Disclaimer: Read the other two chapters for it. I'm too lazy.

Authors Comment: Hi, sorry I haven't updated... I'm extremely lazy. Bite me. Anyway, thanks for the reviews, your all awesome!

John Marks moaned as he became conscious, and gazed around him. So much smoke, yet something worried him more. His gaze went to Aaliyah and his jaw dropped at the instant he saw that she had been impaled by a long piece of metal. Instead of weeping or trying to wake her; he panicked. Desperately he unbuckled her and tried to pull her off the spike. He lowered her seat so he could pull her off and soon tried to leave the wreck.

Under the cloak of smoke he slid into the brush by the side of the road. Luckily the cops hadn't been there to see him carrying away the corpse. Where he had gained the strength he needed was a mystery, and so was his reason for not seeking help. John walked through the forest muttering to himself, "Oh no, I can't let them find her. If they see her the higher ups will surely find out what I've been doing. All that work only to be wasted on the death of this wretch!"

John kept running with inhuman speed until he got close to the neighborhood where he lived, which had not been far. He ran to each shadow seeking cover and soon found himself in his front yard. Completely unaware that somebody had seen him, and that somebody had binoculars. Finally he made it into his house and caught his breath. Dropping his load on the floor he fled to the basement, and on the floor was what appeared to be a human sized puppet.

Lydia Deetz, who had witnessed this event with binoculars, was now walking down the sidewalk to the bright lamppost. She had seen a man walk by carrying what looked to be a person. Something had fallen off as he rushed past and curiosity had forced her to investigate. Slowly the gothic woman bent down to pick it up. It was a black top hat.

Lydia turned it over and examined the hat, and afterwards she began to walk away with it. For some reason she felt as though she should keep it and no reasoning from her mind could sway her decision. "I recognize this for some reason. Not just the fact that I've seen tons of top hats, but it's almost like a knew who this belonged to…" Then it finally clicked in her mind. She knew who owned this hat.

Aaliyah had been the teen she met the first time she had moved into her new house. Lydia had moved away from the Maitland's and her father, and especially Delia. After a rough day of unpacking furniture Lydia noticed a girl standing in her doorway. At first she was shocked that she had left the door open, but her look of surprise softened into a smile after seeing the tray with cookies. Mmm… cookies.

She had worn the hat as part of her outfit and had given the cookies to Lydia, saying it was a neighborly thing to do. Afterwards they had a small conversation before Aaliyah had to go. They had become fast friends after that and nearly everyday Aaliyah would show up. The young girl was a lot of help and provided much inspiration for her stories. Then there was also that one night when Lydia's best photos got wrecked because she dropped them in the subway. All of them had been ruined by the many crowds of people. Lydia remembered how she had said she would help to recreate the photos.

Her uncle on the other hand had been the exact opposite the girl. Stuck up and uptight were really the only words to describe the carpenter. Why he was taking care of her, Lydia had no clue, and he never seemed to like the kid. He didn't like Lydia either. Always saying that a love for strange things was not appealing to men and she would never get married thinking like an individual. Why should Aaliyah think of marriage at such a young age anyway?

Might as well return it, Lydia knew that Aaliyah loved the top hat. Quickly she began to walk down the sidewalk to the two story house. When she rung the doorbell no one answered. Her ear was put to the door and Lydia could make out the voice of John; which sounded panicked and frightened. "Oh no, someone's here. This is bad, this is very bad." After many pounds to the door it was finally opened and the flustered face of the man was peeking out the door.

"Well, what is it? Why must you bang on my door at this time of night?!"

"I'm sorry, I found Aaliyah's hat. What's going on in there?"

"Nothing. Give me the damn hat! Aaliyah has been raving on about it getting lost."

"Can I see her, is she o--"

Lydia was cut off when the door was slammed. This was odd. Even for John, but she knew he would never hurt Aaliyah. Would he? She spied the window on the side of the house and stealthily crawled to it. Covered in the shade of night and a curtain, Lydia watched as the man tossed what looked like a body into the fireplace. A scream was uttered by the goth girl, causing John to turn to the window just in time to catch her scrambling down his lawn.

Uncle John gasped and went straight to the fireplace. A poker was grabbed and he started to make his way to the door. Then the carpenter paused where he stood before a smile plastered itself on to his ugly mug. It curled into a broad grin tainted with an all-knowing sense. "Hmm, I can fix this without getting messy, a couple enchantments on the town and everyone will forget Aaliyah. Get rid of the evidence and as long as nobody is reminded of her, she will have never existed."

Down to the basement went the man and he went to work. Rabbit eyes, toad skin, and a couple lizards went into a malicious looking cauldron and a blue fire engulfed the bottom. One last thing went in, and that was the top hat. Once the brew was stirred he started to chant, and as he did a picture of Aaliyah that sat on the mantle of Lydia's fireplace flickered gold. The golden color soon covered the entire picture, and this was just as Lydia had finished calling the police. The girl walked over and tapped the picture frame, which burst into dust milliseconds afterward.

The girl watched as it formed a pile of golden ashes on the mantle. "Freaky… Could it be? No, it can't. Betelge-- No! Don't even mention that perverts name." She would leave and come back with a dustpan, and clean off the golden ash. Maybe she could use it in one of her pictures. For some reason she was tired and couldn't quite remember what she had done merely moments ago. Oh that's right. Lydia was looking at bats silhouettes against the sky and maybe sketch a couple.

After a couple minutes of sketching and watching the bats fly gracefully through the night sky, Lydia went inside to plop down by the TV. It turned on and showed the scene of a major car crash. The reporter came on and started her rant, "This is Julia Montello with breaking news. There seems to be a large pile of golden ash where a car had just been. Witnesses say they saw the car turn to gold and then turn simply to ash. No one knows what could have made this golden ash or who was in this car. Researches say it's merely ash and have found no strange chemicals in it to make it this color. We will bring you more news when we can. Reporting live, Julia Montello."

Lydia knew Betelgeuse couldn't pull of a stunt that big, and why in public? Something was wrong and she wanted to know what had happened. Going downstairs to her picture developing room, Lydia discovered many of her pictures had turned to the gold ash. The girl sighed and tried to clean the ash, and heard the news come back on in the living room.

"Now we are getting more reports off this golden ash. It appears as though every child's yearbook who attended Miss Shannon's School for Girls in recent years has had their yearbooks turn to this strange ash. Our reporters have gone to the school to see if they can find anything. Police have searched the school frantically and found select pictures have turned to ash. Could this be a paranormal event? Is this a sign of U.F.O. activity? More at eleven."

Rolling her eyes she rose from where she had been cleaning a pile of ash. Getting up she walked up the stairs into the main room and looked outside. Gazing out the windows in the living room, she looked towards the house on the other side of the street. A guy named John Marks lived there all alone. How very weird. It wasn't her business so why did she care?

Humming rather contently, John walked up the stairs into the main hall, and with a slight skip in his step; the man moved to the kitchen to prepare dinner. Yes he still remembered Aaliyah, but he didn't care. She was gone and any information that was about her or held her name was gone. "Well, maybe I'll try again next year. This time I'll need to make it more obedient. Too bad I couldn't take what I wanted from that wretch. I was going to do it today too. All that life… years I could have added to my own, gone."

Sighing, the carpenter would start to make his favorite meal. Steak with a baked potato. He was unaware of the fact that Aaliyah's soul was not dead. He did know that he would have to leave this town within the month before they came for him. They would make sure he was punished severely.