Disclaimer: I don't own Thirt13en Ghosts or anything associated with them and all that good stuff.
The Jackal is my favorite ghost from the movie and I'm not sure if anyone reads these fics anymore given how old the movie is now but I thought what the hell, I'll write one over the Jackal's capture because we all know that had to be an interesting job, I might make it a full story with several chapters if everyone likes it so please Read and Review – DJ
Caging the Beast
Dennis Rafkin, the psychic hired by Cyrus Kriticose to help him catch twelve ghosts, would admit that he was not a brave man and this place made him question his ability to not take off running and screaming. The very moment the car he and Cyrus rode in passed the old rusted gate of Borehamwood Asylum, the sheer weight of the despair, dread, and seething hate came crashing down on Dennis like a tidal wave. Unlike the previous ten locations he had gone to, this particular place wasn't tormented by just one ghost, but hundreds, all tortured, filled with hate and despair over their fates.
It took every ounce of Dennis's will not to open his meds to relieve the pain that tormented his brain, throbbing harder and harder with each second. Once the car had come to a stop at the front entrance of the Asylum, Cyrus pulled Dennis out and looks around the building's abandoned features. The teams of men had parked and began to set up the cube and recording equipment and Dennis just tried to keep his head which was becoming harder with each second.
"Look at it, one of the biggest and most renowned Asylum's of the turn of the century, up until it burned down in 1908." Cyrus said as he walked slowly to the door with his cane, "well partially burned down anyway, some of the building obviously survived the fire; it was lucky that back in those days most of the buildings where more stone then wood."
Dennis looks up at the large double doors and shakes a bit as a cold sweat rolled down his neck, "Why didn't they reopen it?" Dennis really wasn't looking for an answer, just something to distract him from the pain.
Cyrus turns to look at his psychic, the old man's face showing a rather…dark smile, "Oh they tried, but soon after they started the reconstruction, construction workers would come up missing, only to be found a few days later, dead and torn apart.
Dennis shivered harder as a cold wind howls through the building and pushed up leaves on the ground to dance up in the air, "How will we find this ghost, there are so many in this place."
Cyrus just grinned, his graying beard moving with the wind, "You'll know when you see him." The elder man nodded to the technicians as they flipped a switch on a recorder and a Latin chant began to play, carrying on the wind with a deep mesmerizing voice.
The technicians, Cyrus, Dennis, and the rest of the workers waited in a tense state, something they had become accustomed to, you don't let your guard down when hunting tormented and rage filled ghosts. They longer they waited the more tense they became; something wasn't right, usually by the first five minutes or so the ghost would come running out, drawn out by the chants.
This was unusual because a good ten minutes had passed and nothing, not a single ghost, though a normal ghost wouldn't be as likely to appear to the zodiac summons it was still odd and Cyrus was becoming impatient. The older man looked to his crew of men then to Dennis, glaring at all of them with disappointment, anger, and impatience.
"
We're going to have to draw this one out, the chants must not be reaching him from where ever he is in the Asylum, break into teams and lead him out." Cyrus looks at Dennis and speaks in a comm.
anding, dark voice, "You too Dennis, make sure they find it."
Dennis jerked his head up and looked at Cyrus with confusion, "W…What? N...no, what if it kills me or what if I get lost in the Asylum?"
Cyrus nearly growls out, pushing the tip of his cane into Dennis's chest, "I am paying you for twelve ghosts, you can feel their presence so you WILL go down there and find it with the others."
Dennis eyes the old man suspiciously and looks up at the burnt stone of the Asylum and pulls out a pair of spectral viewers, gently sliding them onto his face, "This isn't right…we shouldn't be here."
A group of men followed Dennis inside; pulling out flashlights as the only lighting they'd have, as the full moon wouldn't be able to light the insides of the building, at least not the deeper darker, fouler parts of the Asylum. Dennis had quite literally, nearly shit himself when he'd turned the first corner in the receptionist area, leading to a long corridor with doors to the left and right, and a ghost standing in the middle of the hallway. Dennis had yelped at the sudden appearance of the ghost, it was the ghost of what looked to be an older man, white hair on sickly pale skin, arms wrapped around him as he mutters incoherently to himself and covered in the scrubs that normal patients would wear.
Dennis had noticed that this ghost didn't seem to acknowledge them, not even noticing when Dennis had walked around him or when the other men pointed their lights to him, all the specter did was stand there, stare down at his feet, and continue to mutter to himself. One of the younger, newer, men to join the team had made his way up to walk closer to Dennis, trying to avoid rubble and rusted old equipment on the ground.
"How many of those ghosts are here, do you think?" The young brown haired man asked the psychic, keeping closer to him then what Dennis felt comfortable with, just in case he touched him.
"Too many to count, if we're lucky the one we're looking for will be just as passive as that one we had just passed. It would be a blessing after our dealing with the Angry Princess and the Torn Prince." Dennis says as he looks cautiously around another corner to see three ghosts standing in the hallway, muttering to themselves, one crying and rocking back and forth on the floor.
Dennis frowned, before turning to go down another hallway, trying to open a few doors but the locks would seem to be jammed or broken, leaving the nervous man to frown as he kicks a door that refused to open. Another man in a clear jacket walks up to Dennis hand holds out what looks to be an old, dirty map of the Asylum.
Dennis eyes the man and takes the map, "Where did you get this?"
The man shrugs a bit, "From the receptionists office we passed on the way in."
Dennis looks over the map quietly and tries to figure out just where he is, having gone down a few different corridors. The psychic man nods as he spots a sign on the corridor reading "Therapy Rooms: Hydro Therapy, Electro Therapy." Dennis frowns at the sign and looks at the map again.
The young man next to Dennis reads the sign as well, "Hydro therapy doesn't sound so bad."
The psychic man frowns more, "'Hydro therapy' was more of a torture, now it's considered lethal and inhumane. They might call it 'hydro' here but it is more of a dousing, drown them in a box then bring them back in hopes they will leave their diseased mind behind."
The young man looks over the sweating man, but doesn't say anything. The rest of the team would wait nervously as Dennis tries to figure out where to even begin looking for this ghost. Not only was Borehamwood filled with several ghosts, it was ridiculously huge, and a good four stories tall, a massive basement, and the complex itself had to be a good two blocks in width. Dennis had put some thought into it, brave he was not, but he was smart enough to know that the ghost they were looking for had to be either in the basement or one of the upper levels if it wasn't hearing the chants.
A wave of pain hit Dennis like a truck, making the man nearly falling over; something violent was nearby, something darker then the passive patients they've come to see in the hallways. Dennis doubled over in pain, hitting the ground as another spike of pain hits him. The Psychic looks up as the rest of the team begins to back up slowly. At first look this 'thing' was terrible to look at, it had at one time been a man and still technically was but his head would be a mess, metal spikes driven into his skull in odd angles and positions, long scars going across the forehead from attempted lobotomies, and the skin of his neck and what could be seen from under his bloodied shirt, was cut and torn and his eyes had been gouged out.
Dennis just stared at the specter as it 'looked' at the men, just standing there, looking over the group before dissipating from view. The men look at the Dennis then to where the man had been standing just moments before. Dennis stands up and catches his breathe, rubbing his head and making sure to wipe a bit of spit off his mouth.
The young man looks at Dennis with a pale face, "What the fuck was that?"
Dennis takes a deep breath, "A friendly neighborhood watchman, what the hell did it look like, it was a fucking ghost." Dennis shakes his head a bit and looks at where the ghost had been, "where the hell did it go?"
Another man spoke up, "It flickered out of sight and to be honest I'd rather not see it again."
The other men nodded in agreement as Dennis composes himself and walks down a long hallway with the map, looking over everything and heads for a stairway deeper in the Asylum. Dennis stops by the stairway door as he slowly pushes it open, the heavy door crying out from the strain of having to move for the first time in nearly a century.
The moment the door finally gave way and opened, Dennis had dearly wished that it hadn't. A smell so terrible, so god awful, had come wafting out from behind the door that the poor psychic hand to turn around and vomit, and he wasn't the only one, a few other men had to releases their dinners over the asylum's dirty, burnt, and rubble covered floor.
Dennis quickly placed a hand over his nose and mouth after he finished, never had the man smelt anything so utterly disgusting, it was like every vial thing he could imagine had sex, had a disgusting baby that died, bloated, then burst. The man grabs a flashlight with his free hand and steps into the stairway cautiously looking around for the cause the smell. A man points his flashlight to the stairs leading into the basement, touching Dennis with his flashlight, knowing the man didn't like to be touched.
Dennis looks as the man points his flashlight back to the stairs, revealing a small trail of blood on the stairs that led down a few steps then stopped. Dennis swallowed hard, not too entirely sure he wanted to follow the trail of blood but looks to the other men who look just as cautious about the trail leading them into the basement.
One man looks at the trail with a frown, "Should we…follow it?"
Another man shakes his head, "Something caused that blood trail and ghosts don't bleed, but they can kill. I'm not following that into a basement to whatever caused it."
Dennis takes a step and looks further down the stairwell to see a puddle of blood before the trail continues to lead down more stairs. The man frowns and takes a moment to collect his nerves, his hopes of this ghost being passive quickly diminishing. Another man pulls out a quick silver flare and ignites the end, tossing it down the stairs to show that the stairs went pretty far down until the basement floor was hit. Dennis gulps as he looks at the trail of blood closer, it wasn't fresh, but it wasn't old either, maybe a few days at most.
Dennis begins to descend into the bowls of the asylum, "Come on, we have a job to do and I want to get out of this place as quick as possible." The men all look at Dennis like he'd grown another head but followed him slowly.
Dennis took his time going down the stairs, scrunching his nose as the reeking smell grows stronger. The walls and floor become harder to see as it gets darker and darker, almost like an un-natural darkness had settled in the basement. Dennis stopped as he just barely caught the sight of a door partially open as his flashlight passes over it. The man slowly makes his way over to it, listening carefully as he hears the sound of buzzing.
The young man came up closer to Rafkin and moves closer to the door with him, "You know, they say these basements in places like this are where they housed the 'incurables'."
Dennis looks back at the man, "What do you mean, 'incurables'."
The man slowly pushes the door open, "You know, the patients they felt were beyond help. So they looked them down here so hide them from everyone, kind of like dirty little secrets and I'll bet that blind ghost we saw was a patient of the basement."
Dennis frowns and shines his flashlight into the room, for the second time that night, Dennis wish he hadn't done something. In the room was a naked woman her body mutilated beyond recognition, claw marks covering every inch of flesh, her clothes laying on the ground in tatters, the table she lays on covered in her blood. Dennis had to hold back another onset of vomit as he saw the woman's eyes sliced out and her flesh beginning to decay, maggots and flies already settling in on her corpse.
Dennis and the young man quickly closed the door. The young man would be extremely pale and looks up at Dennis, following the psychic as he quickly goes down the hallway further. Dennis wipes sweat from his brow, since entering the basement, the anger and despair had nearly doubled, whatever was down here, wasn't happy and it was making it known to Dennis.
The team of men stopped when Dennis nearly fell over as pain split through his skull, and this time it wasn't just pain that gripped his nerves, but cold. Dennis could swear up and down on his life that the temperature in the corridor had just dropped about 10 degrees out of nowhere and was getting colder, cold enough to see his own breath. Dennis looked down the hallway, pointing his flashlight at the door at the end of the corridor as the heavy door slowly opened just a bit. The men all stop and stare.
Dennis shivered as his throat began to burn from the cold as he tried to calm his breathing again, "There is something in there. It's the ghost we're looking for."
The men nod and head to the door, one holding out a device that showed a needled bouncing up and down wildly, "Whatever is in there….is giving off ridiculously huge emf, I've never seen this before."
Dennis moved closer, his head splitting with pain as he began to hear voices in his head, screaming, laughing…howling. The psychic stopped and backed up a bit, "You guys go ahead, I…I can't."
The young man opens the door slowly, the heavy, thick metal door creaking loudly as it was slowly forced open to reveal a padded room but the padding was clawed up, nearly to the point of completely destroyed and what was left was black and grey from the fire. On the floor was a rusted, metal cage with a burnt skull trapped inside, the front of the cage ripped open to create a hole. Beside the caged skull was the rest of the body, just burnt bones covered in torn and burnt cloth.
The men swing their flashlights over to a corner from the macabre sight on the ground to see something in the corner, most not sure what to call it. A person maybe, but weather it was male or female was hard to see with its back to them. It sat on its haunches and it was holding itself with its arms and unlike the other ghosts of the asylum this one wore a straight-jacket but, it wasn't a normal straight-jacket. The one this ghost wore was a heavy one, several thick leather straps hanging off it loosely, connected by metal rings and buckles, even a leather strap or two going between the ghosts legs. The jacket itself seemed a bit too big, perhaps fitting him at one time but now just kind of loose around the abdomen. The ghosts black hair would be long and matted, looking more like a black rat nest then anything and the black would be mixed with grey and a few white strands in-between. The long hair would be falling through the bars of an old rusted cage that set around its neck and was supported a bit by its shoulders. The creature, ghost, or whatever it was, twitched disturbingly as it hunched over, almost curled over onto itself….until the lights stayed on it for a few seconds then it went still.
The men just stand there and stare, most going rigid as the ghost stops twitching. The cage slowly turns to allow the creature to look at the group of men, its piercing yellow eyes staring at them, as it starts to growl like an animal.
The men start to back up slowly, one dropping his flashlight as the ghoul stands up to a point before hunching back over to crawl over to the other corner of the cell on all fours with an animalistic snarl, baring sharp, fang like teeth at the men. The ghost curls up a bit, closing its eyes as the flashlights wave about as the men trip over each other trying to get back out the door. Dennis could have dropped dead as the men came slowly walking up the corridor with their backs to him, not taking their eyes off the door. As the men move further away and less light is put into the cell, something like a giggle can be heard and the giggle turns into a cackle which in a short few seconds turns into a fit of insane laughter from the cell.
Dennis turns and runs towards the stairway as fast as his legs could carry him, followed by the men as a pair of yellow eyes appears in the darkened doorway. Dennis didn't even think twice about looking back as he heard the insane laugh follow them, this time accompanied by the sound of the leather straps and metal rings moving as the ghost gives chase, howling and cackling like a hyena as he chases the men further up the stairs.
Dennis almost lost his footing as he runs to the ground floor through the stairwell door. The psychic came close to being the victim of the blind ghost they had encountered earlier. The blind ghost had swiped its arm down, nearly hitting Dennis but crushing the skull of the man behind him. The men had split around the large blind ghost, heading in different directions. Dennis tries to call to the other for them to follow him but the cackling becomes louder as the ghost in the cage runs through the door, sending everyone in a blind panic, causing them to skitter around like roaches when the light is turned on.
Dennis looked back as he rounded a corner, just long enough to see the caged ghost walk over to the dead man. The ghost may have been walking upright but it didn't look right, its shoulders and upper body where hunched a bit, likely from the weight of the cage and its legs were bent at the knees and it seemed to be walking on the balls of its feet, it almost reminded Dennis of a werewolf he'd once seen in a movie. The ghost had dropped to all fours again, almost as if it was a natural position and looks at the dead man, taking a sniff of it.
Dennis ran around the corner faster than greased lightning and quickly ran down, taking corners and running down several corridors, nearly throwing himself into a room when he heard a howling nearby. Dennis ducked into the room and closed it as quietly as possible, crawling over to a table to hide behind it to wait for the ghost to pass by.
The psychic bit his lip as he heard something move closer to the room and push the door open, a new ghost walking in. This one gave an ominous feel like the other two, its hair standing on end and its body twitching and jerking in unnatural ways as sparks flickered across his body and his eyes where electric blue. The ghost walked in, making crackling noises with every convulsing step it took, its shirt and scrubs looking burnt and smoking.
Dennis holds his breath as the ghost moves closer and closer but does a 180 as the door flings open to show the caged ghost again. The electrocuted ghost seems to nearly go into a panic as the other ghost enters the room, followed by the blind ghost. Dennis watched with morbid fascination as the caged ghost sniffs the air like a dog, and motions for the other two ghosts to leave, which they do rather quickly. Dennis couldn't for the life of him figure out what he was witnessing, a strange hierarchy of ghosts where this shorter, twisted ghost controlled the others.
Dennis goes wide eyed as the ghost sniffs again and turns its head slowly towards him, locking its wild yellow eyes onto his frightened blue eyes. Dennis wanted to scream out as a sadistic, frightening grin forms on the ghost's face, showing those sharp teeth. The man starts to scramble across the floor as the ghost slowly moves closer to him, seeming to take its sweet time to reach him.
The man widened his eyes as he noticed the creature seemed to gain some form of pleasure from his fear. Dennis couldn't help it, he screamed loudly with fear as the creature pounced on him like a cat on a mouse. Dennis jerked and seized wildly as flashes went through his mind, fire, insane laughter, black suffocating smoke, blood, bone, several different women screaming. Dennis starts to foam a bit at the mouth as his eyes roll back and a vein pops out on his forehead. More flashes go through the psychic's mind, the pain in his limbs becoming unbearable as a jacket is tightened, pain on his shoulders from a heavy cage, more screaming, injections, an insatiable need and a heat in his groin that seemed to grow uncontrollable.
Dennis starts to jerk harder before it suddenly stops. The man takes a few seconds to catch his breath and look up at where the ghost had been, now only seeing the decaying ceiling and but much to the man's relief he could hear the chants of the Latin spells. The psychic slowly gets up, grabbing a bottle of pills from his jacket and pops it open, downing two pills before putting it back. The man takes a bit to realize what those images were, part of that creatures life. It had been a man at one point, seeking help, and in turn was turned into a monster. Dennis wipes sweat from his brow as he makes his way out to the containment cube where the ghost was having a fit.
The ghost was throwing itself against the walls of the cube, screaming, howling, and laughing. The ghost would switch between hitting the walls to clawing at it with what Dennis noted weren't actually fingernails, but the tips of its finger bones, the nails and flesh had been worn off, leaving just the sharp bones to act like claws. Cyrus would be close to the cell inspecting the ghost with both wonder and if Dennis didn't know better….respect.
Cyrus looks up from his inspection as Dennis walks out of the Asylum, "Ah, good, at least you made it out alive, Dennis."
Dennis looks around and notices the lack of men aside from the technicians who were busy securing the cube and getting ready to move it onto the bed of a big rig. The ghost seemed to have an even bigger fit as the men tied the cube up and lifted it up into the air, the cube rocking wildly with the ghost's wild movements. It took awhile, but the men were finally able to steady the cube enough to get it loaded and locked down to the trailer of the truck. Dennis gets ready to say something when Cyrus interrupts him.
"It seems that unlike the others, this one was drawn out by the chanting but, with his mind the way it is, it is much harder to control him with a summoning spell. He also seems to have some sort of control over the other ghosts in this place, what he didn't kill they did and it was a miracle that he could be lured into the cube by one of the technicians or we'd all be dead too." Cyrus almost says with fascination, making Dennis a bit sick.
Dennis looks at the ghost who is sitting on his haunches again, glaring at Dennis with the most, feral, sadistic, wild eyes the man had ever seen and Dennis could feel it in the pit of his stomach that this ghost was planning revenge on him in a way that would make him wish he had never been born. The man finally pulls his eyes away from the monster as it was moved down the road on the trailer. Dennis didn't know what it was, but that thing, man, or whatever it was now, was something he'd never seen before and it bothered Dennis beyond reason that a human could turn another human into …that, but he didn't have time to think about that. Dennis got into the car with Cyrus to head back, needing time to recover before the final ghost was tracked down.