all the strength he could muster. The shock of each blow felt like the recoil of a shotgun blast on his hands. But the glass on the poster did not shatter. His stomach lurched violently. He dropped the hammer again and ran to the bathroom.
He vomited as the memory of what he had done hit him. His stomach continued to heave even after it was empty. The contractions were so violent, he thought his ribs might break.
His bedroom door rattled with frantic knocking.
"Keith, are you all right?" came his mother's frightened voice. "Keith, answer me!"
"Will you leave me alone?" he yelled back. "I'll be down later!"
"But what was that pounding noise?" she cried. "What's going on?"
"Don't worry," he told her ironically, "I didn't break anything. I just need rest. Now, go away!"
He heard his doorknob turn. She was entering his room uninvited.
"Mom!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, and the door slammed shut.
"Okay, okay," She sounded miserable. "I'll be downstairs if you need anything. I'm canceling bridge for tonight." He didn't answer and soon he heard her footsteps moving away.
Supporting himself on his arms, Keith stared into the bathroom mirror. He hardly recognized himself. Dark circles, bruises and cuts from his fight with Mario.
He let his head droop forward. When he looked up again, the mirror's aberration was enlarging one of his eyes in the reflection. He moved so that the features of his face flowed around the distortion. How appropriate, he thought. Then Keith stopped and gave himself a hard stare. The aberration broadened his forehead, and he concentrated on it. Before he realized what he was doing, his eyes blurred and he seemed to be looking deep within the reflection. The features of his face scrambled, then melted away entirely. The space where his face had been became a volcanic mass of featureless flesh. Though the bathroom itself did not change, the lights in the reflection dimmed, then winked out entirely. His faceless reflection floated in blank space.
Then hard lines formed in the reflection beside his face. The shape of a window. Outside the window, a car sat, its engine revving. Below the window, Skrag lay struggling at the cords that held him to his bed. Black gloved hands reached in, one clamping the black jumper cable to Skrag's ear. Skrag attempted to see his attacker, but could not. But from Keith's impossible vantage point, he saw perfectly. He saw himself smiling as he clamped the red jumper cable to Skrag's tongue and withdrew from the window.
The scene in the mirror faded. Soon a new one replaced it. Sandra stood at the front of the school, waiting for him. He arrived, and there she told him about Mario and Pam. They walked as they talked, ending up near the bleachers of the football field, There, he attacked her, and with inhuman strength, carried her body to the top of one bank of lights and hanged her. Before he left, he turned the lights on. Then he went straight to Mel's trailer.
The next scene was from that afternoon. He claimed he'd been reading all day. Instead, he had driven to Mel's one more time, and killed him. He took the bear traps from the shed and, that night, after stopping at the police station, set them all on the slope at the park.
When Mario had found him that night, Keith had just come down the hill seconds after pushing Pam before him. He had expected Mario to come to the park. And he had expected Mario to insist on dealing with Mel alone. If he hadn't insisted, there were contingencies upon contingencies. Mario would have been dead by now, in any case. And Keith was shown the way it had ultimately taken place. After he experienced Mario's murder for a second time, the mirror went black again. His face continued to pulsate.
I killed them all, Keith realized for the first time. I'm responsible! Keith was almost consumed by despair.
"You didn't do it alone, child!" came a voice inside his head. Then laughter, a sound he had heard in his dreams many times. "You did have some help."
The miasma of colors and light on his face began to take shape once more. A sharp, cruel nose. Depraved leer. Eyes of the ultimate predator, cold, unforgiving, deadly. Finally the skin itself became a mass of burned, oozing flesh.
"Say hello to Freddy," said the monster. "Now you're the B.M.O.C. — the Big Murderer on Campus." Freddy laughed. "You've done Daddy proud!"
* * *
Carrie pounded on Keith's door and yelled his name. There was no answer except for the chilling laughter on the other side.
When she had arrived only minutes ago, Keith's mother was beside herself with worry. She sai
d that Keith had gone in his room and was acting very… strangely. Her hesitation indicated she was understating the case. Carrie wondered what his mother would think of the disturbing phone message he had left. When she had played it, Carrie had realized that something was terribly wrong with Keith. After that, she told her parents to call the police and send them to Springwood Park. Without explaining, she jumped in her car and went there herself. Though deep down she knew it was hopeless, she wanted to stop whatever might be happening there. By the time she made it, it was much too late. Pam's body was already cold. But Mario and Keith were nowhere to be found. Returning to her car, she didn't know what to do or where to go. On a hunch, she drove toward Mario's house, but before she arrived, Keith's car zoomed past, running a stop sign. She noticed immediately that he was alone. And by the look on his face, one that chilled her to the bone, she knew Mario's absence was not a good sign. Getting a grip on herself, she followed Keith back to his house.
Carrie calmly told Keith's mother to call an ambulance, and said she would go up to talk to him. Keith's mother did as Carrie suggested without asking for an explanation. As she climbed the stairs, a wail of utter despair rose from Keith's room. The wail continued, soon turning into a steady stream of maniacal laughter. Carrie's heart raced at the sound. She was almost paralyzed with fear. But she urged herself forward and stood outside Keith's bedroom door. There was no response to her knocking or shouts, so she walked right in.
An overwhelming feeling of wrong pervaded Keith's room. The feeling flowed in from behind her, dousing her as if with a bucket of maggots. The laughter came from the adjoining bathroom. She did not want to go in there. She wanted to flee the room entirely. She turned and saw the poster, the poster that Keith claimed had been showing him strange pictures.
A door opened and Carrie turned. Keith walked from the bathroom.
"Keith…" she said, but her voice was quickly drowned out by a burst of laughter.
"You're right, Carrie," Keith said in a deep, utterly alien voice. "He did it. He killed them all." Keith started advancing toward her. "Skrag," he said, and took a step. "Sandra." Another step. "Pam… and Mario."
Carrie tried to stand her ground. "Keith didn't kill anyone. You did… whoever you are." Involuntarily she took a step backward toward the poster. "Who are you?" she demanded.
Instead of an answer, the thing simply left. The evil light left Keith's eyes. In its place was utter despair. Even if Keith wasn't responsible for the killings, his body had been used and he knew it. And felt responsible. He looked at her, pleading silently for help. The sight was almost enough to bring tears to her eyes. She didn't know how he was going to get through this, but she vowed to be by his side, no matter what happened. She stepped forward to take him in her arms, but stopped when a new look swept over his face. His eyes became huge with terror. He was looking behind her.
Carrie spun around, toward a roaring sound that began as soon as Keith started looking past her. The sound emanated from the poster, which had inexplicably changed. Instead of the swirl of colors, the surface had gone completely black. It appeared to be a doorway to dead space rather than a simple poster. Captivated by it, she approached, and noticed a red glow in the «distance» of the poster. Images of blazing furnaces sprung unbidden in her mind.
All at once, the poster was no longer empty. A horrible, charred man with a dirty red and green sweater looked from the frame. She recognized him as Freddy Krueger, the childkiller from long ago.
"How do you like this for 3-D?" Freddy roared. Before she could move, Freddy leapt through the poster and wrapped his arms around her. He had her, and proceeded to drag her toward the poster frame. Carrie's head soon penetrated the surface of the glass. There was only the weakest resistance as she passed through the "glass." Immediately she could feel the heat of a thousand fires. "You'll make a pretty picture," Freddy growled sensuously in her ear.
Twisting in his arms, Carrie managed to face Keith's room. Even though she wasn't fully through the picture, the room seemed a million miles away. Keith simply stood there, apparently catatonic.
"Keith! Help me! Please!" At first he didn't react. Freddy's laughter surged as he continued to draw her into his world. She was almost completely on the other side now. The air was stiflingly hot. In a desperate lunge, she grasped the edges of the poster frame in her hands. But Freddy was much stronger than she and would soon pry her hands loose. And she'd be lost. Taking a chance, Carrie allowed her legs to go past the frame. She savagely kicked at Freddy's chest, but seemingly to no avail. He merely continued to laugh, mockingly.
Then Keith appeared, grabbing at her. He had broken his trance.
"I've got you!" he yelled as he took her firmly by the arms and started to pull her out of the poster. Her kicks now seeming to have some effect, Freddy's grip loosened as Keith continued to pull. Carrie felt as if she'd be torn apart, but Keith appeared to be succeeding. Soon she was able to secure one foot on the edge of the frame. Pushing hard, she catapulted herself forward, knocking Keith to the ground.
Her feeling of safety lasted only a moment, as they both looked toward the poster. Freddy was beginning to emerge. But before he was fully through the frame, Keith was on his feet — hammer almost magically appearing in his hand. Using the claw end, he buried the hammer into Freddy's scarred head. Freddy screamed and recoiled. Wrenching the hammer away, Keith prepared for another blow. But this time, Freddy was prepared. With a swipe of his murderous talons, he slashed at Keith's arm, causing him to drop the hammer.
"I had planned on doing this ladies first," Freddy said as he hooked his other arm around Keith and drew him into the poster. "But I guess we'll go age before beauty!"
Carrie was at the poster with the hammer just as Keith was pulled through. His hands gripped weakly at the sides. He wouldn't last long, and Carrie knew she didn't have the strength to pull him back. Flailing with the hammer, she struck Freddy's arms, but he didn't notice.
"Smash the picture," Keith cried, "or whatever it is. You might be able to shatter it."
At first Carrie was confused. Then she understood: Breaking the picture might seal the entrance, or the hole, trapping Freddy on the other side. But that would mean trapping Keith as well. She started to protest when one of his hands slipped from the frame. He would be dragged in within seconds.
"Just do it!!" he yelled. His knuckles were white with strain.
Carrie realized she had no choice.
Drawing back the hammer with all her might, she brought it down on the glass. It shattered instantly, glass falling into the void just as Keith's hand finally slipped from the frame. With the breach came a rush of hot air, which blew her backward into the room. Sounds of laughing mingled with screaming as a glow formed in the center of the poster at the same time the frame seemed to buckle and shrink.
At the edges, the poster seemed to be collapsing in on itself, falling into Freddy's world. But the glow of the center came outward, forming a wormlike extension in the colors of the original poster. The worm shot out at her, stopping inches from her face. Its surface boiled and writhed. Finally a shape formed at the end of the worm: It was Freddy's face.
"Well, I guess you won't be joining my gallery, after all," he sneered. "But don't you worry, little girl, Freddy's never out of the picture for long!"
With that, the frame collapsed fully into itself, sealing the portal between the two worlds. This severed the worm's connection, causing it to dissolve in a shower of light.
All at once, the room appeared to return to normal. Carrie approached the wall slowly. Tentatively she touched the spot where the poster had been. The wall was solid. No trace remained of the poster, or what had been the hellish doorway. But the monster said he'd be back. Carrie believed him.
Springwood had not seen the last of Freddy Krueger.
Epilogue
Pooh Keith! He was so obsessed by how everyone else was better than him at something, he forgot to take a good look at himself. He lost sight. Well
, I found him, and now he's here with me in the boiler room, among his friends.
Actually, his friends are among him. Wherever he goes, he'll take a little piece of each of them. He's got Sandra's brain, Mario's strong body, Skrag's miraculous hands, and Pam's swift legs. And they're all wrapped in Keith's skin in one neat little package.
Carrie was telling him the truth when she said he kept his friends together. It's just too bad there wasn't room for Mel. Oh well, some people just aren't cut out for the Internal Crowd, no matter how hard they try.
But Keith can finally be proud of himself now that, with a little help from his friends, he has become the ultimate model student!
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