.
.
Ringworm
A Crossover Fanfiction
By DireSquirrel
.
.
Madison watched the disturbing video someone sent her a link to. It didn't make much sense, but the flashing images of various parts of Brockton Bay were familiar as fairly near Winslow. People walking to school. A flash of insects crawling over the screen. A broken window. A car crash. Then little slits of light. A girl with her back turned to the camera looking at an empty intersection. A broken cellphone, the screen a shattered mess. Spiders. Various other images interspersed between them. A wall of lockers, side by side, all in black and white.
It was weird, but it didn't make sense.
Her phone rang. Glancing at the smartphone, she noticed the caller ID was blocked. Figuring it was Sophia, she answered and held the phone up to her ear. There was a burst of static, then a rasping, hidden voice.
"Three days."
The phone went dead.
"That was weird," Madison muttered to herself. She ignored the message and went off to her friend Emma's post-modeling gig party. Not even a minute later she had forgotten it had happened at all.
Madison woke up choking the next morning. There was something vile in her mouth, something rotten. She heaved over the side of the bed and stuck her fingers in her throat, grabbing at what was stuck inside. It was soggy, and had an odd texture, but she pulled it out to find it was a used tampon. She threw up before calling to her parents for help.
The police found nothing else out of the ordinary, but promised to check the tampon for DNA. Madison was given some shots, some meds and sent with her folks. Her parents demanded that she get plenty of rest. All of them went to a hotel, since the house was still a possible crime scene.
Bedridden, she still needed to finish her homework. She pulled her book-bag onto her bed and pulled down the zipper. She screamed in horror as black widow spiders poured out of the bag by the hundreds, prompting her parents to rush in, catching the tail end as the spiders ran for dark places.
She was assured that the management would be looking into the problem.
The second day, she checked her email and messages. Inexplicably the glass on her cell shattered in the same pattern as the video she had watched and dismissed. Annoyed by her "clumsiness" her parents buy her a new one.
On the third day, the police told them it was safe to go home. Madison decided that she needed some shopping therapy to help cleanse her memory of the invasion. As she walked past the TVs in the department store, they all turned on instantly. She paused to look to see if they were advertising a new sale or subject.
Flashing images of various parts of Brockton Bay near Winslow. People walking to school. A flash of insects crawling over the screen. A broken window. A car crash. Then little slits of light. A girl with her back turned to the camera looking at an empty intersection. A broken cellphone, the screen a shattered mess. Spiders. Various other images interspersed between them. A wall of lockers, side by side, all in black and white.
The middle locker shook as it was opened from the inside.
Madison suddenly remembered why the locker seemed so familiar as a hand reached out of the locker. Madison ran away from the TVs.
Her phone rang. She didn't answer after seeing the blocked caller ID. The phone answered itself. The locker door opened in slow motion as a pale hand pushed it wide, the fingers broken and bloody as if they had pounded and clawed on the inside of the door for escape.
Madison tossed her phone away.
As she passed by the tech station, every phone started ringing before showing the same video. A face appeared in the locker. A very, very familiar face. The face of a dead girl.
The face of a girl who had died over a three day span from Friday to Sunday.
Madison screamed as Taylor Hebert reached out of a screen and pulled herself out. The store seemed deserted, as if they all knew to leave her alone. Taylor glared at her with dead eyes as she crawled across the floor, her hands and legs broken and bloodied, but still in blueish gray-scale.
Madison crawled into a corner and sobbed as Taylor approached her.
Miss Militia turned to Armsmaster.
"Same as the others," she said. "Seen on tape walking in here this afternoon, but everything we can find says she was dead three days ago."
"This has to stop," Armsmaster growled. "This can't keep happening in my city."
"We're thinking it's a new trigger, since these have only been happening for a couple of weeks now," Miss Militia said. "All starting with that girl in the locker at Winslow." She frowned and looked away, thinking of the dead girl found in the locker. "Poor girl."
"Keep looking."
Bakuda smirked at the video on her phone.
"Hey, Lung," she said with a laugh. "Check out this freaky art film someone linked me."
.
AN: A crossover with TheRing and Worm.