Who Framed Freddy Krueger?

[Nancy Thompson]

"Daddy!" the little girl cried, her wide blue eyes filled with fear, as she darted past a maze of pipes and raced up the steps, desperation etched on her face and her hands trembling. Turning a corner, she was met with a blast of hot steam against her cheek, prompting another cry to escape her lips. Tossing her head back with tears streaming down her face, her chestnut brown hair billowed powerfully behind her as she moved swiftly through the echoing boiler room, her screams echoing off the metal walls.

Frantically glancing over her shoulder, hyperventilating, she sprinted as fast as her khaki-clad legs could propel her. She was within arm's reach of her sole escape route, heedless of the possibility that her pink sweater might snag on something dreadful, and yet it did, tearing to reveal a white long-sleeved shirt underneath. Coming to a halt before a seemingly suspended door, she swiftly swung it open, allowing herself to be ushered away from the oppressive confines of the boiler room and into the enveloping darkness beyond. “Where are you?!” she screeched, her voice cracking horribly. “I’ve got him! Please, hurry! He’s here!”

It was Nancy.

"Help!" she pleaded, her voice echoing in the enveloping darkness that obscured her vision, her body contorting from the stinging sensations caused by branches cutting into her flesh as she pressed forth. Then, all at once, without so much as a warning, she ceased all movement and allowed her head to slowly drop like that of a little doll.

If one stopped to observe, the surroundings transformed into a forest veiled by an eternal night, where the sole illumination amidst the darkness emanated from a solitary yellow car with its headlights aglow. Abandoned yet radiant, it cast a guiding beam that pointed towards a cabin not too distant, beckoning the nightmare incarnate forward into the mysterious depths of the night-shrouded woods.

She no longer begged for help, nor did she show any sign of fear; she appeared suspended in time. The only sound that pierced the silence was the rhythmic clicking noise coming from the vehicle. The harsh light cast a haunting interplay of shadows and light over Nancy, her face obscured by her tousled hair, as moments stretched on until she finally found her voice.

"Tag," she whispered, her voice tinged with fear that swiftly transformed into something else, "you're it, Freddy."

In an unsettling turn, her eyes glazed over with a sickly white hue, her jaw hanging loose as her entire body began to visibly decay before the master of dreams, emanating a putrid stench of death in his direction. Her once sweet voice now carried layers of demonic resonance, revealing the truth that she was not the innocent girl she appeared to be.

"Ring! Ring! Ring! You're my boyfriend now!" she cackled with twisted glee, but before she could utter another word, her distorted features shifted into an expression of curiosity. An awkward pause hung in the air as her unnaturally long tongue recoiled back into her mouth.

The Deadite had shed its former guise of a girl, now emerging as a woman with fair, blonde hair. Clad in a silk nightgown, she appeared to have assumed the identity of the deceased Linda. With a sardonic smile, she leaned in towards the dream demon and whispered, "Aren't you fortunate?" Her voice dripped with a sinister charm as she continued, "It's your testimony against mine. Who do you think this man will trust? Your words," she taunted, gesturing towards her chest, "or these tits? Men can be so easily misled."


In a matter of minutes, the bewildered dreamer would unwittingly enter the realm of dreams, and she would be poised to deliver a chilling performance. A fleeting moment saw her grin widen, only to abruptly recoil as if jolted by an unseen hand, her screams piercing the air, her otherworldly visage reverting to the facade of the once beautiful woman she impersonated.

"What is going on? Ash! Save me!” The false Linda sobbed, backing away from the Springwood slasher.

[Freddy Krueger]

Deep in his perfectly crafted nightmare, surrounded by all of the things he loved, an all too familiar, wonderfully dully lit boiler room, the bastard son of 100 maniacs sat in his favorite dented and rusted out metal chair. With a PSP in his hands, Freddy Krueger fumbled to press the shoulder buttons on the Sony handheld console due to the extended metal fingers that he insisted on keeping equipped on his hand even in his hours of deliciously vile leisure.

"Dammit!" The device in his palms gave off a tepid hue, Freddy's frown recognized and acknowledged the low battery indicator. In his time off, the dream demon had buried himself into a game of The Sims 2, a game in which he would find the most entertaining ways to unalive his cute little gibberish-speaking family. "Low Battery?! BULLSHIT!" The serial gamer cried, flinging the Playstation Portable across the room, hearing the clank it made echoing delightfully throughout his endless hell hole.

Freddy turned his head sharply as another sound came through his metallic man cave. It was the sound of a little girl. Not uncommon for the place, to be perfectly honest, but even Fred himself didn't know where such a phenomenon could have originated.

"Daddy?" The charred villain repeated incredulously. It was as though he had a visitor. But, that was impossible. Right? What kind of sick new way to piss him off could those fucking kids have discovered this time? Suddenly, he began to recognize that voice. It was as if the girl was running toward him, yet...he wasn't after her.

The figure in question appeared between two large metal rusted tanks and stopped dead in her tracks, just standing there. Krueger's eyebrows, or what was left of them, sprung upward. The Springwood Slasher looked to and fro, as if to silently ask if anyone else was seeing what he was looking at.

Suddenly, Freddy found himself standing in, not his boiler room, but a dark forest.

"What the hell is this?" The killer called toward the figure ahead of him. He knew she must have the answer. This was her.  Freddy brandished his knives with the dramatic sound of metal grinding together. He was at least still in control of his own body. Good news. The slender sweater-clad monster began walking forth, stepping heavily with each of his rapidly moving feet, as he continued into a run toward the mysterious figure-

When suddenly, the chilling sound of her voice sliced through the air behind him, right into his ear. His body stopped. Freddy Krueger stood in the blackness alone. That is, until he saw the girl again. But she wasn't a little girl anymore. More like a dead little girl. Which wasn't something that necessarily shocked the dream master, but when it wasn't his doing, he could see how it might be a little disgusting.

"I'M NOT FUCKIN' IT!" He bellowed at what he could only describe as a nightmare within a nightmare, this weird little...thing. It was messing with him and nobody messes with Freddy. Surely, the demon could dish it out, but...

"I'M NOT YOUR BOYFRIEND!" Freddy screamed, his mouth becoming comically oversized in an attempt to make this creature flee or fight him like a real man. The killer lunged forward, making an attempt to slice at the nuisance with his hand, but fell short of making contact. "FUCK YOU!" he snarled.

Then suddenly, she changed again. There Freddy stood, an angry expression, in a dream, reaching out to claw at what now looked to be an innocent woman. Stupid bitch. Freddy's Framed.

[Ash Williams]

Ahhhh, Jacksonville, Florida, Ash thought as he took in that sweet, sweet orange-scented air just before flipping over a few burgers on the BBQ in front of him. His trademark blue shirt was covered with an apron that said "Fuck the Cook" as he held a beer in his left hand. He gave up his Boomstick and his chainsaw years ago and traded in his gauntlet for a spatula that now stuck out of the stump of a right hand as he slid a burger onto a plate. Around him, a party raged of young Spring breakers who were busy getting drunk and screwing the daylights out of each other! This was just the retirement he always wanted. He just couldn't be happier!!

"Oh Ash…." A young, blond, tan girl wearing a thin red bikini that barely covered her double-D breasts sauntered over and slung her arms around his neck. "I'm bored." She said, making a small pout with her lower lip.

"Oh yeah?" Ash smirked, setting his beer down. He slid his arm around her thin waist and yanked her closer. "Well, we can't have that now, can we…" She then smiled, kissing him before taking his hand and pulling him with her as he happily followed. Behind the shed and away from the party, they began to make out rather aggressively as she kissed him and pulled at his hair!

"Heh… Okay, easy there. Some of that is still under warranty…" He joked, sort of. The girl pulled away, giving him a weird smile, and slowly kneeled as he heard his belt clasp unbuckle. He was surprised at how fast this was going, but never look a gift horse in the mouth or something like that... "That works for me, baby. Nothin' like fast-forwarding over all the talking and stuff!" Ash said as he grinned. He let his head fall back against the aluminum of the shed wall and closed his eyes. But after what seemed like too long of a time with nothing happening, his eyebrows furrowed before peeking an eye open.

"Uh..hello? If this is foreplay. I think we are sorta past that.." It was then he noticed the sound from the party had stopped, and the smell of burgers and premarital sex had been replaced with the stench of moss and rotting wood. Looking down, the girl had vanished as he was suspended in mid-air!

"..Oh Shi-!" Ash yelped as he fell quite a few feet, slamming face-first onto the floor of that same dust-covered cabin he had been to a thousand times! "OOOoff!!"

"Hnngg…." Ash grumbled, coughed out a mouthful of dirt, and sat up on his knees. Looking down, he noticed his gauntlet was back on, and he was wearing his straps with his Boomstick in its holster before letting out a defeated sigh. His dreams always come back to this cabin. Same crappy cabin, the same wooden chair, the same demented deer head on the wall, yet it felt.. different this time. Getting to his feet, he felt his back ache as he glanced over at the blood-covered mirror on the wall. Walking over to it, Ash leaned in and noticed he was not the strapping younger self he always was but his strapping older self.

"Well, this is new…" Hearing a scream, Ash jolted back a few feet, almost leaping out of his damned skin! Knotting his eyebrows, he recognized that voice! "..Linda..?"

As the metal claws reached for the screaming woman, a shot rang out, and the blades sparked with molten metal knocking them off course just before hitting their mark! Ash approached the two as he opened the shotgun and replaced the spent shells. Clicking the weapon back together, he frowned, seeing the same..bad-Christmas-sweater-wearing-burned-bacon-smelling-Indiana-Jones-fanboy-fedora-wearing Deadite jackass from before.

"..S'up?" He then glanced at the woman and blinked. "Linda? But…What? How?" he asked. In all of his nightmares, he's never seen her like this. At least ..not with her head still on.

[Brandy Barr]

Trigger warning: depictions of body gore, dead children, please be wary as you read the following.

The deadite narrowly avoided the Springwood Slasher's furious slashes, but for a brief moment, its proximity to piercing flesh sent a shiver down its spine. This was not an ideal situation for the monster, who had encroached upon this domain. Despite this, the grotesque creature continued to masquerade as Linda, maintaining a distance from Freddy. Tears welled up in her eyes, betraying no recognition of the wrinkles and less-than-athletic physique her boyfriend now possessed.

"You have the power to save us all and fulfill your promise to me," she implored, her voice trembling with emotion. "Remember our plans to be together forever? We can still make that a reality. We can turn back time.”

As she spoke, silent figures began to materialize in the far distance, their torches glowing like distant stars in the darkness, their features obscured by the veil of night. "But in order to make that happen," she continued, her voice gentle yet firm, as if coaxing a child, "I will need you to overcome your fear of killing that awful man. I understand your reluctance to take a life, Ash. I - I know how you struggled so bad, Scott had to do all the dirty work for you. But this Freddy is true evil. He is connected with all the horrors that have happened here, and I can prove it to you.”


“Now, Ash, darling, listen to me," Linda's voice carried a haunting echo in the night air. "You're the one who can end this nightmare. You're our last hope. Embrace the darkness within you, channel it into strength. Be the hero this forsaken place needs. The chains of time can be broken if you find the courage to face your fears. Together, we can rewrite our destiny and banish the darkness that plagues us."

The figures in the distance drew closer, their torches casting flickering shadows on the twisted trees. Linda's eyes shone with unwavering determination as she reached out to Ash, her hand trembling with a mix of fear and hope. "Believe in yourself. Trust in our love. We can make it through this together. The power lies within you."

The twisted roots of numerous trees sinuously navigated the earth, entwining themselves around necks, legs, and arms, lifting the small lifeless bodies into the air in a chilling spectacle. Resembling eerie rag dolls, these figures appeared cold and pale, their forms eerily preserved as if they had met their demise only moments before. Each one of them could be recognized as a child.

"He... he did it," the teenager in the pink sweater and khaki pants impossibly stuttered, her voice barely audible, her expression one of shock and horror as she struggled to speak, her body trembling from the gutting she received. As she raised a shaking hand to point at the culprit, a chorus of suspended bodies seemed to echo her accusation, a grotesque testimony to the knowledge shared among the children that Krueger was the one responsible.

All fingers pointed in his direction. Such visions were startling. A centipede had crawled out of the mouth of a blonde girl, her eyes closed as her head tilted to the side. Much of a boy’s lower body seemed to be pulped and violently shredded. Another young fellow appeared to have died from a broken neck. There seemed to be over forty children hanging from the trees, but upon closer inspection, there were actually sixty in total.

"Get back in the cabin, son," a police officer growled in Ash’s direction, advancing from the crowd. "He's none of your concern, my friend, and I don't reckon you have any business being out here. You’re either with us or against us.”

"I want his knives, Donald," said a softly spoken figure who appeared both disgusted and yet intoxicated. She was his wife, Marge.

"Lieutenant Thompson, maybe we shouldn’t…" Officer Garcia protested but was overshadowed by a well-dressed woman who seemed to be trying to catch the eye of a modeling agency.

"If you're a real man, you're not going to take that idiot's advice! Marge, do something, or I swear to God I'll knock some sense into them myself!" cried Elaine Parker.

Then, from behind Ash emerged a familiar face, Scott, raising his eyebrows so high over his forehead that they seemed poised to launch alongside a can of beer. He mused aloud, "Will you look at that, Shelly? What are they going to do, host a barbecue?" He chuckled into his drink as his girlfriend, appearing uncomfortably frightened, clung to him for comfort.


The haughty, no-good friend of Ash's looked up and spotted the children. Scott dropped his beer can in an instant and dashed back into the cabin, abandoning his distraught companion, Shelly. The cowardly man called out for Cheryl, who was screaming frantically from inside the cabin.

"Scotty!" his girlfriend cried.

The false Linda cast one final glance at Ash and swiftly took Shelly's hand, leading her back into the cabin, leaving Freddy and Ash to contend with the angry mob.

"I’ve got a spare," Mr. Lantz ominously declared, parting the crowd of enraged parents to approach the man wielding the gauntlet. He extended an extra torch for him to take. "Join us."

As smoothly as such transitions happened, ‘Linda’ was struggling from within the cabin to maintain a steady flow of whose nightmares were who, for if they noticed….stories were blending and discrepancies were brewing. The Nightmare King himself had been fighting back.