A Naptime on Elm Street

Chapter 4
Part 4

“Glenn...you bastard…”  She was in a cold sweat; her pajamas soaked.  More than just sweat, her underwear was wet too.  Somehow her panties had been downgraded into Goodnites; bed wetting pants.  Did that mean that she was a bedwetter now in the same way that Tina was a pants wetter?  Nancy chased the thought out of her mind and focused all of her anger over at her boyfriend.

Glenn blinked, confused. “What did I do?”  He sat up a little more in the chair where he’d taken up his vigil.

“I just asked you to do one thing,” she held back a sob, mutating fear into fury.  “Just stay awake and watch me and wake me up if it looked like I was having a bad dream.”  Her voice was just above a whisper; her tone just beneath a roar.  “And what did you do, you shithead?”  She slapped him on the knee; afraid to lean over further and expose her disposable bedwetting panties. “You fell asleep…”

“Nancy…?”  Mom’s voice came from down the hall, her voice muted by the door.

Glenn and Nancy exchanged panicked looks.  Glenn practically leapt out the chair and climbed back through the window.  Nancy tore the bedsheets off and followed him.  Dignity be damned, if they got caught alone in Nancy’s room, she’d have bigger problems than some pissy padding between her thighs.

“Stay here,” she whispered to him out on the trellis.  Just as she closed the door, Nancy saw his eyes dart down to below her waist; saw her boyfriend’s eyes go wide with something besides lust.   “Don’t go away.”  In a weird way, his look of shock and disgust was something of a blessing.  At least he knew something was wrong with it. 

Mom?  She’d care more about there being a boy in her room.

A few hurried steps and Nancy was back in bed, under the covers of her comforter; just in time for Mom to open the door and turn on the lights.  She was in her nightgown and bathrobe; having gone to sleep before Nancy’s own screaming had woken her.  “You okay?” she asked. 

Nervous and shaken, Nancy peeked her head out, her chin just above the comforter.  “Yeah, I’m okay,” she lied.  “I just had a bad dream, I’m going right back to sleep.”  She was tempted to add “I promise” but that might have been laying it on too thick.

Nancy knew her little fib had worked when her mother’s shoulders slumped a bit in relief.  “Okay,” Mom told her.  “Call me if you need anything, okay?”

Nancy Nodded. “Okay.”

Mom turned the lights back off.  “And if you’re wet you might wanna change your Goodnite.  Might make it easier to get back to sleep if you’re dry.”

“I’m dry…” Another lie. 

“Okay…”  From the tone of Mom’s voice, not one she believed, but she closed Nancy’s bedroom door anyways.

At least she didn’t peel back the sheets to check.  Nancy wouldn’t have known what to do if that happened.

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

They stole Glenn’s car pack and drove it straight to the police station.  Unlike her dream, the police station was only close by automobile.  Nancy threw on a clean pair of underwear and some jeans.  She chose not to think about how there was now a waste basket filled with one or two wet Goodnites in the bathroom. 

Glenn barely had time to throw his school jacket over his pajamas.  “You mind tellin’ me what’s goin’ on?”  He asked as they sprinted up the stairs of the police office.

How to explain to someone that you’d just had a semi-prophectic dream and you wanted to make sure that your friend was still technically an adult?  “Just trust me,” Nancy said.

They burst through the door and to the front desk like they owned the place.  “Garcia,” Nancy said to the cop on duty.  “I want to see Rod Lane again.”  There were perks to being the Lieutenant’s daughter; like being able to casually call officers by their last name.

Garcia wiped his forehead and smoothed his hair.  “Y’know, I took the night shift so I could get some peace and quiet,” he whined.

Nancy slammed her palms on the table. “LOOK, IT’S URGENT!”

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

Rod Lane slept like the newly dead.  He’d woken up once, a strange feeling of heebie jeebies; of something creeping up on him. But he’s gone right back to sleep after a false start.  Just a nightmare.  Nothing more.  Nothing that could hurt him.

 So much had happened today and tonight, so much batshit crazy, that it was easy for Rod to go back to sleep.  He really needed the rest.  He’d need more rest, too.  He was alone right now but eventually he’d end up surrounded by a lot of dudes a lot meaner than him.  Ones who wouldn’t buy that he was being framed for a crime that he hadn’t commit, that his girlfriend was really his girlfriend a little over twenty four hours ago.

So he slept.  Alone.  The bars made him feel safe.  Secure.  It was easy to sleep, to escape from the horror of the waking world.  So easy, in fact, that his body didn’t notice the sheets slowly taken off him.  Rod didn’t stir when his pants practically shimmied themselves off his hips and dropped to the floor.

He kept right on snoring as his boxers ripped themselves off, tearing at the sides.  He even sucked his thumb as a diaper- Parent’s Choice- seemed to manifest from under his bed and slide itself beneath his naked bottom.

The giant diaper taped on, his bladder went on autopilot, the yellow color changing line turning a light blue as it emptied itself into the baby’s garment.  Gently, still half asleep, he rubbed the front of the padding, his dick getting hard at the familiar sensation of being encased in warm wetness...even if the stimulus was caused by something very different than he was used to.

Soon enough that stimulus would be much more common and pervasive; but he didn’t know that.  He just knew that he frowned a little bit when a strong but tender hand moved his free hand away, so that his shirt turned onesie could be buttoned up over the wet diaper.

The jacket he’d been arrested in remained unaltered: A giant baby greaser.  He didn’t notice.

Not until the sheets started to wrap around him, slithering threading themselves between his legs: wrapping themselves snugly around his chest;  twisting and knotting themselves up at the ends to resemble ropes.  Not until he heard the cooing laughter of a witchy woman.  Not until he was drug out of bed...
************************************************************************************************************
“Look,” Glenn said in his best I’m-also-an-adult-and-a-concerned-citizen-voice, “we have reason to believe that something very strange is going on here.”

Lt. Thompson leaned out of his office doorway.  “I got no argument with that.”
A jolt of surprise. Hard to use her father’s authority to get what she wanted when her father was right there to contradict her.

“Daddy, what are you doing here?”

The lieutenant stepped out of his office, all business.  “There’s a strange case involving attempted kidnapping,” he said.  “And I don’t like strange cases, including ones that my daughter is mixed up in.”  He didn’t let up.  “What are you doing here? At this hour you should be home in bed.”

There’s a strange effect that parents can have on a person.  Even when that person is a grown adult, we all become that scared, emotional, frustrated, eager to please child when we’re around the people who raised us.  “I just want to see if he’s okay,” she let an ounce of pleading creep into her voice.

“Nancy,” Garcia chimed in.  “Take my word for it, the guy’s sleeping like a baby.”  That’s what Nancy was afraid of.  “He’s not going anywhere.”

“Just go down and look at him,” Nany urged.  Her voice was soft and tired.  “Please, Daddy.”  Even when the person begging you is an adult; if they’re your kid that instinct and desire to protect, shelter, and comfort them rears up from time to time.

Lt. Thompson sighed.  “Alright...Garcia, give me the keys.”

Garcia started to fumble around in the front desk drawer.  “Where the hell did I put the keys?”
***********************************************************************************************************
“HELP!” Rod screamed as he was dragged to the floor.  “HEEEEEEEELP!”  He grabbed at the bed railing, but to no avail. The force that was yanking him.  Pulling on the bed sheets was impossibly strong.  It might as well have been an industrial crane pulling him along the cold cement floor.  He didn’t stay on the floor for long, however.


Up.  Up. Up.

He kicked and thrashed, pulling at his bonds, but the sheets were too tight around his midsection.  “HEEEEELP!  SOMEBODY HELP!”  His screams and pleas were cut short.  Not because he couldn’t breathe- the sheets were mostly bundled up between his legs, but because he suddenly realized why his legs felt so cold and why his pants were so squishy.

Up. Up. Up.  Barely standing, his bow legged tip toes just scraping the floor as his bonds attached themselves to the ceiling, suspending him in the air.  Leaving him the perfect target.

WHAP!

The last of Rod Lane’s manhood ended up absorbed by the front of his Walmart Store Brand Diaper, as did the last of his sanity.

*********************************************************************************************************
“JESUS!” Nancy was screaming before the door to the holding cell was all the way open.  Her own screams mixed well with the wails of little Roddy; his fists balled up and shaking impotently.

The bars to his cell were no longer iron, but wooden, with little whirling toys and abacus bead counters installed at eye level- if eye level went no higher than someone standing on their knees.

“ROD! NO!”

“Okay!” Lt. Thompson barked, “Get him down! Get him down from there!”  The two officers did their best to disentangle the baby-man from the giant jumper made out of off-white bedsheets.    Rod was decidedly unhappy. 

The cot that had been Rod Lane’s bed was now a full on crib.  The two men managed to get Rod, still bawling his eyes out into it and raise the railing.  “Garcia, get a bottle or something.  See if we have a formula.  Or a pacifier at least.”  He sniffed.  “Maybe a fresh diaper and wipes.”  Unabashedly, a different kind of training kicked in and he unbuttoned Rod’s onesie and saw the wetness indicator.  “Definitely a fresh diaper.”

Garcia was out of the room in an instant, grumbling.  “Baby’s everywhere,” Nany heard him say.  “Precinct’s become a goddamn daycare.”

“You see, Daddy?”  Nancy said.  “Do you see what I mean?”

Lt. Thompson nodded gravely.  “Yeah, I see honey.  I’m really sorry about that.  Somebody should have come and checked this little guy.  Taken him out of the bouncer so he could get some sleep.”  Nancy almost swallowed her tongue.  “We’re not trained for dealing with children.  We’ll be getting him to a good foster home, first thing in the morning.”

Rod started to coo and babble in his crib.

Nancy almost fainted.
******************************************************************************************************
Nancy sat on the stairs of the police station,, her eyes baggy and her body aching while Rod was being literally carried away.  There was no comfort as the thirty something couple- Rod’s new foster parents now that he was remembered as an abandoned infant-drove off with Rod strapped into a car seat that only she seemed to realize was big enough to fit an adult.  Rod cried and mewled and screamed; inconsolable.  Inconsolable, that is, until the foster dad made a funny face and picked him up, patting his back.  Then Rod’s childlike giggles had been damn near musical.  That’s because Rod Lane, the real Rod Lane, wasn’t in there anymore.  Only Little Roddy remained.

Nancy had refused to sleep, refused to so much as leave the police office until she was certain of her peer’s fate.  Watching him get carted off gave her no comfort.  No peace.

Tina and Rod: Two babies, now as far as everyone but Nancy and Glenn were concerned. Each with a set of asshole parents that were downright neglectful to their Little ones. They were better off with a fresh start, before they could remember who their so-called Mommies and Daddies were.  No one else seemed to take issue with or so much as notice the two tots humongous size compared to their same aged peers.  Come to think of it, everyone seemed to mumble and hem and haw when talks about their age were, then speak up again when they were “just babies”.

Maybe the two of them would meet up again, Nancy thought sadly.  Maybe they’d be friends at a local daycare.  Perhaps they’d even grow back into highschool sweethearts.  Nancy didn’t think so.  Some dark part of her psyche whispered that Tina and Rod were never going to be out of diapers or daycare ever again...

With Tina in a cot and Rod in a car seat, her parents’ attention were once again beginning to zero in on her.

“Time to go honey,” Mom said, walking back over to Nancy from the curb. Dad had of course given her a call after things had “settled down” with Rod in the police station.  Nancy felt numb, her body shaking from exhaustion with every step.  Still, she trudged on, walking beside her mother into the police station parking lot over to her mother’s car.  “Hop in.”

Her dad walked up while her mom opened the car door.  “This isn’t over,” she said.

“You think more people are going to be abandoning babies?”

Nancy had officially passed the point of not giving a fuck if people believed her.  “They weren’t babies,” she told him.  “Tina and Rod were my friends.  We go to...went to highschool together.  That’s why they were abandoned; they’re really old enough to be on their own.”

Dad didn’t seem to find it funny.  Nor did he scoff.  “You think there’s someone out there turning teenagers into babies?”  He was in full Lt. Thompson mode, now.  To him, Nancy might as well have been someone tripping balls.  Even the delusional might have a grain of accuracy in their ramblings.

“They’re not really babies.  They’re still the right age.  Just nobody else can seem to tell the difference…”  That sounded crazy.  Nancy was literally too tired to care.

The police officer crossed his arms.  “Why don’t they speak up?”

“They can’t…”

“So who’s doing this?”  Daddy was stern, but humoring her.

“I don’t know who she is,” Nancy told him. “But she’s burned.”  Nancy was so tired that her voice came out monotone; exhaustedly describing terrors that she dare not dream about.  “And she wears a weird hat. And she carries around a red and green bag, really dirty.”  So tired was she that she didn’t notice the concerned expressions on either of her parents’ faces. Nor did she notice the worried, knowing glances they were sending each other.  “And she carried around this big heavy paddle.  More like a club, actually...”

Her father nudged her into the passenger seat of Mom’s car.  He closed the door on her, but the window was left rolled down.  “You better keep her home for a few days,” he warned, “until she really gets over the shock of this.”  Being only just barely an adult, Nancy couldn’t realistically claim that she knew enough of the way the world worked to understand everything her parents said to each other.  But long ago, she’d learned to recognize when her parents were purposefully using coded language in front of her.

“I’ve got something better,” Mom said. “I’m going to get her some help.”  That sounded coded, too.  Like she was about to take Nancy to a looney bin or something.  As Mom turned on the engine and drove away, it was at least slightly comforting to Nancy that she got to ride up front in the passenger seat instead of being strapped into a car seat.

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

The sign on the front of the building read: “Katja Institute for the Study of Sleep Disorders”.  Fancy name notwithstanding, all it really was a different kind of hospital; a different kind of nut house. 

Nancy wasn’t put in a straight jacket or put into a bed, but she didn’t feel any more human.  All sorts of patches and wires were being put onto her head and arms.  She felt almost as if she were part machine. 

“Just try to get comfortable,” a nurse advised.

Easier said than done.  This wasn’t her bed.  This wasn’t her room.  This wasn’t her underwear.  Mom had brought along a pair of pajamas.  She’d also brought along a Goodnite.

How Nancy could be expected to rest under such circumstances was beyond her.  The wires and beeping devices were awful. What amounted to sized up Pull-Ups was just salt in the room.  But just like every other authority figure in her life, Mom seemed to have no recollection or realization that her nighttime accidents were an amazingly new occurrence.  “You always wear Goodnites.  You don’t want to wet the bed, do you?”

Too tired to fight.  Too tired to complain.  Too tired to whine.  Just. Too. Tired.  At least she was allowed to change and dress herself in private.  Her friends should be so lucky.  In a sad way she was thankful for that much, no matter how uncomfortable and bulky, and thick everything felt.

The young lady would sleep, though.  All the wires and Goodnites in the world wouldn’t keep her from passing out. Her body was nearly at a point where it was screaming for relief.  It was her mind that was keeping her awake, her terrified mind that she knew very well she could lose as soon as she began snoring.

“I don’t see why you can’t just give me a pill to keep me from dreaming.”

The doctor (at least she thought it was a doctor; guy was wearing a lab coat) smiled condescendingly down at Nancy.  “Everyone’s got to dream, young lady.  If you don’t dream, you go…” He tapped his head for emphasis.  That was exactly Nancy’s fear.  If she did dream, she’d go! All that would be left of her would be a babbling drooling Pamper Packer, and her Mom and Dad would be none the wiser.  She’d just be bundled up and taken back to her new/old nursery and breastfed.  “Okay,” the doctor said as the last wire was placed. “All set.”

Nancy turned her head and looked at her mother. “No…” she was begging; halfway to mewling.  The next word out of her mouth could very well be her LAST word.

“Please, Nancy,” Mom sounded at the end of her patience. Exasperated.  “Trust us.”

“It’s not you I don’t trust, it’s just…” How could she say it any plainer than she already had?  Mom started to pet her, run her hand through Nancy’s hair.  Long forgotten, comforting memories came flooding back; ones of her mother gently combing and untangling her hair; before Nancy had learned to do it herself.  Mom really was trying to help the best way she knew how.  And since Nancy couldn’t think of any better ideas, she sighed and whispered,  “Okay….”

A single, light kiss on the forehead from Mom, and Nancy was left alone.  Alone.  To sleep; perchance to dream.  And as the lights turned off and Nancy started to fade away, she sincerely hoped that she would get to be alone in her own dreams.
*************************************************************************************************************

As her daughter laid peacefully in the safety of the sleep center’s observation room, Marge looked on through the two way mirror.  Her poor little girl; a woman actually.  That was going to take some getting used to.  They grow up so fast.

“How long has this been going on?” The doctor asked.

“Since those neglected children were found,” Marge replied. Perhaps that’s why Nancy had been acting so strangely: A young woman on the verge of independence, but still had that annoying little bed wetting problem.  Finding those infants might have done more of a number on her than it would have others.  Just the wrong mix of latent maternal instinct, embarrassed teen angst and a weird form of empathy shaking her little girl up.  “She was fine before that.”

“Besides the bedwetting?”

“Besides the bedwetting,” Marge confirmed.  “She’s had that her whole life.”  Just saying it now, something felt off about it.  Was she embarrassed for her daughter?  In front of a doctor?  Something about that wasn’t right.  “Now she thinks her dreams are real…” 

Just the mention of those dreams were enough to make Marge think about squeezing into one of her daughter’s nighttime pants.

“Well,” the doctor said pointing to a screen, “there’s no sign of pathology in her E.E.G. I’d guess that what we have here is just a normal girl who has been through two very rough days.”  Thank God he skipped to the second part so she didn’t have to embarrass herself asking what the first part meant.  Nancy’s head shifted on the pillow; Marge wouldn’t have noticed save for a bit of intuition and a lot of Mommy Muscle Memory. She waited for the doctor to confirm her suspicion.  “And it looks like she’s fallen asleep.”

“Thank God.”  Marge let out a sigh.  The computer screen in front of them started to send out a steady stream of pleasantly zig zagging lines; kind of like a lie detector test on T.V.  “What the hell are dreams anyways.”

The doctor chose right then to wax philosophical.  “Mysteries.  Body hocus pocus.  Our brain trying to hit the replay and the reset button at the same time.  No one quite knows for sure.  We still don’t know what they are, or where they come from.” 

That wasn’t nearly as comforting as it was meant to sound, Marge Thought.  Wasn’t the point of science to understand Hocus Pocus.  Wasn’t the greatest fear the fear of the unknown?  Marge stared through the glass at her daughter, lying there asleep like a newborn in her cot.  Secretly, she hoped that her daughter wasn’t finding anything unknown in the space between spaces.

A little over an hour later, the scene on the monitor started to change.  “She’s now entering a deep sleep,” the doctor announced.  He frowned a bit, looking at the readings.  The lines on the monitor were starting to look a little more jagged.  “Her heart rate is a little fast; probably just due to anxiety.”  Marge’s own heart rate ticked up.  “Otherwise, she’s nicely relaxed. All signs are normal.”  Marge let out a breath.  She’d picked a bad time to quit smoking.  “She could dream any time now.”

“Her beta waves are slowing…” The doctor sounded optimistic; pleased. 

Marge looked at the screen.  More intimate than even the two way mirror, a hidden camera had zoomed in on her daughter’s face.  Marge watched, smiling softly, as her daughter’s eyes twitched behind her eyelids.

“She’s into REMs now,” the doctor intoned. REM’s.  Rapid Eye Movement.  Good, Marge thought.  Good.  “She’s definitely dreaming now,” the man in the white coat said.  “It’s a good one, too,” he added.  He pointed to one of the read out.  “Typical dream parameter.  If it were a nightmare, it’d be plus or minus five or six.  She’s about three.”

Marge felt herself relax.  Good.  Very good. That meant that all this crazy was in her and Donald’s head as much as Nancy’s.  Like all things, this too would pass, and they could all happily forget.

The relief was not to last.  Nancy started to gasp and mumble.  Slight fidgets turned into jerks and kicks.  It reminded Marge of a dog dreaming about chasing a rabbit; only Nancy was the rabbit.  The machines seemed to agree, bleeping and blooping in alarming tones as the wave lines on the screen ticked faster and faster.

Marge did not dare take her eyes off her daughter.  Even nestled in under the covers, Nancy looked like she was in the fight of her life.  “Doctor, what’s she doing now? Is she asleep or awake?”

The man in the white coat seemed to having a tiny seizure based on the movements of his head.  “Something’s wrong,” he said, “it never gets this high.”  His voice was still calm, even if his hands were starting to blur tapping at the various diagnostic equipment.

Nancy let out a scream loud enough to hear through two way glass. Marge could just barely make out her hands reaching behind her in her sleep, as if she were scratching at her butt...or trying to block a spanking…?

In the observation room, the machines began to echo Nancy’s dreamborn panic. “What’s going on?” Marge asked.

“I-I don’t know!”

“Is she dreaming?!” Panic had made itself a home in Marge’s head.  Her daughter’s body lurched up with another shout.  The girl appeared to be convulsing.  Struggling.  Fighting something.  She screamed as her body was rocked up and down on the bed by a force only she could see and feel.

Leaping up from the computer the doctor ran into the observation room.

Nancy screamed “NOOOOOOOOO!”  Her hand reached out and grasped for help that wasn’t there.
It wasn’t there...but it was coming.  “Nancy!” Marge shouted over the screams and screeches of panic..  “Nancy! Nancy! Wake up!  It’s Mom!”  Two nearby nurses had to hold the girl’s feet so she didn’t accidentally knee Marge in the face. “NANCY!”

Nancy snapped awake, panting as if she’d been sprinting, her skin glistening.  “It’s okay, baby,” Marge said.  “It’s okay.”  Again she started gently stroking Nancy’s hair, trying to bring her daughter comfort.  Her fingers brushed against something foreign, something that didn’t belong and wasn’t.

“Nancy…” Marge said.  Gently, she took the ribbon out of Nancy’s hair.  “I thought I took all the ribbons out of your hair before bed.”  That was wrong, though; Marge could taste it on her lips. She hadn’t put ribbons in Nancy’s hair in...in...how long had it been?  Something in Marge was feeling...off...fuzzy…

The doctor came up with a syringe.  “This will help you sleep.”

Nancy screeched as though the sedative were a lethal injection.  She scrambled away, her back to the bed.  For the first time, Marge got a look at her daughter’s arm.  It was covered with gold star and smiley face stickers.  Marge KNEW those hadn’t been on her arm a moment ago.  Her knuckles hadn’t been bruised either; like they’d been rapped and slapped with a heavy ruler.

“What happened, Baby?  What’s wrong? Tell Mommy what happened.”  Comfortingly, motheringly, Marge placed a calming hand upon Nancy’s shoulder.

Through her hyperventilating and her panic, managed to utter out. “Don’t call me baby…”  From beneath the hospital bedsheets, Nancy withdrew, of all things, a hat: brown and dingy and full of flowers.  Marge swallowed.  “Nancy?  Where did you get that?”

“I pulled it off her head.”  Nancy sounded like she didn’t even believe herself.