A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge — Adaptation Excerpts

Adapted by Bob Italia
Transcribed by Rob Nimmo
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THREE

The next morning, Jesse entered the kitchen. Everyone was at the breakfast table, picking at their food. No one seemed particularly hungry. Jesse poured himself a cup of coffee and stared at his father. “Why did it take them five years to sell this house, Dad?” Ken shrugged his shoulders. “Couldn’t get the right price, I suppose.” “And you don’t know anything about the murder across the street and a crazy girl who lived here—who saw the whole thing?” Shirley looked at Ken with surprise. “I don’t know,” Ken said angrily. “They told me something about it, yeah. What difference does it make?” Then he met Shirley’s stare. “Oh, come on, Shirl, how’d you think we got such a good deal? Listen, all old houses have stories.” “Did they tell you she went totally out of her mind—that they had to put her away?” Jesse said. “And that her mother killed herself in our living room?” Angela stepped close to her mother. “Mommy, I’m scared.” Shirley comforted her. “Jesse and Daddy are just making believe, sweetheart. I don’t think we should be talking about this now.” Ken glared at Jesse. “You see what you’re doing? Now I don’t want to hear another word about it. There’s nothing wrong with this house!” Shirley began sniffing the air. “Something burning?” She looked at the counter-top. The toaster was glowing red-hot. Suddenly, flames began leaping out of the bread slots. Shirley gasped as Ken jumped to his feet. He grabbed a dish towel and began beating out the fire. Then he turned away from the smoldering toaster, tossed the towel aside and headed back to the table. “Craziest thing I ever saw,” he said. “It wasn’t even plugged in.” Jesse put his cup down hard on the counter and walked out. The screen door slammed behind him.

—

Later that morning before school, Jesse took Lisa to McDonald’s. When they arrived, Jesse unrolled a bundle of rags he found in the furnace and let the finger knives drop with a clatter on the car seat. Lisa picked up the glove and examined it with interest. “This is amazing! Your dream told you where this was?” Jesse nodded. “Only it was more like, you know, sleepwalking. All I know is I woke up on the cellar floor next to it.” He reached into his knapsack and pulled out the diary. “Forget about going back to sleep after that. I was up all night. I finished reading this. It gets real crazy toward the end, after all the death stuff. But then she said something really freaky—about her mother taking her down to the basement to show her the glove. That’s when she started talking about Fred Krueger.” Lisa was wide-eyed. “Who?” “Fred Krueger. The guy in her dreams who’s coming to kill her. Seems he was a real guy, ten years before. He went around kidnapping kids and killing them.” Jesse and Lisa drove to school and walked down the main corridor to their lockers. “Maybe you’re having a premonition or something,” Lisa said. “You know, like those guys who help the police solve crimes and find missing people. You ever had anything like this happen before?”
Jesse paused to think. “No, never. You think that’s what it is?”
“I don’t know. Can I look at that diary for a little while?”
Jesse raised his eyebrows, reached into his bag and handed the book to Lisa.
Before she could go on, they were interrupted by a squeaky voice.
“Hi, guys,” Kerry said.
“Hi, Kerry,” Lisa replied.
“I got your invitation yesterday,” Kerry said to Lisa. “Any cute guys gonna be there?”
Lisa sighed. “All of them.”
“Your dad picking the music again?” Kerry said.
Lisa smiled. “Mom’s trying to keep him upstairs.” Then she looked at Jesse. “Last party I had, Dad insisted on playing nothing but Benny Goodman records all night.” Suddenly, the class bell rang. Lisa leaned over and kissed Jesse. “I’ll see you later, okay?” Taken by surprise, Jesse walked off with Kerry. “I may be late,” he shouted. “Baseball practice.”

—

Baseball practice took a lot longer than Jesse anticipated. He barely had enough time to shower before meeting Lisa in the parking lot. Jesse plopped down on the bench and slowly pulled off his jersey. Grady approached and sat in front of his locker. “You hit the ball pretty good, Walsh,” Grady said. “So do you, Grady. Schneider shouldn’t have called you out on that double.” “Yeah, well, Schneider’s as blind as a bat.” “He always blows those close calls,” Jesse complained. Suddenly, someone blew a whistle behind them. Jesse turned around and saw Coach Schneider standing there with a wicked grin. “You boys never learn, do you? Ready for some laps?” When Jesse finished running his laps, the school parking lot was nearly empty. Jesse’s car was parked in the center. Lisa was leaning against it, a stack of books at her side. Jesse approached. “Sorry I’m late. Coach Schneider kept me late again.” “I just got here myself,” Lisa said. “Went to the public library. Cut four classes!” Jesse opened the car door for her. She picked up her books and climbed in. Jesse ran around to the other side and slid in beside her. Then he looked at the books. What’s all this?” “Research,” she replied. Then she kissed him. “C’mon, let’s go for a ride.” Jesse started the Falcon, then it rolled down the highway. “I’m convinced you’ve had a genuine psychic vision,” Lisa said. “At first, I wasn’t sure because you said that you never had anything like last night happen before. But I found out that most people have the potential for tuning in to the other world and never do. It has something to do with the environment—like they have to be in a place that’s sending signals.” Jesse looked puzzled. “Like a haunted house, right? I don’t believe in ghosts.” “You don’t have to. You just have to believe in energy. Look, you got electricity in your body, right?” “Yeah, I know…synapses, neurons…” “And heat and chemical reactions,” Lisa said. “Where does it all go when you die?” “I don’t know—into the air, I suppose.” “What about essential energy—the soul? Does that go into the air, too? You think there’s good energy and bad energy? Make a left at this corner.” “Where are we going?” Jesse asked as he turned at the intersection. Lisa smiled mysteriously. “It’s a surprise.”

They came upon an old generating plant that once served a small town. Now it was rundown and obsolete. The building was charred and the grounds were littered with rubble. The entrance to the plant was boarded up and plastered with NO TRESPASSING signs. Many boards were missing, providing easy access for the scores of vandals who had torn through the complex from time to time. There were no windows at the ground level, but the top of the building was lined with many multi-paned frames. All were either cracked or missing. “What is this place?” Jesse asked as he stopped the car. “Remember in the diary—Nancy said that she kept finding herself in a boiler room? Fred Krueger worked here. It’s an old powerplant—a steam generator!” She pulled out several papers and handed them to Jesse. One of the headlines read: “SPRINGWOOD SLASHER ARRESTED.” “What’s this?” he said. “I did some reading up on our friend, Fred Krueger,” Lisa replied. Jesse leafed through the papers. Each was a front page from the local newspaper. “KRUEGER FREED ON TECHNICALITY! D.A. RESIGNS.” “JUSTICE DONE—KRUEGER KILLED BY MOB! SPRINGWOOD SLASHER DIES IN HELLISH INFERNO.” Jesse took a deep breath. He and Lisa climbed out of the car and slipped between a pair of boards. Now they were inside. Jesse could see the remnants of a large boiler room. Huge steel pipes jutted out of the floor in a tangle of elbows and valves and a clutter of debris. A maze of catwalks wound around the machinery.

“This place is incredible,” he said. “How long has it been closed down?” “A long time,” Lisa said. “Ever since I was a kid. Come on.” They moved deeper into the plant. “Fred Krueger kidnapped twenty kids and brought them here to die,” Lisa said. She shivered. “So, you feeling anything?” “What do you mean?” “I thought you might be able to make a connection.” Jesse shrugged his shoulders. Then he put his hand to his mouth. “Any ghosts here?” he called out. “Come on, cut it out,” Lisa said. “Well, what am I supposed to do?” “I don’t know. Concentrate or something.” Jesse shifted his legs and stared at the ceiling. Then he closed his eyes. “I feel like a jerk.” “Shhh! Just concentrate.” Jesse walked around in a small circle, keeping his head up and his eyes closed. “Anything?” Jesse shook his head, then paused. “Wait…” He walked slowly across the room until he came to a board leaning against the foot of the mesh-iron stairway that led to the catwalks. He placed his hand on the board and pulled it away. A large rat, in her nest with her young, snarled at him. Jesse and Lisa jumped into each other’s arms. Jesse and Lisa returned outside and walked along the outskirts of the building to a cluster of shade trees. Lisa hoisted herself up on a boulder and looked at the building. “Disappointed?” Jesse said. “About what?” “About not finding any bogey men?” Lisa smiled. “I’ll get over it.” Jesse drew close and they stared at each other. “You are sensitive,” Lisa said. “I mean you sensed that rat was there. And I can feel something about you. Sometimes I feel like I know what you’re thinking.” Jesse put his arms on her shoulders. “Yeah?” “Maybe it only happens when you’re sleeping—that’s the way it was with Nancy, wasn’t it?” “Now there’s an idea we can take off on. Maybe we should drive out to the beach tonight and lay out a couple of blankets…until I fall asleep.” Lisa smiled. “Maybe we can do that—strictly scientific, of course.” “Nancy went bonkers from this thing. You wouldn’t be afraid of being out on the beach with a potential lunatic?” “Ghostbusters are fearless,” Lisa said. Jesse embraced Lisa and kissed her on the lips. Suddenly, he groaned in pain and stood upright, tearing from their embrace. “What is it?” Lisa said. “What’s wrong?” Jesse held his stomach. “I don’t know—sharp pain.” Finally, the agony lifted from Jesse’s face. “It’s gone now.” “Oh, Jesse,” she said, putting her arms around him. “Jesse, this is no good. You’ve got to go home and get some sleep. You’ve got to!”

—

Jesse was jogging around the outer edge of the gym, ready to collapse from exhaustion. Coach Schneider was leaning against the wall, watching Jesse run. As Jesse came around for another lap, Schneider reached out and grabbed him. “Hit the showers,” Schneider barked. Jesse entered the boys’ shower room and let the hot water hit his face. Meanwhile, Schneider entered his office and approached a huge, padlocked cabinet on the wall. He unlocked it and opened the doors. The cabinet was filled with dumbbells, jump-ropes, baseball bats, and other athletic equipment. Schneider selected a pair of jump-ropes and set them down on his desk. Suddenly, he heard a pinging sound. He went to the door and looked out into the hall. The hall was empty. Schneider turned back into his office. Then he heard another pinging sound. He looked up at a tennis racquet hanging on the wall. Two strings were broken. Just then, another string began smoking, then snapped with a ping. Before he could investigate, a basketball fell out of the equipment cabinet and bounced on the floor at Schneider’s feet. Schneider bent down to pick up the basketball—and two more balls jumped out onto the floor. Then another ball flew out and knocked over a trophy on his desk. Schneider’s eyes flew open as a dumbbell vaulted out of the cabinet and streaked by his ear. He hit the floor as another dumbbell shot across the office and crashed into a window, cracking the thick wired glass. Schneider crawled along the floor to the cabinet as basketballs, volleyballs, and a medicine ball flew overhead. Then he reached up to close the cabinet doors. Suddenly, a jump-rope on the desk unraveled like a harpoon line and wrapped around Schneider’s wrist. The other end pulled hard and yanked Schneider off balance. As he reached with his free hand to unwrap his wrist, a second rope launched off the desk and secured itself to his other wrist. The office door opened by itself. Then the ropes dragged Schneider from the room as he screamed.

Back in the shower room, Jesse frowned as the shower head next to his gurgled and sprang to life. Suddenly, all the showers were on, spewing water and steam. Jesse gazed in horror as Schneider, still screaming, was dragged by ropes into the shower room. The ropes shot up to two shower nozzles and hoisted the coach into a helpless spread-eagle, facing the wall. Then his shirt was torn away like sheets of tissue paper. Terrified, Jesse turned away. The room filled with great clouds of steam. Suddenly, a dark human form appeared in the corner. Dressed in a green and red sweater and battered fedora, the figure cut through the steam clouds and approached Schneider. It drew back its weapon arm and struck quickly. Schneider screamed, then went limp. Jesse lifted his head and stared at his right hand. Then he shrieked in horror. He was wearing Freddy’s glove. “No…oh, please, no…” Jesse slowly dropped to his knees and stared up at the heavens. “NO!” he screamed.

—

The doorbell rang frantically, repeatedly. Startled, Ken wrapped a robe around his pajamas and hurried to the foyer. Then he flicked on the lights and opened the door. Shirley was right behind him. Two police officers in rain slickers stood on either side of Jesse. His hair was wet and he was wrapped in a blanket. “This belong to you?” a police officer said to Ken. Stunned by the sight, Ken just nodded. The officer nudged Jesse across the threshold, Jesse stumbled in. “We found him wandering out on the highway,” the officer said. “Keep a leash on him, will ya?” Ken took Jesse into the kitchen and sat him at the table. Shirley made some tea and poured Jesse a cup. Ken paced the floor angrily. “Okay, we’re gonna put our cards on the table, here and now. There’s not going to be any retribution—no fire and brimstone. I only have two questions. You’ll answer them and we’ll all go to bed, okay?” Jesse nodded weakly. “Okay,” Ken said, “what are you taking and who are you getting it from?” Jesse shook his head in disgust. “I’m not taking drugs, Dad. Can I go to bed now?” “Sure, go ahead,” Shirley said. Ken glared at Jesse as he got up from the table and left the room. Then he stared at Shirley. “No question about it—he’s on something.”

Chapter 2 | Chapter 4