Disclaimer: The Mediator belongs to Meg Cabot.
Rating: T
Summary: One-shot. Halloween Special. Pissed off that Paul Slater was holding what has always been her annual Halloween party, Kelly Prescott sets out to summon a little revenge on him and their senior classmates.
A/N: Hey everyone. I thought I'd get in the spooky spirit early and treat myself to this odd-ball story! I hope you enjoy it. Please review if you can. :) Love! x
Party Spirit
"Kelly, I'm really not to sure about this," Debbie Mancuso murmured apprehensively as she followed her best friend down the hallway of Paul Slater's large glass house. Peering behind her once or twice in case someone was following them, Debbie nervously wrang her hands together. "I mean, what if we get caught?"
Sighing dramatically, Kelly Prescott didn't bother to hide how she felt about her tag along's emotional drama right then. "Get a grip, Debbie. Paul's too busy sulking about Suze to give a shit about what we're doing in one of the rooms in his house. Besides," she continued as she walked into a dark room, her heels clacking loudly on the laminate flooring. "Don't you want to see Heather, again?"
"No," Debbie mumbled so quietly Kelly didn't hear - or rather chose not to - her head bowed and years of subtle bullying replaying in her mind in an instant.
Walking in to the centre of the room Kelly placed the plastic bag of items down on the floor. Looking around her she realised she couldn't see as much as she thought, the moonlight weak through the glass window of this Halloween night. "I can't see what I'm doing, put your phones flashlight on," Kelly snapped at the dark haired girl idling by the bedroom door, her hesitation clear in every clumsy movement as she scrambled to get her iPhone out. "I obviously can't see from there, come closer!"
Kelly, fast losing patience with her little lapdog 'friend' fumbled around in the bag and pulled out several thick pillar candles, a box of matches rattling to the floor and a bag of gross, icky chicken blood. Opening the sheet of paper she'd found in front of the lockers at school one day last week, she scanned over the instructions again. Kelly figured it's a simple voodoo spell, Halloween's supposed to be the perfect night for it, right? She half expected it to not work anyway. But she had her reasons for wanting to summon her best friend back from the dead.
That and to ruin one particularly frustrating boy who just so happened to have the nerve to dump her and then throw the annual Kelly Prescott Halloween party at his house this year, taking the popularity points away from her. "Its senior year, all the parties that matter should be mine! I'm the student body president; I should be throwing the parties to end all parties!" Kelly growled to herself as she shuddered and dipped her manicured finger into the blood and smeared it on the floor like the instructions told her to do.
Don't even mention the fact he seems to be brooding over a certain Brooklyn freak too.
How the hell did she manage to snag that college guy anyway? Bitch . . .
"Hold your phone steady!" Kelly snapped again, her patience fraying as the light from Debbie's phone wavered over the floor where Kelly was trying to work. With a few last uses of the blood and the candles placed where they were supposed to be, Kelly gestured for Debbie to enter the circle and sit in front of her. "Come on, I want to get this over with. I haven't got all night."
Shutting the light off from her phone because the moon had finally broken through the clouds, Debbie sat facing a candle perfectly placed in the middle of the circle between her and Kelly.
"Kelly - " Debbie began, her voice laced with fear.
"Shut up, I'm starting," Kelly interrupted her, not even bothering to look up at Debbie, therefore missing the hurt that slashed across her face. 'One day,' Debbie thought. 'I'm going to tell you to shut up and see how you like it.'
Sitting up straighter Kelly raised the photo of her deceased best friend in one hand and a copy of the voodoo spell in the other, her posture sure and confident while the foreign unusual words slipped past her glossed lips with only the slightest hesitation over the pronunciations. On and on she said them, sometimes drawing a few things with the blood in between then carrying on. Until finally she lifted the shiny photo of Heather and set a corner of it to the fire, watching the flame jump and lick up the picture ravenously making Kelly squeak and drop the picture.
"Did it work?" Debbie quivered, looking around her like she was expecting to see Heather standing there.
"How am I supposed to know?" Kelly replied in her same acidic tone. "I just followed the instructions. It's not like I'm an expert on bringing the dead back to life!" Now thoroughly put into a bad mood, Kelly hissed and threw the paper down next to the blackened picture, Heather's face distorted and creepy where the heat of the flames had melted it. Shuddering Kelly got to her feet, Debbie quick to follow and scuffed through the chicken blood lining the circle, breaking the seal between them and the room carelessly. "Whatever, this was a stupid idea anyway. I'm going to get drunk."
"Aren't you forgetting someone," an ice-cold voice asked from somewhere in the back of the room making both girls freeze where they stood, the sudden freezing temperature making them both chatter their teeth together. "What's the matter babe, don't you remember your best friend? We used to love getting drunk together and then talking about how fat Dumpling Debbie is," the cold voice laughed. But it wasn't the laugh of the living, but rather something more grotesque.
Like Heather but with a tinge of insanity to it.
"Oh my God," Kelly whispered, her body breaking out into goose bumps in her exposed and risqué Halloween costume. "Heather?" she gasped as the girl suddenly stepped forward out of the shadows, the moonlight throwing her glowing forms into stark relief. With another gasp, Kelly clutched on to Debbie and took a step back. This ghost didn't look anything like the girl she grew up with, the one she had slumber parties with every weekend, who she lived in the shadow of - much like Debbie does now - and still to this day missed, even though she knew she shouldn't with how cruel Heather could be to her.
No, what stood in her place was a joke of that girl. Her hair wasn't smooth and shiny like it used to be. Her skin was a horrible grey, her eyes shadowed dark and haunting. They appeared to glow weird silver she definitely didn't have when she was alive. Her white shift dress was filthy, almost like she'd dug herself out of her own grave. But it was the creepy tilt to her head and smirk to her lips that really scared the two living girls.
"You summoned me here to scare our classmates didn't you?" Heather questioned her voice hoarse and scratchy. "To teach Paul and the rest of the senior class who exactly rules the school, right? That's what you want from me . . ."
Spinning to glare at her, Debbie somehow managed to overcome her paralyzing fear in light of the news. "What?" the brunette hissed to Kelly, shaking her friends arm off, anger oozing from her in waves. "What are you even doing?" Stumbling away from Kelly who had gone a disgusting grey herself, Debbie moved around the room, giving Heather's ghost a wide berth as she headed for the door.
"Where do you think you're going, Dumpling?" Heather sneered, and with a simple flick of her wrist sent Debbie flying across the room to where she skidded along the smooth floor. A little roughed up but unhurt otherwise. "As for you," Heather continued, eyeing Kelly maliciously. "I'll give you what you want. After-all, I should be thanking you. Because of your stupid pride you didn't bother to research what exactly you were doing here tonight, therefore forgetting to add the limitations to the spell. So I'm free . . . to hurt as many people as I want. Including you." she laughed, flicking her wrist again and sending Kelly flying into Debbie who had just struggled up to her feet.
Screaming Kelly rolled off Debbie and half crawled, half ran to the door, her fear blinding her to anything else as she broke her nails trying to get the door open and raced from the room. So blinded by her own terror she never bothered to see if Debbie was following or that Heather had already disappeared herself.
Stumbling as she ran down the hallway, her high heels twisting her ankles as she ran, she all but fell down the stairs and onto the ground floor of the house. The music was loud and thumping as drunk seniors gyrated and crowded the available space, all manners of Halloween costumes everywhere. Collapsing to her knees, her breathing laboured and fast Kelly noticed no-one paying any attention to her. So she did what she does best when she can't get her own way.
She screamed.
It was loud enough to wake the dead, filled with anger, fear and the right amount of blood curdling she would have won an Oscar should she have appeared in a slasher movie. It worked because people literally jumped and stared at her as she knelt on the floor, screaming until someone slapped a hand over her mouth and shut her up. Sucking in a quick breath Kelly blinked with wide eyes as she stared into the bright blue of Paul Slater. His musky scent mingled with alcohol rolled around her and she resisted the urge to bite his hand where it was over her lips.
Disgusted, Paul Slater took his hand from Kelly's mouth and wiped the slimy lip gloss stuck to his palm off on his pants. He always hated kissing her when she wore that shiny crap. Roughly grabbing her elbow he yanked Kelly to her feet and let her go once she had her footing, his irritation clear on his pretty boy face. "What the hell is your problem?" he barked, half rolling his eyes as he took a swig from his Halloween themed paper cup.
Before Kelly could answer him though, Debbie came barrelling into Paul and grabbed the front of his deliberately blood stained shirt in her hands. Shoving her face in to his she shrieked loud enough for him to hear her over the music and cause his eardrums to rattle. "Kelly brought Heather back from the dead and now she wants to kill everyone!"
If there hadn't been music blasting throughout the house the few people who were looking on and not drunk enough to enjoy the theatrics show would have been stunned into silence. As it was, all they did was burst into laughter while they pointed and mocked the two girls in front of them. Some laughing about how good a prank it was, others who already disliked them showing their disgust in their eye rolls and head shaking.
Paul, ever the cool-headed boy he is just calmly pried Debbie's death grip off him and shrugged, taking another swig of his drink. "Not my problem," he told them as he turned to walk away and get back to his pretty awesome - if he did think so himself - party.
But Paul took less than three steps when the lights went out and the house was plunged into sudden darkness and silence. The massive, stark contrast to seconds before left peoples ears ringing from the after effects of the bass as they tried to find their bearings in their half drunk states.
"What the fuck, Slater?" A gruff male voice bellowed from one part of the house.
"Who turned the party off?" Another slurred laugh echoed from somewhere else.
"Hey! Who pinched my ass?!" A girl squeaked before the sounds of a slap resounded with a cry of pain. "Jackass."
"Forgot to pay the electricity bill again, Paul?" Suze Simon asked as she somehow navigated her way around the party, her eyes adjusting to the darkness quicker than most with all her habits of ghost hunting in the dark. She had her boyfriend Jesse de Silva close on her heels, his hand strong and secure around hers. "You should probably get them back on soon or you're gonna have some lawsuits on your hands." she joked, curious herself as to why everything had suddenly gone off. Jesse muttered something under his breath, but it was too low for either Suze or Paul to hear.
"Shut up Suze, I didn't do anything," Paul snapped and Suze squeezed Jesse's hand, signalling for him to relax where he tensed instantly at Paul's tone with his beloved girlfriend. "Besides, I don't pay the bills, mommy and daddy do."
"It's Heather!" Debbie cried again, her tone hysterical as she clutched on to Paul again, Kelly practically forgotten as she did her best to blend in to nothing so she wouldn't be noticed for a change. "She did it!"
"What are you talking about?" Suze asked, her ghost spidey senses tingling. Most people at this point would have written Debbie off as drunk and stupid. But being able to see and converse with the dead on a daily basis, when someone blames something on someone who should be dead, Suze doesn't dismiss it just as drunken hysteria. It's her job after-all. What kind of Mediator would she be if she suddenly heard that people she's exorcised have suddenly come back, probably looking for revenge on her pretty face?
"She's drunk, ignore her." Paul replied, his tone telling Suze just how bored he was with this conversation already.
"That's probably not a good idea," Jesse suddenly piped up, his tone the complete opposite to Pauls and one that made people stand up and listen to him. Who wouldn't? His voice is all kinds of dreamy and smooth . . . "You appear to have an uninvited guest, Slater."
"What are you - umph!" Paul broke off as a psychic punch to his gut made him double over and sober up a bit.
"Surprise!" a hoarse, rattling voice called from where she was hovering on the stairs, an unearthly glow around her body making her stand out like a beacon of doom as her silver eyes took in all the faces that had instinctively turned to the eerie voice and stood frozen in shock. Drunk or not, when you see the body of a person who is most definitely not supposed to be hovering there because they're dead, you pay attention. Sure, you stare down into the green frothy drink with floating candy eyeballs in it and question what exactly it is. But you pay attention all the same.
At least until all hell breaks loose.
Heather may not have looked like the angel they all remember her looking like, but she was still recognizable enough for panic to take over the crowd in an instant as the quiet was broken with screams and yelling as the atmosphere went from fun to terrorized in seconds. Panic made people head for the nearest exists, but the doors wouldn't open.
"Open the fucking door!" people yelled frantically, someone going far enough as to try and punch a window as a form of escape. But all they got for their efforts of bravery were to be thrown across the room into a group of people, making them all tumble to the ground. The terror seemed to take on a whole other dimension in the room as Suze looked up at Heather, equally as surprised, but no where near as scared. She watched as the enraged girl went all Carrie on her classmates - minus the senseless killing yet - and caught sight of Kelly trying to blend into the wall she was sloping against.
Having long let go of Jesse as he moved around the room trying to help people, ignoring Paul's bellows of rage at Heather as he marched towards her, Suze reached out and grabbed Kelly roughly and shouted in her face. "What did you do?"
Suze's seething anger was enough to snap Kelly out of her own fear and yanked her arm out of Suze's. "Nothing!" she glared back, her shaking hands playing with the ends of her long blonde hair. "Get out of my face, Suze."
"Bullshit, Kelly! Tell me what you did?" Suze bellowed again, just as Paul was sent flying across the room, slamming into a wall before crumbling to the ground, useless. "Look around you, you idiot! Whatever it was its getting people hurt. Tell me what you did and maybe I won't punch you in the face. Now Kelly!" Suze's patience snapped as she listened to the cries of people being thrown and manipulated around the room. She gripped Kelly's arm again even tighter than before, making the blonde cry out in pain.
"She found a voodoo spell and summoned Heather so she could terrorize us all!" Debbie cut in, clutching at Suze much like she did Paul earlier. Suze glanced at her, noting the crazed, hysterical brightness to her wide eyes as she trembled all over. "But she didn't do it right and now Heathers gone crazy!"
"She already was," Suze muttered as she let go of Kelly and shook off Debbie like irritating bugs. 'There goes my first Halloween party,' she thought as she went to take a step towards Paul before becoming overcome with the urge to turn around and punch Kelly in the face. So she did, temporarily satisfied as she heard the girl cry out and crumble back down to her knees. "That's from the whole senior class," Suze told her before escaping across the room, dodging classmates and furniture flying around the room. With one quick glance at Heather, Suze knew she needed to nip this in the bud now before someone genuinely got killed and shoved Paul hard where he laid slumped on the ground.
"Paul! Paul, wake up!" Suze slapped his face hard and it jolted him back to the land of the living. Probably with a massive headache, but Suze just figured they were even at that point. After-all, if it wasn't for him summoning Maria de Silva, Suze wouldn't have been thrown from a roof and woken with a concussion to rival any she's had in all her ghost busting years. Paybacks a bitch, no matter what form it comes in. "Get some of your minions to take her down!" Suze yelled at Paul, ignoring his wince at her shouting in his ear. "For God sake, Paul, she's going to kill someone!"
"Whuh?" Paul mumbled, his hand resting on his head.
"Seriously?" Suze seethed, curling her hands into fists. "Fine," she huffed getting back up to her feet. "I'll do it myself!"
Striding back across the room as fast as she could, Suze caught sight of Jesse out the corner of her eye. He caught sight of her too and tracked her path, a quick realization dawning on him as she strode on. "Susannah, don't even think about it!" he called, trying to stop his wrestling match with a chair possessed and get to her. But Suze just shrugged at him and carried on.
"It's the only way!" Suze called back, taking a deep breath and reaching her hand out to grab a hold of Heather's grey leg where she hovered over the stairs still. The crazed ghost looked down at her just as Suze closed her eyes and pictured that scary, fog filled place, her body giving way beneath her as she opened her eyes and shuddered, already there with a lunatic ghost still clutched in her hand.
It took a second for Heather to realize what had happened and all hell broke loose again a second after.
Thankfully Suze had already anticipated that and quickly swiped a leg out to knock Heather off her feet as she grabbed the ghosts blonde hair, dragging her through the foggy floor and shouting into the unnerving quiet, the cold snapping at her with every step. "Gladiator guy! I need your help!" Suze yelled, ignoring Heather's shrieking and clawing at Suze's arm as she kept a tight grip on the girl's hair. Much like the first time she exorcised her. "Gladiator!"
"What are you doing here, Mediator?"
Stopping as the man dressed like a Roman gladiator appeared in front of her, Suze half lifted Heathers weightless body up to indicate her predicament. "A couple of school girls got in over their heads with a voodoo spell and now I've got a Carrie wannabe trying to kill my classmates. I can't be dealing with that, it's my senior year. I think it'd be nice if they all graduated alive, compendia?"
The Gatekeeper glanced down at the feral ghost screaming and infiltrating the calm quiet of his domain and back to the Mediator who shouldn't be there at all. Sighing because this is his busiest day of the year he snapped his fingers and sighed with relief when the screaming seized immediately as Heather disappeared, back to where she came from. Just a little angrier than before. "It is not your time yet, go back Mediator." And with that command, he too disappeared into the foggy void, leaving Suze alone, cold and suddenly freaked at the sudden silence.
"No need to tell me twice," she muttered as she closed her eyes and woke back up with a blinding headache courtesy of the lights in Paul's house - now back on - beaming into her retinas above her, and Jesse's warm hand soothingly stroking her hair aside from her head as she settled back into his arms. "I know I say this every time I do that, but it bears repeating - that sucks." Suze groaned as the headache from being separated from her body thrummed behind her eyes.
"Good to have you back, querida." Jesse soothed, his voice going a long way to making her feel better.
"Good to be back," Suze muttered, struggling into a sitting position with Jesse helping her. When she looked around she realized everyone had basically gone. Other than a few people straggling behind because they were too drunk to really understand and comprehend what had happened. The fallout to this was something Suze was so not looking forward to at school Monday morning. Father D was going to throw a fit!
"Time to go." Jesse murmured knowing how much of a headache Suze now had thanks to her heroic actions. He pulled her up to her feet, his hands secure at the small of her back as she made her way across the wrecked living room, towards the front door.
"Suze, where are you going?" Paul shouted after her from where he was braced against a wall with one hand, the other supporting his head.
Without looking back at him, Suze and Jesse carried on walking.
"Cool party Paul, but I'm done." Suze just about shouted back, her headache screaming at her for it.
"What about the mess?!" An exasperated and very sober Paul cried in alarm, looking around him at his ruined living room.
Finally stopping at the threshold of the door Suze looked back into the room. Too tired to glare at the stupid girl, Suze pointed at Kelly Prescott who was sitting on the stairs clutching her bloody nose and whining about it being broken; her stare also taking in Debbie Mancuso who was in what looked like a state of severe shock standing next to her reckless friend. "Get the ones who created it to help you clear up. I've done my bit. Happy Halloween!" Turning on her heel Suze snickered when she heard Paul bitch and complain.
But she and Jesse outright laughed as they heard him shout, "Shut up, Kelly!"
Maybe the party wasn't a total bust after-all.
