A Naptime on Elm Street

Chapter 3
Part 3

That afternoon, the holding cell was cold and hard, but not sterile.  There was a feeling of dingy, almost moldy wetness in the air, even though not a trace of the stuff could be seen or smelled.  It had all the cold and clinical feelings with none of the safe sterility. The bars were a kind of graying green.  How odd, Nancy thought, that something meant to confine and restrict would be the same color as the Statue of Liberty.  Looking at each other through opposite ends of the bars, Nancy and Rod spoke in quiet hushed tones as the bored guard went to take a dump.

“And then what happened?”  Nancy asked.

“I told you,” Rod said. “It was dark but I’m sure there was somebody else in there.”  Rod sounded tired and exasperated.  The police interrogators had probably asked him the same questions.  The only difference was that the cops in no way believed that a hundred and twenty pound B-Cup wearing Tina Gray was more than a year old.

“How could somebody be in there without you knowing about it? Exasperated as she was, Nancy knew the truth.  She just didn’t believe it herself.  In some wild way she was hoping poor stupid  Rod could do it for her.  “The door was locked.”

“How the fuck should I know?”  Rod was equally perplexed and considering he was being charged with kidnapping (among other things) he was infinitely more frustrated.  “I don’t expect you to believe me anyway.”  He retreated to the back of his cell and stared at the stainless steel toilet.

“What did he look like?” She leaned up against the bars.  “Did you get a good look at him?”

Rod looked up and back around at Nancy.  “No,” he said.  He sounded more than a little sad.  Anger and regret and exhaustion all blending together into a terrible cocktail.

Nancy felt her frustration bubbling up. She whacked the bars, a fussy toddler in her crib, and started pacing.  She was on the right side of the cell door but still felt trapped.  “Then how do you know somebody else was there?!”

“Because somebody spanked her while I watched.”  Rod moved back to the door and leaned in as far as the iron would let him.

Nancy crossed her arms, not looking directly at her best friend’s boyfriend.  “And you didn’t even get a good look at him?”

“I couldn’t even see the fucker.”  He shuddered at the memory.  “I could just see it happening.  Hear the smack.  See her diaper flatten out in the back with the paddle.”

Paddle?”  Nancy looked right at him.  “What do you mean?”

Rod’s voice went hollow, a tinge of fear in his voice.  “My old man used to spank us,” he said, “before we learned how to throw a punch. My baby brother, too.  I know the difference between a hand, a belt, and a paddle.  The sound, the mark, the pain.  This was a paddle.  It was a big one, too.  Rectangle, like they do at Frats or the movies or whatever.  The kind that hits you down there but really knocks the wind outta ya.” 

His eyes came back to the present and he looked at Nancy.  “You know, I probably could’ve saved her.”  His voice cracked.  “But I thought it was just another nightmare...like the one I had the night before.” 

Nancy didn’t speak.  Nancy just listened.

“There was this…” he hesitated.  “There was this lady.  She had this huge paddle; more like a club, really.  It was too big, but she carried it around one handed, like it was easy.  Like it was a toy.”

Nancy’s skin began to crawl.  This sounded familiar.  Too familiar.  Far too familiar. Just like what Tina had been talking about last night.  Just like what Nancy had dreamed. And Rod had neither been around nor been told about either of those. 

On the verge of hyperventilating, Nancy started to walk away, towards the door back out to the police station proper.  “Hey,” Rod called out, sounding weary.  “Do you think I did it?”

Just before she banged on the door to be let out, Nancy told him the truth.  “No.”

It didn’t make either one of them feel better.

*****************************************************************************************************

The water was hot in the tub that evening.  Hot enough to boil a lobster.  Hot enough to cauterize the already scabbing over scratch on Nancy’s arm.  Hot enough to destroy all the aches in her body from a perpetually bizarre day.

Nancy lay there up to her neck in the clear hot water, her head propped up by a bath pillow. 

“Ten, nine, better watch your behind,” she sang in tired lackadaisical whisper.  She turned the washcloth over her in hands, her eyes half closed.  She wasn’t washing herself as much as wringing the thing like a wet teddy bear. “Eight, seven, gonna learn your lesson.”  Such a weird little jump rope song.  It seemed oddly appropriate, somehow. 

Strange how dreams and reality so often lined up.

“Six, five, never gonna thrive.”  Thrive.  A fancy two dollar world meaning grow and mature.  Funny considering she’d been dreaming about strange women carrying around paddles and diaper bags.  

Tina wasn’t thriving anymore...

Nancy only half-knew it, but she was putting herself into a kind of trance.  The rhythmic sing-song nature of it all becoming a kind of lullabye.  “Four, three, in your pants you pee.”  When she was younger that seemed like the funniest part; as if peeing your pants could be scary...

“Two, one, Nanny says you’re done….”  Her eyes were closed.  The last line coming out as barely a mumble. 

She’d sang the old jump rope rhyme to calm her nerves.  And it had worked.  The tub held her like a hammock or a cradle;, and the water covered her and kept her warm like a blanket.

Nancy laid there, still, in the tub.  She breathed steady, shallow breaths as she dozed in the tub.  Her stomach moved up and down below the water, and she began to lightly snore, not yet dreaming. 

If she had been dreaming, it wouldn’t have been of the hand racing up from the tub’s drain. Had she been awake she would have noticed the scarred digits reaching for the washcloth lightly clutched in her hand…

A knock on the door.  Nancy’s eyes snapped open.  It hadn’t been long, not nearly long enough.  The water was exactly the same temperature as when she’d closed her eyes.  Funny thing about sleep; a moment could feel a millennium and vice versa.

“Nancy?” A familiar and nagging voice called through the bathroom door.

Nancy grumbled and then spoke up. “What, Mother?”

“Don’t fall asleep in there,” Mom warned.  “You could drown, you know.”

The young woman rolled her eyes. “Oh for Pete’s sake.”  In the quiet acoustics of the bathroom, even her mumblings could be heard.  She picked up the washcloth again and wrung it in her hands if only to do something wit her hands and add the gentle dripping to the room’s soundtrack.

She looked askance between her legs in the tub.  Had that rubber duck always been there?

“It happens all the time,” Mom insisted.  “I’ve heated up some warm milk.”

“Warm milk?” Nancy repeated, her upper lip curling in disgust. “Gross.” What did Mom think she was? A baby?  She instantly regretted thinking of it in those terms.

Mom’s footsteps faded slowly away as she gave Nancy a hint more of privacy. With a breath that started out as an annoyed huff and ended as a weary sigh, Nancy closed her eyes. One. Last. Ti-

The shriek of fright she let out was muffled by the water.  Down she went into the tub as two hands yanked her down by the hips. 

Down.

Down!

DOWN!

Down further than it was possible in a simple bathtub, Nancy went.  Instinctively, she kicked towards the sources, with those horrible hands pulling her farther and farther down. 

Not just those hands, either.  More than one pair was grabbing her; caressing her; violating her.  “Ah-ah-ah!” A voice from the depths chided.  “Can’t go to bed dirty!”

She couldn’t breathe!  She couldn’t see, either. Still terribly warm, the water now clouded with soap.  Soap in her eyes! Oh how they burned! How they stung!  With near Herculean strength she breached the surface, stealing a gasp of air before being pulled back down.  “HELP!

Her eyes hurt.  Soapy water rushed up her nose.  She opened her mouth to scream and tasted suds.  It was as if she were trapped under ice, with only a narrow porthole shining the light from her bathroom.  The rest was incredibly dark, and from the dark came the hands; groping and probing.

There were more than just hands in the water dragging her down.  Wet, scrubbing fabric dragged across her skin.  Washcloths!  She was being drowned.  She was being bathed.  Either way, she was in a panic.  Either way, she was being violated.

Her laft arm was the only thing to breach the surface.  Only by pounding on the sides of the tub and up against the near wall of the bathroom did Nancy have even the faintest recognition of still being in her own home.  Only by that left arm did she have a hope of rescue.

All the while down in the darkness, washcloths and hands that should not be scrubbed at her.  In and behind her ears.  Up and down her arms and breasts.  Underneath her armpits   “HE-!”  When she managed to breach again she wasted her breath screamin. Nancy could have sworn she felt the teeth of a fine toothed comb brushing out her hair for her. 

Pounding so far away, coming from the bathroom door. Not nearly as loud as the pounding in Nancy’s head.  The washcloths worked their way up and down her legs, and in her most vulnerable and intimate of places.

“Almost…” The voice whispered from the darkness.

Water still steaming hot, the washcloths withdrew as suddenly as they had advanced on her.  “MOMMY!” Nancy screamed, her voice scratchy and hoarse; her mouth tasting of soap.

“Hold on, baby!”  Mom called through the door.

An amphibian wriggling up on land, Nancy managed to claw her way out of the tub.  She grabbed a towel and draped it over her shoulders just as Mom picked the lock on the door.  “I’m okay!” she said when Mom burst in.  “I’m okay.”  The mirror was too steamed up to see her reflection, but even Nancy didn’t need to see her face to know that she was lying.  “I’m okay.”

“But I heard you screaming,” Mom said.  “I heard you calling me.”

“It’s okay,” Nancy lied. “I just...I just slipped getting out of the tub.”  She didn’t resist as her mother took the bathrobe off the hook and started draping it over Nancy’s shoulders; removing the towel and guiding her arms through the sleeves, just like when she was a child who couldn’t dress herself. 

“I told you,” Mom said, tying up the belt around Nancy’s waste.  “Hundreds of people a year, dear.”

“I know,” Nancy panted.  “I know.  You were right.”

That little acknowledgement seemed to satisfy her mother.  “I’ll go turn down your bed for you.”

“Okay,” Nancy nodded.  Her voice was still shaky.  “I’ll put on my pajamas.”

“Okay.” And then she was alone. 

Nancy shivered.  She was cold.  Getting out of a hot bath, she was always a little chilly as her skin adjusted to the rapid shift in temperatures, but there was something different this time.  Her skin felt funny.

On a kind of dread intuition she opened the robe and examined herself.  She had no body hair.  Anywhere.  None on or under her arms.  None below the waist, on or between her legs.  No stubble or even the vaguest hint of a root.  

Completely smooth.

Baby smooth.

To a degree, it was as if Nancy had never hit puberty.  Or like it had all been scrubbed off like stubborn dirt in the bathtub.  A sense of foreboding reminded Nancy of the tub.  She turned to the tub.

She hadn’t put that rubber ducky there.  Nancy didn’t even own a rubber ducky since she was three.  And she definitely didn’t take bubble baths.  There it was though, in all of it’s lavender scented glory: a tub brimming with bubbles.

Ten...nine...better watch your behind….

Nancy backed away and opened the bathroom medicine cabinet.. She reached in and took the pill bottle from the bottom shelf.  “STA AWAKE  (Fast Acting).” It read.  She spared one last look at her body; another at the tub; and then downed double the recommended dosage.

*********************************************************************************************************

“The all consuming act of bodily dismemberment-” The T.V. in Nancy’s bedroom droned on.  “NOOOOOOOOOO!” The woman in the horror movie screamed while her arms were ripped from their sockets and corn syrup blood gushed out from her torso.

Nancy lay in bed, struggling to stay awake; trying desperately to stare at the screen instead of the back of her head or the inside of her eyelids.  The warm milk was doing nothing to put her to sleep, but the anti-sleeping pills could only do so much against her exhaustion.

And her bed was comfortable.
And unlike Tina, Nancies jammies didn’t have snaps along the inseam, nor did she crinkle when she moved.  So much easier to just...

She  had texted Glenn, just so she could have someone to talk to and got no response back.   He was probably grounded.  Her freakout this morning in English had stopped her from getting to talk to her boyfriend.  She worried about him and how he was coping with all the strange.

More importantly, it was harder to go to sleep when you had someone to talk to.

After almost drowning in the tub, and the not so pleasant nap this morning, sleep wasn’t exactly something Nancy craved.

With no other options, horror movies became the last resort.  The screaming and the blood, no matter how schlocky had always given her the creeps, given her trouble sleeping...given her reason to stay awake.

In a weird way she was fighting bad dreams with nightmare fuel.

Sadly, as her lids started to droop, threatening to weld themselves shut, even the nightmare fuel was running out of gas.  Her head started to nod, just a bit.  It would be okay.  Just a quick nap...a cat nap.  Not even a cat nap, a kitten na-....

NO! 

For what might have been the third or the dozenth time (she’d lost count), Nancy startled herself awake, forcing herself to stare at the old horror movie.  Even the blood curdling screams and the sounds of chainsaws were becoming a kind of lullaby to the poor girl.
.
UP! UP! UP! 

Nancy sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.  Must not lay down!  Must not sleep!  She grabbed the remote and turned off her T.V.  Maybe an eerie silence would help her stay conscious better than a grisly melody…

Clad in pure white, she sat and huffed, chiding herself.  This was stupid.  She was acting like a child, afraid of monsters under the bed, (though that thought made her careful of her feet).

Even the bathtub was more bad dream than reality.  Her body hair?  There was a logical explanation for that. She did like to keep a clean shop so to speak.  Maybe she hadn’t lost it all as much as she’d just done a really good job of shaving...and forgot.

But when she’d asked her mother about it, just before bed, all Mom had said was  “You’re just a late bloomer, sweetie,” before giving her a kiss on the forehead and ensuring that she’d chunged down a glass of dairy.  THAT was an unexpected reaction…

Rubbing herself out of nerves and the strange smoothness of her own skin, Nancy got up out of bed and walked over to her bedroom window.  Maybe some fresh air would help her stay awake.

Gently sliding the window open, Nancy poked her head out and stared down at the neighborhood from her second story window.

“Hi…” a voice from the night whispered.

It was only Nancy’s deep familiarity with Glenn’s voice and his silhouette’s complete dissimilarity from the woman in Nancy’s dreams that saved him from a shove that would have sent him plummeting to the lawn below. 

The young woman drew back, swallowing her scream into a gasp as her boyfriend poked his head through.  “I’m sorry, I saw your light was on.  I wanted to check on you to see how you were.”

“Do you know how much I sometimes wish you didn’t live right across the street.”  Her tone was biting, her heart was pounding, but for the first time all day she felt something akin to relief.

Glenn must’ve sensed it, too.  “Will you shut up and let me in?” he asked. “Did you ever stand on a rose trellis in your bare feet.”

Of course he’d sneak all the way over in his pajamas and bare feet…

“Just get inside before somebody sees you.”

Glenn clambered in through her window.  Romeo on the balcony he wasn’t.  More like an old boxer trying to climbe between the ropes.  He cried out a little as his pricked his feet on a wayward thorn. “Ow!”

“Shhh!” 

“What? They hurt?”

“You gotta be quiet, Mom’s not even asleep yet.” Once he was inside, Nancy closed the window behind him. 

Laying there in his pajama bottoms and a gray sweatshirt, Glenn seemed to make himself very comfortable on Nancy’s bed while she closed her bedroom door; lest Mom see something she wasn’t supposed to.

It was stupid, presumptious, and cocky...and it made Nancy feel at least five times better.  Glenn being a bit of a horndog was infinitely more normal than the last twenty-four hours.

“Do you mind?” she asked.

Glenn seemed disappointed, but not terribly surprised.  He slid off the bed and took a seat an old wicker chair next to it.  “So I heard you had a freakout in English class today.”

Nancy sat back down on her mattress. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

“You haven’t slept yet, have you?”

“Not really.”

He reached over and noticed the cut on her left harm; the same arm that had managed to pull herself up from drowning in the bathtub.  “How’d you get that?”

“I cut myself in English class.”

“Like with a razor?”

Flashes of the sharp edged piece of shrapnel poking out from warped playground equipment appeared in Nancy’s mind’s eye.  “No.”

Glenn didn’t seem to have any further questions.  Just more worried looks.

The young lady grabbed a mirror and looked in her reflection.  She looked tired.  So tired.  Her face sagged at the edges.  Her cheeks looked puffy, chubby almost.  She thought about her mother declaring her a ‘late bloomer’.

“God, I look like I’m four.”  She really did.  Mom had mountains of photos saved on a drive from Nancy’s childhood.  More than a few of them had a pre-kindergarten girl making pouty faces just before naptime. She put the mirror down and looked back to her boyfriend.  “Did you have any weird dreams last night?”

“Slept like a rock,” he replied.  The answer was too fast.  Too sure. 

Nancy kept digging. “Do you believe that people can dream about what’s going to happen?”

“No.”  Again, too fast.  Too sure.  This was a conversation that Glenn had had with himself ahead of time; like preparing for a job interview, or confession.

“Do you believe in the boogeyman?”  Flat heeled boots and ruffled blouses blinked in Nancy’s brain. “Or boogeywoman?”

“No.”  Glenn didn’t sound convinced of himself this time. “I talked with my folks.  Maybe Tina always was...like that...and we just never noticed.  Rod tried to kidnap her...or worse...you know that.”

It wasn’t an admission; quite the opposite. But rather than the self-assured gaslighting coming from her mom and dad, that obvious bold-faced-lie of denial actually helped Nancy.  It gave her confidence in her own experiences and senses.

“I’ve got a crazy favor to ask you.”

Glenn knew the look in Nancy’s eyes.  “Uh-oh.”

Nancy leaned forward.  “I’m going to go look for someone.  I just need you to stay here.  Stand guard.”

Not nearly as dumb as Rod, Glenn connected the dots.  “Okay.  Deal.”

“Turn off the light.”

Glenn did.  Nancy saw a perverted little smirk as he switched off the lamp.  “And it’s not what you’re thinking…”

*********************************************************************************************************

It was late when Nancy finally managed to sneak out of her house. So late the crickets had gone to sleep.  Every light in the house, save the front porch, was out. Still barefoot so that her footfalls were as light as possible, and still in her pajamas, the highschool senior snuck out onto an otherwise empty street.

The street shouldn’t have been so empty.  The ground, not so soft on the souls of her feet.  The animals, not so quiet.  The air, not so warm and cozy.  Almost as if on some level, Nancy knew she was still asleep in her bed.

Almost...

Sometimes things just worked like that...

A quick turn of the corner, and she was near Tina’s house.  It didn’t matter that Tina lived much further away, certainly more than.  Nancy was passing by her old friend’s backyard where they’d spent so many childhood days playing with dollies or tea sets.  The old playhouse was still there in the yard, she noticed.  Even the dark, that house looked far newer than it should have.  Even the dark the house looked far older than Nancy knew it to be…

Feeling ill at ease, Nancy looked behind her to the pristine streets of her own block.  “Glenn?” she called out softly.  “Are you still watching?”

Out from behind a tree, Glenn glided onto the sidewalk.  “Yeah?” he said.  “So?”  He sounded impatient.  Irritated.

“Just checking,” Nancy whispered.  Though she didn’t know why she did.  No one was around to hear either of them. A voice in her head, her own, prodded her on.  She wasn’t here for Tina, she told herself.  She couldn’t save Tina.

She could still make sure Rod was okay.

Slowly she walked forward as her boyfriend took his post behind the tree; looking around warily  as a dog barked somewhere in the distance.  A few more steps into the night fantastique, past burned out and decaying buildings, and Nancy was at the police station. 

Her mind instantly glossed over that this too should be impossible.  But she’d gone there so many times throughout her life, she knew the way like the back of her hand.  Even on foot, though the way might be long and tedious, she could make her way to Daddy’s Job in her sleep. 

Picking up her pace, Nancy jogged over to where the holding cells were, just to the right of the staired entranceway.  Through meshed windows, not unlike a playpen, she peered to see the modern day Greaser, asleep in his bed.

Safe.  Likely uncomfortable on the holding cell’s cot.  But safe.  Nancy relaxed a little bit as he rolled over from his side and began to suck his thumb.  Sleeping like a…

A banging sound from within the station’s cell and the squeaking squeal of hinges that desperately needed oiling caught Nancy’s attention.  The door to the holding cells opened.  Nancy’s breath stopped, hiding inside her lungs than to come and face the open air.

The intruder’s face was burned and boney, angular like a witches with texture comparable to raw meat. The dead flowers in her dirty brown sunhat seemed to drain the color from the room instead of add to it.  The flats of her heels click-clocked on the cold pavement of the cells.  Still, Rod did not stir.

Looking down into the basement level, Nancy still had the advantage.  She could see the witch-thing, the scarred beldam but the woman with the paddle slung over one shoulder and dirty green and red diaper bag over the other could not see her.

Nancy turned her head. “GLENN!” She called.  Her voice was loud but remained calm.  Glenn did not appear.  “GLENN?” a hint of doubt creeped in.  A smidgen of fear.  Nancy looked down into the cells and watched as the disfigured wenched walked straight through the bars and into Rod’s cell. The iron bars did not block her way.  They might as well have been patches of shadow on her ruffled blouse and striped bow tie.

The girl banged on the windows.  “ROD!” The boy did not stir.  “ROD! WATCH OUT!”  He only laid there and sucked his thumb while the horrid woman peeled back his blanket and unbuttoned his pants.

“ROD! Watch out!”

The bizarre babysitter looked up at Nancy from the cell, a knowing smile on her face.  A dark laughter as she set her bag down.

“GLENN!”

The young woman screamed and pounded. “ROD! WAKE UP! GLENN!”  The monster beside the bed didn’t even break her stride, opening the bag and removing wipes, powder, and a diaper far too big for any actual baby to need.

“GLENN!”  Where was he?  He was supposed to be standing guard!  When she looked back down into the cell, unable to completely ignore the perversion going on, she saw Rod.
Rod.  And only Rod.  The meathead’s eyes opened and he sat up, slowly looking around, confused by the presence of his thumb in his mouth.  Nancy’s voice was back to full shriek.“GLENN!”  .

Glenn did not answer. “Nanceeeeeeee…”  Not ten feet away, all by herself, was Tina, standing up but swaddled like a newborn.  Nancy stood up, confused and shocked.  Tina couldn’t be here.  Tina wouldn’t walk.  Tina couldn’t talk. 

“NANCEEEEE!” Tina’s voice sounded impossible distant.  The echo of her former adult self.  The big baby’s lips didn’t move in time.  Instead, they parted, and slowly, very slowly, Tina began to vomit. 

It wasn’t even vomit, that mixture of breast milk and strained peas.  When a baby did it, it was just called spit-up.  Nancy turned her back to the wall and edged along the police station’s property, not daring to take her eyes off the disgusting sight in front of her.  Bundled up Tina just watched Nancy with infantile curiosity as something thick and disgusting pooled at her feet.

Someone needed a diaper change.

This couldn’t be real!  This wasn’t real!

“GLENN!” the high school senior shouted out into the night. “WAKE UP!” she called. No response, save the gurgling noises from Tina as her stomach ejected all of its contents. This wasn’t real.  This wasn’t real.  She was in her bed at home!  Glenn was watching, waiting for her to stir.  If she screamed loud enough, the real her might at least mumble something in her bed.  “ARE YOU THERE?!”

“I’m here, little one.”  It wasn’t Glenn’s voice.  Not even close.  “PEEKABOO!”  From the shadows, the witch came and Nancy ran like the Devil Herself was at her heels.

Faster! She ran! Faster!  But her legs felt like they had weights in them.  So much running.  So little progress. 

“HEEEE-HEEEE-HEEEE-HEEEE!” 

It was just like when she was a child playing tag.  It didn’t matter how fast she pumped her legs, the bigger, older kids, always caught up to her.  Her five fastest strides were two medium steps to the tallest kids.  Her sprints were barely a jog to the grown-ups; and so it felt here.

Back! Back to her house! Her safe space! Her refuge!  She’d started her dream there, and so it could end here.

That’s how it worked, right?  Sometimes, at least... 

Skin goose pimpled with cold sweat, Nancy opened the door to her home and slammed the door behind her; locking it and sparing only a glance.  Maybe this was it.  Maybe she was safe.  Here in her own home.  Wolves roamed outside the door.  Not inside the house.

Three steps up, the staircase turned to tapioca pudding beneath her feet. Nancy dropped down half a foot, her ankle caught in the vat.  The next step had just as much give.  The door thundered and shook on its hinges.  From the outside, Nancy heard the telltale sound of a key being inserted, and tumblers making way.

A key!  The witch had a key!

“NAUGHTY….NAUGHTY…”  The door opened and the grinning maniac walked in.  “You’re far too little to walk like that, sweetie!  Be good for Nanny!”  Nancy scrambled up the steps, crawling on her hands and knees the rest of the way up the stairs.  The stairs held.  Nancy’s appreciation for the irony didn’t.

“GLEEEEEEEEEENN!”  Hobbling like a monkey, Nancy screamed all the way into her bedroom.  She closed the door behind her; anything to put one more layer between her and the Mary Poppins from Hell.  “GLENN!” There on the door, in her bedroom mirror’s reflection,  Glenn sat slumped over, asleep in the wicker chair he’d set up guard in.  He was motionless, oblivious to her screaming.

“This is just a dream, this isn’t real!” Nancy said, remembering Glenn’s supposed trick.  “None of this is real! This is just a dream!  She isn’t real, she ISN’T-!”

The shattering glass of her mirror sounded real enough.  The jagged, splintered paddle that sent the shards careening into the air looked real enough.  The hag tackling her, cackling in glee as she yanked Nancy around by the hips seemed real enough.

Nancy screamed until her throat her, while the cackling monster pulled her over knee and went to yank her pajama bottoms down.  Nancy clawed at the carpet, squirming out of her bedtime pants in a futile effort to remain unspanked.  This only seemed to amuse the female fiend.

“GLENN!” 

Even as she clawed and kicked and did her everything to protect herself, Glenn snoozed away in his own little dreamworld.  With nothing else to protect herself, she grabbed a pillow off her bed.  One swing from the passive club later, and Nancy was holding onto nothing more than cotton stuffing.

“GLENN! NOOOOO!”

RRRRRRRRRIIIIIING!

Glenn sat up with a start.  Nancy did too, now fully awake in her bed as the alarm clock she’d set ‘just in case’ rang to life. Nancy turned it off and looked around the room.  Her room.  Her very mature.  Very adult room.

As her boyfriend rubbed the sleep from his eyes, Nancy peaked under her bed covers.  Her pajama bottoms were gone.  So were her panties.  Where she’d gone to bed in dry underwear, she woke up in damp Goodnites.

“Glenn...you bastard…”