Crossed the Line

a Beetlejuice fanfiction

A/N: Thanks for everyone who read and reviewed, and a special thanks to the one who got the references to the original script. Your fandom is appreciated, and it's nice to see someone else who gets it, lol.

Four: Paint it Black...

... until our debts are clear,

we will live in fear...

- Repo! The Genetic Opera

Betelgeuse...

Possessed by the power sparking through his system, fueled by the inferno of fury he felt from centuries of unresolved issues and the pain he watched Lydia endure, Betelgeuse stood in the Waiting Room, a warped, distorted version of the ghoul Lydia once knew. If only she could see him now, she might... run for her life, in pure terror. No matter; nothing else mattered, anymore, except the wrathful compulsion for revenge on everyone and everything: living, dead, and undead.

Betelgeuse looked around at the other souls. They were pathetic. He'd tormented far hardier souls in Hell. To his surprise, the witch-doctor was back. How many times had that particular shaman been there before? It was almost like he was a frequent tourist. Betelgeuse zoomed in on him first, remembering the time the witch-doctor had shrunken his head. "So, you like to play head-games, do ya?" Betelgeuse asked. As his wicked smirk curled on his deformed face, the witch-doctor grabbed his own skull, shrieking in pain and fear. None of the Loa were at his disposal here, and he doubted they could stand up to this monster's raw power.

The witch-doctor's head contorted into a chess-board. Piece by piece, Betelgeuse took the thoughts in the sorcerer's head, plucked them up, snapped them like twigs, and set them on fire. "CHECK-MATE, BITCH!" he screamed, a laughter almost as painful as the agony he could wreak escaping his cracked, bleeding, wormy lips. The spirit's head reformed, a blank expression on it's face: Betelgeuse had completely destroyed the man's mind. "I'd say ya look deep in thought, but I know first-hand just how EMPTY YOUR HEAD IS!" he gloated, turning his head slowly on it's neck to examine the other frightened spirits. Ms. Argentina buzzed for the security, trembling as the ceiling began to drip molten lead.

Thirty heavily-armed, burly angels stampeded into the Waiting Room, prepared to unleash the power of Hell upon anyone or anything that was tormenting the souls before their time. Betelgeuse flashed his jagged, warped metallic spikes that were now his teeth. "Oh, did you punks want some, too?" he asked, twisting their wings into fiery serpents. "LET'S GET OLD TESTAMENT IN THIS MOTHER-FUCKER!"

The angels screamed at the tops of their lungs, as they were bitten repeatedly by the serpents. Locusts spewed from their mouths and crawled into their eye-sockets, burrowing through them. Their skin was wracked by extreme leprousy, spewing pus from gaping wounds. Their guts swelled, and their thighs were rotten to the bones. They collapsed on a heap of fire and brimstone, as the floor grumbled under the strain of a huge sink-hole that threatened to cave in at any moment.

A brilliant flash of light signalled that the now-missing angels had been recalled to Heaven, to be repaired. Betelgeuse was satisfied with his work on the angels, but he was far from done. The sink-hole widened, and the entire Waiting Room caved in, flooding with lava.

Betelgeuse stood outside the smouldering building that had once housed the Department. A snarl grew from his face, and his eyes lit up again with green lightning. The building exploded, sending chunks of enchanted material flying through the Neitherworld. "They're ALL on my shit-list," he grumbled, the sky staining a deep, fetid reddish-brown. "Wait'll they get a load of ME!"

Jacques looked up at the sky through his window, marvelling at the appearance of green eyes in the rotten void of stratusphere above. "Sacre' boo!" he exclaimed in a hushed tone. "Ze sky, she is more forboding zen usual!"

Ginger cringed, all eight of her knees knocking together. "We oughtta take a nice, long trip away from... you know... da entoia Neithawoild," she said quietly. "Somethin' tells me this ain't no ordinary storm..."

Barbara & Adam Maitland...

Blissfully ignorant of the goings on in the Neitherworld, Barbara and Adam returned to their new home. They had enjoyed their new-found freedom, traveling the world and picking new places to haunt every year. This time, however, they had returned to their original home on a whim.

The changes to the sleepy little town had surprised Barbara and Adam greatly. There were three multiplexes, a community college, and what seemed like a Starbucks on every corner. The people had changed, too: since the fiasco that had happened so many years ago, they were no longer on guard for the slightest shadows they had seen out of the corners of their eyes. Now, the crowd were all shallow, pretentious, arrogant college types who spent their days cruising around the downtown area and playing on campus, and their nights partying at any number of raves.

"You don't think Charles and his friends-" Barbara began.

"-were able to convince the town to make all these changes, some of which have nothing to do with business, in as little time as we've been gone?" he asked, smiling at his wife's impulsive accusation. "No, dear, I don't think his friends are that influential. Besides, don't you remember? Charles gave that life up. This must have happened on it's own."

Barbara entered the house first... and almost regretted the decision, for two reasons: while the decorations were so much colder and tackier than they were even when the Deetzes lived there, the main reason was that the currently-vacant house was filled with an oppressive presence that frightened her. "Adam," she called back, "M-maybe we shouldn't stay here..."

Adam followed Barbara in, initially unconcerned. "Why not? Did someone redecorate it again-" This time, it was Adam's turn to be cut off in mid-sentence. "Yeah, I don't think we should stay now, either..."

Suddenly, the door slammed shut. Barbara and Adam tried to escape, but the doors and windows became white-hot. They ran up the stairs, as the floor and steps threatened to crumble beneath them! When they reached the attic, they were shocked at the way it changed... it looked like an enormous, gaping maw, with a slimy tongue for a doormat and giant stalactites and stalagmites of teeth, caked in filthy tar. Deep within the stinking darkness of the giant monster-mouth that had once been their attic, the sound of chattering teeth and clicking heels could be heard. "Well... in we go," Adam said, steeling himself for whatever may await them inside. He was sure they wouldn't be adversely affected by it: after all, they were dead, right? Nothing could hurt them...

... right?

The sight that welcomed them into their attic was surprisingly normal... if you don't count the blood dripping from the crevices of the walls, the shattered shards of glass from the mirror, and the cowering skeleton and giant tap-dancing spider. "SACRE' BOO!" the skeleton cried, cowering deeper into the corner. "Do not 'urt us!"

Barbara approached the skeleton and spider cautiously. She'd heard Lydia talk about them before, when she was younger: Jacques LeLean and Ginger, the tap-dancing spider, friends of her's from the Neitherworld. Of course, that was ages ago, when she still visited the land of the dead, and called this house 'home'. "Jacques? Ginger? I'm Barbara Maitland, and this is my husband, Adam. I'm sure Lydia mentioned us. What happened, here?"

Ginger leapt out of the corner, onto Adam's head, quivering. Her eight eyes were, for want of a phrase that isn't a pun, 'bugging out'. "It's HORRIBLE!" she started. "Beetlejuice's gone CRAZY! I... we... we ain't nevah seen him like this!"

Jacques stood and slowly approached, his yellow eyes barely as bright as embers. "Byateljeuse, 'e ees more powerful zen eveir! 'E's been tearing up ze Neizherworld, like she ees so much teeshue papeir!"

"I'm so sorry, and please don't take this the wrong way," Adam replied, "But I can hardly understand what you're saying..."

Jacques and Ginger explained everything. By the time they were done, Adam was holding Barbara, consoling her. "We... we had no idea," he said, shocked for so many reasons. For one, he couldn't understand how her parents could do what they had done to her, and doomed her to the life she'd been forced to live. For another, he was surprised at the fact that he actually felt bad for Beetlejuice... he knew this was the ghost who had made their unlives miserable, but he also knew what kind of torment happened to the spirits in the Lost Souls room. What really surprised both he and Barbara most, was the fact that Beetlejuice loved Lydia so much, he unleashed the full extent of his power to set right what had gone so horribly awry.

Barbara straightened up, tears streaming down her face. "Is... is there... anything we can do... to help?" she asked. That was why Adam loved Barbara so much: the sweet grace of her spirit pushed her to do more, and better, especially for others. In a way, she was a lot like Lydia had been, when she was just a teenager.

Jacques shook his skull sadly. "Ah do not sink zat zhere ees anyzhing you can do," he said mournfully.

Suddenly, Ginger leapt down to the floor, clicking her heels on the hardwood. "I may have an idear!" she exclaimed. "We gotta travel to Lydia. C'mon!"

Seeing no alternative, Barbara, Adam, Ginger and Jacques left the house through the upstairs window. "All we have for an address is the one we picked up on our way to Barbados last year," Barbara stipulated.

"Ees better zen nothing, non?" Jacques asked.

In agreement, they left in the direction of New York... as an ominous blood-red storm began to roll in, accompanied by green lightning, and thunder that sounded like the barking of the hounds of Hell...

Lydia...

"... I feel like you've made real progress, Ms. Deetz," Lydia's therapist, a dignified, classy, attractive woman in her forties, explained to her on the way out. "You should be very proud of yourself. Not many young women could conquer the trials you've had to face."

Lydia smiled a small, timid smile. "Thanks, Dr. Weissman," she said in a somewhat soft, slightly quiet voice. "I really feel like I have a new lease on life. I have a good job, I have a place to live in a decent neighborhood, and I've even started going out with friends, and dating other guys. It's all thanks to your help."

Dr. Weissman patted Lydia's shoulder. "No, dear, you have yourself to thank. If you didn't have such strength of character, you wouldn't have been able to make it, no matter what I would have tried. You're the real heroine, here."

Lydia's cute little smile grew with the compliments of her therapist. "So, when do I see you next?" she asked.

Dr. Weissman consulted her iPhone. "I think we can start scheduling your appointments a little further apart. Say, same time next month?"

Lydia nodded in agreement. "Sure. How much do I owe?"

Dr. Weissman looked to the side. "Your father came by. You're all caught up on your payments."

Lydia's gaze was fixed on the floor. It had been years since her mother kicked her out. Her father may not have liked it, but as usual, he was too cowardly to speak up. Dr Weissman's voice cut through her traumatic memories. "Don't you think it's time to let him back into your life?" she asked.

Lydia's voice got even quieter. "... maybe... see you in a month."

As Lydia left, Dr. Weissman shook her head. "What kind of fucked-up family did she come from?!" she wondered.

As Lydia drew the pinstriped black and white jacket closer around herself in the stiff wind, she barely noticed that she was being followed by a giant dressed in all white, and a smaller, sickly-looking woman with a scarf around her stoma... that is, until the woman walked around in front of her, and stopped her. "Lydia Deetz?" she asked, her raspy voice almost as jarring as the smell of acrid smoke pouring from her mouth and throat.

"What's it to you?" she asked, finally noticing the huge, hulking figure behind her. "Aren't you a little old to be rolling people?"

Juno took a drag from a cigarette that, somehow, magically appeared in her hand. "Listen, I don't have time for the attitude," she replied in her usual deadpan manner. "We ain't here to roll ya, sweetheart. We gotta talk about an old friend of yours... somebody you forgot."

Lydia took a step to her left side, getting closer to the building. She could now see the massive man who was behind her, dressed in what almost looked like a coat of feathers. "What kind of game do you think you're playing?" she asked, her heartbeat speeding up with her apprehension. She shoved her hand into the right pocket of her jacket, hoping she still had her straight-razor. "I never forget my friends."

Juno was about to speak, until Swallowtail lifted a hand to silence her. "This is getting us nowhere," he told her in his deep, booming voice. "Come with us."

Lydia screamed and slashed at the gargantuan man with her razor... which broke as it struck his alabastair skin. "WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ME?!" she asked, starting to panic. Nobody could have broken a razor on their skin! He didn't even have a scratch on him! "What... what are you people?!" she asked.

Instead of answering, swallowtail picked Lydia up and hailed a cab. A beaten-up wreck pulled up beside them, smoke billowing from inside. He gently tossed Lydia in, and waited for Juno to get in beside her, before he squeezed inside, too.

At first, the crowd surrounding Lydia was surprised to see her extreme reaction to just one grungy-looking homeless man. From the way she was talking, it sounded like she saw two different people there. Then...

... nothing, because Lydia Deetz seemed to disappear from the sidewalk, and the crowd walked past the blank space on the sidewalk and the hazard-riddled taxi at the curb... almost as if she didn't even exist to them...

Betelgeuse...

Betelgeuse hovered in the midst of the cloud, his serpentine eyes superimposed on the cloud. Green lightning flew from his body, striking vehicles and sewer-grates, sending plumes of red fire billowing high into the air. The ground shook, splitting into fragments, crumbling the monuments to human ego that had arisen over the decades. Mutated, demonic lampreys swarmed the air and the ground and the people screamed in horror, as the parasites ate their way into their skin and burrowed into their brain, further transmutating into one-eyed centipedes with suckers for mouths and plates for teeth. People ran shrieking in all directions, watching their beloved town crumble before their very eyes; not for long, however, as tornadoes touched down, sweeping them into the air, only to land in huge metal contortions that grew up in the place of trees that had burned to ash in the explosions.

The monstrous magnate descended just below the cloud, his roaring laughter rending the air with it's grating sound. "A MONUMENT TO THE GREED AND AVARICE OF THESE WRETCHED FOOLS," he mused.

Lighting upon the mayor's head, Betelgeuse tap-danced on his head, piercing deep into his skull with his talons. "I DREAM OF JEANNIE, WITH HER DARK BLACK HAIR!" he crowed, cackling wildly. If the Devil would delight in the agony of his... his... his Lydia, then why not give him a real party? "IF THE DEVIL DANCED A TWO-STEP, DARLING, HE'D HAVE A BALL IN MIND!" he sang, as he called forth the corpses from the cemeteries and what was left of the town itself, to dance a danse macabre through the downtown area. "NOBODY'S GONNA RAIN ON MY PARADE, BUT ME!" he screeched, leading the morbid menagerie through a storm of viscera and entrails, which was occasionally combined with bowling-ball-sized flaming hailstones.

Things were going from bad to worse...