He supposes it’s what one gets when one grows a plant in the shadows. It gets sick, it grows into Katherine. Not Kathy, no. Kathy died with him. Now he’s dealing with a woman named Katherine, with the fish hook of trauma caught in her brain, with the one-dimensional account of daddy dearest gutting the spawn of the ever so kind, ever so cheerful. Not a speck in them. They all had a crucifix over their bed so they could fuck in missionary while Jesus looked on, they had nice teeth and small funds just started for their Johnny’s’ and Betty’s’ college. They were the face of Springwood, he was the asshole. Katherine does not remember having no playmates.
The sharp-toothed thing in him snarls at the tone. Oooh, the affront of this young thing, like she bears the stigma of a martyr. Perhaps she does. He knows what it’s like knowing you were born of filth. He aches to ask her, if she feels the responsibility that comes with continuing a monster bloodline.
He’s quick to stand, his early middle age briskness with him. He wishes his face wasn’t an illusion. He wants her to see him as he was, the real, original Fred Krueger that simply was, and the pendulum hadn’t yet swung in one direction or another.
“Lies,” he hisses with the wounded tone of a wolf that got its paw in a trap, poked by torches and pitchforks. One can’t help his own nature, isn’t that so? So why punish the uncontrollable, like you can sentence bubonic plague to death. “I didn’t do it. I was innocent as a fucking Jesus lamb or whatever.”
Nostrils flaring, his upper lip adopts a disdainful curve, and his eyes take on a dull, sullen cast.
“They hated me, you know? They all hated me. Ever since I was a little boy, they pointed fingers at me.”
Before Satan’s abode, there was another kind of hell. Snickers and passed notes that gained voices on school breaks, voices grew flesh in actions, and for a week he’d been coming home with his hair wet from toilet water, and coursing back to school with black blotches of blood under his skin because Walter – or Will, or Wayne – had hallucinated a direct connection between his failures as a businessman and the child he’d taken in to feed off.
“You know what they called me? Son of a Hundred Maniacs.”
Subverting a foul name and giving it some dark power was not the first step on the path he’d been steadily led to, and by then he’d lost his way into the realm of giving and taking. That’s what it was. A natural cycle. You get what you give, nothing more. They were so terrified of the concept of “doing it to a child” they forgot they’d invented it. Before the downy cheeks of their children bore the scars of his claws, he used himself as a canvas – Springfield taught him how to draw.
“You wanna know why? Wanna know what’s so funny about it?”
He leans to level his face with hers. He’s blind where other fathers see their pride, cannot discern a single gene of his in those features, and she only reminds him of Loretta by the virtue of being a woman. But he knows another thing all fathers know – she owes him just by existing.
“Bet your foster mommy and daddy never told you,” and he can’t help a grin twitching onto his lips.
she doesn’t flinch this time , as if the dread and peril of it all could not compete with this voracious urge to know , know who she was , who she was meant to be , what was taken and devoured from her mind before she could ever make a decision on her own . virtue is not real if it’s imposed upon you , taught , repeated . that was fabrication ----- you do what you are told , and not what you want . the only question left was : what was it that she wanted? were they so afraid of an answer they robbed her of it? if so , it must’ve been a truly monstrous thing .
❛ w-why? ❜ her voice sounds smaller then , almost like a child when confronted with a complicated math problem they weren’t clever enough to solve on their own. it feels like having her brain stretched and poked and pulled at all four corners as if it was made of rubber . why , why , why ! it’s all that fills her mind , desperate whimpering questions of a wounded dog who needs answers , who needs anything to fill that empty void left behind . she wants to know everything , every twisted detail , but that’s too horrid of a thing to admit aloud , isn’t it?
broken composure , he’s taunting her ---- toying with her like she’d do to others . dangling what she wants most like a bait at the palm of his hand and daring her to reach for it . it’s cruel , but how could she expect anything less ? for once , katherine’s struggling not to crumble , not to willfully walk into this web and tangling herself in his silken lies . it’s so tempting , she’d been so starved for so long , no newspapers , no articles , no stories ---- nothing . it was as if the whole world had forgotten it , as if springwood had never existed at all . she’d cracked her nails bloodied digging for the truth now he’s standing here : flesh and bone . or almost . her father , ghostly and grinning with those sharp teeth , playing dollhouse in this memoir , and even these scraps he’s feeding her are just about enough .
if she could , she would hold him , clutch him so tight between her fingers he’d be torn in half , claw his skin to ribbons so he’d never be whole again .
❛ what did they do to you, daddy? tell me , ❜ she doesn’t believe his innocence , but she wants to , and if she just tries hard enough , maybe she could . it’s easier to believe someone you love ---- and she loved this thing , whatever it was , or at least --- she remembers loving it . ❛ why couldn’t i find you anywhere? i searched for you ... everywhere , ❜ small admissions wrapped in stifled anguish roll off her tongue in haste , the aching , consuming pain of searching for a ghost still throbbing in her chest . she turned every rock , there was nothing underneath . a man died in a fire , a fire she’d never believe was accidental, and only thing left of its ashes was her . ❛ i couldn’t find you . i tried - i couldn’t find anything ... it’s like you were just --- just gone ... ❜