A/N: This is it, guys. After this, only the epilogue.

THE HOUSE

Chapter 10: Fire

She looked at him, his white hair hanging in his face, the skin tight black hazemat suit showing a body that had hardened from the many fights he had been in. Like every time, she allowed herself a brief moment of admiration, before shutting off that train of thought again. His glowing green eyes held a strange expression in them, as he nervously eyed the walls of the cellar. Then he looked at her again and stretched his arms, seemingly grabbing hold of something invisible, and all hell broke loose.

He screamed, and his body arched backwards, writhing in pain as flashes of lighting came out of the walls, going through his arms, raking his body. She stumbled backwards and almost fell over Dash, who still had his eyes closed tightly. The scream seemed to go on forever, and she felt tears falling from her eyes, tears because Danny was in so much pain and she could do nothing to help him. She could only hope.

He started convulsing, and then suddenly two white rings appeared around his waist, sparkling and sizzling from the extra power, slowly going over his body, changing him back, turning him human. Her relief was short-lived, however, because the lightning didn't cease, and was now battering his human body, which didn't have the stamina and endurance of his ghostly self.

She just stood there, watching, wondering how much more he could take. His hair was wet, sweat was pouring down his face, but his eyes were open, staring through her, unseeing. And then, suddenly, the world slammed back into place. She felt a tremor going through her, the ground was shaking, but there it was, the bottom of the stairs, only three feet away from them.

"We were right there," she thought in amazement, "So close... and yet so far away."

Danny moved a little, and looked at her, seemingly aware of her presence. He made a slight nod in the direction of the stairs, but she shook her head. She wasn't going to let him sacrifice himself, she couldn't get Dash out on her own, and besides, there was no telling what would happen if the house got a hold of Danny. He needed to get out of there as much as she did.

He seemed to roll his eyes, strangely misplaced in his face that was contorted in pain, and then his hands started glowing. Sam shielded her eyes from the brightness of it and crouched down next to Dash, ready to grab one of his arms when Danny managed to get himself free.

A green flash, so bright that it hurt her eyes, and then darkness again, infinite darkness. The lightning had stopped, and she heard a soft thud, like a body falling on the floor. She couldn't see anything other than bright orange and green balls dancing in front of her, her eyes blinded by the intense glare of the lightning and the ectoblast Danny had fired.

Somebody moaned, and she moved, crawling into the direction she estimated Danny would be, feeling her way across the uneven ground. She touched his hair, his head, his shoulders, and started shaking him.

"Danny," she hissed, "Come on, wake up, we have to get out of here, you can take a nap later."

"Leave me alone," he muttered.

Her eyes were starting to get used to the darkness now, and she noticed that the darkness wasn't as complete as she thought it was. She could see the walls, the stairs, the door at the top, all slightly glowing with an eerie green glow, and it was getting brighter...

Whatever Danny did to the house, it was recovering fast. She shoved him, pinched his arms and he yelped in pain. She felt bad about doing this to him, he must be sore all over, but she needed his help and she needed it fast. She shook him by the shoulders again, and his head rolled from left to right. Shakily, he brought his hands to hers and grabbed her by her wrists with a strength she didn't know he still had. He opened his eyes and she gulped when she saw the expression in there.

Terror, pain, hatred, madness. They alternated quickly, and she whimpered softly when his grip on her wrists started hurting her. Then he suddenly let go of her and rolled over, crawled away from her and threw up, crying and coughing. She moved closer to him and placed her hands on his shoulders, trying to comfort him while apprehensively eying the increasing brightness of the glowing walls.

With some difficulty, he staggered to his feet, and she grabbed his arm to steady him. Together they stumbled to Dash, and without preamble Danny kicked the jock in the ribs.

"Get up, you moron," he said hoarsely, "This is no time to sleep."

Dash responded by curling into a ball even tighter, shaking his head feverishly while frowning angrily, as a small child would. Danny hesitated, seemingly considering leaving the jock here, but Sam knew he couldn't do that, that his 'saving people' thing was still there. At least, she hoped it was. Danny kicked Dash again, harder this time, a malicious expression on his face, and Sam almost turned to run.

But then he bend over and grabbed one of the blond jocks arms, prying it away from him, forcing Dash's thumb out of his mouth. Dash whimpered. Sam quickly came to his aid, grabbing Dash's other arm as best as she could, helping Danny to hoist him up between them.

Dash was heavy. She heard Danny grunt under his weight, and she realized he wasn't well, he was hurt himself, and she started worrying that they wouldn't be able to get him up the stairs. But then they moved, Danny pulling the jock along, his feet dragging on the floor, and they actually made it a few steps up the stairs, before they had to let go of him.

"Come on," Danny said, "Let's just drag him."

They each grabbed an arm and started pulling, one step at a time, bumping Dash up with every agonizingly slow step they took. Sam started panting, her muscles started aching, and her legs were trembling from the exertion. Next to her, Danny wasn't doing much better, gasping for air in short, painful gasps.

Halfway up the stairs, the cellar started distorting again and she stopped, looking around her wildly, feeling sick from the fear that rose up in her, reaching new heights. She felt paralyzed again, like she had before in the living room, just after she woke up from that awful dream. But then Danny put his hand on the wall, a grim expression on his face, and it stopped, but the glow on the wall increased.

They started pulling again, heaving an now struggling Dash up further and further, until they reached the door.

"It must be locked, I know it's locked," Sam thought, but she was wrong.

Danny placed his hand on the door and pushed, and it swung open, revealing once more the filthy kitchen, looking peaceful, as if nothing had happened. But the cabinets were glowing as well, light shining through the edges of the doors. They struggled to their feet, quickly climbing the last few steps, hurling Dash on the ground in the kitchen. The door to the cellar slammed shut behind them, and now that she looked at it closely, she saw that there were in fact two doors. One leading to the hallway, and one leading to the cellar. They had taken the wrong door.

Danny turned to her and opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by a sudden movement from Dash, who sprang to his feet. For a moment, Sam was amazed at the jocks swift recovery, but then she saw his eyes. They were red.

Before she could shout a warning, Dash launched himself at Danny, slamming him into the counter with a painful thud, and Danny cried out in pain. Dash started hitting him, mindlessly planting his fists in Danny, who was to stunned to move away in time. His head flipped backwards from the force of Dash's punches and he tried to hit the overshadowed jock back with a few punches of his own, but he was weakened from his ordeal in the cellar. He was losing.

Sam looked around the kitchen frantically, searching for a weapon, and her eyes fell on a piece of wood, looking like the leg of a chair. She dove for it, grabbed it tightly and swung it at Dash's head, hitting him as hard as she could.

The jock screamed an unearthly scream, and he let go of Danny, who sank to the floor, his shirt red from the blood that ran out of his nose. Before Dash could turn around completely, however, Sam hit him again at the left side of his head, and for a moment she thought she had broken the piece of wood from the sound of it, but then she saw that it was still in one piece. The boy went down without a sound.

Shaking, Sam dropped her improvised club and dropped on her knees beside Danny, who was sitting with his back against the cabinets, dazed. He looked awful. The bruise he had received from Dash earlier that evening was now dark blue, covering the side of his face, blood was running freely out of his nose and his split lip, and Sam could see several red spots that would probably turn into bruises as well. But all of that would have to wait.

"Danny," She screamed at him, "Lets go!"

He obeyed, pushing himself up, wiping his arm over his face and then staring at the red smear he left on it. Sam pushed him to the door, but he turned around and grabbed an arm of the unconscious jock and started pulling. Sam sighed, knowing he was right, the jock couldn't help himself, he had been overshadowed. Angrily, she grabbed his other arm, and together they dragged him to the door that led to the garden.

It disappeared. Stunned, Sam stared at the brick wall in front of her, and she felt her hope fade away. They would never get out of this cursed place, the house wouldn't let them go. She turned to Danny and stared into his vacant eyes, no longer having the strength to pull him out of his stupor once again.

She let the jock slide to the floor once again, absentmindedly noticing the trickle of blood coming out of his left ear. Tentatively, she touched Danny's arm, and he suddenly grabbed her hand, squeezing it tightly, and then she heard it.

A voice, whispering, laughing, poisonous words flowing through her mind, through Danny's mind, suggesting he let go of Dash, to finish what his girlfriend had started, to dispose of her too, to join them. She wondered if this was what he had been hearing all this time, if this was the reason he had been looking so stressed, looking around frantically as if searching for the origin of the voice only he could hear, and every now and then screaming out loud to leave him alone. She also remembered that if she could get him to listen to her instead, she could get him out

His grip on her hand started to become painful, and she tried to pull back, only succeeding in having him hold on to her even tighter. She realized he was struggling, trying to hold on to her, trying to get back to her while his mind was being invaded by the ghosts of the house. Opening her mouth, she let out the loudest scream she could come up with, right next to his ear.

"Aaarh," he yelled, letting go of her hand and grabbing his ears, wincing in pain from the loud screech.

But his eyes were focused again, if somewhat wild looking, and he stared at the wall in front of him in confusion. Then he looked at his hands, as if they were fascinating, but Sam couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.

"What's happening to me," he whispered, and she heard the hysteria behind his voice.

She shook him.

"I don't know," she said urgently, "Let's find out, outside."

He wasn't listening to her, staring at his hands instead, turning them in front of him as if examining the blood and dirt on them.

"Worms," he croaked, "Can't you see them? They're... they're..."

They were so close. Only that blasted wall in front of them, blocking their way out, and it wasn't even real. It was real enough to keep them inside, though. Sam felt the rising panic inside of her, and she knew she was on the verge of collapse, of screaming mindlessly, or curling into a ball like Dash had, Dash, whom she probably killed, from the look of his bleeding ear. She grabbed Danny's head and force him to look at her.

"You. Have. To. Concentrate," she said, willing her words to enter his mind.

His mouth twitched and he looked at her in despair.

"I don't wanna do it," he muttered, and she had no idea of what he was talking about, "I'm a monster, Sam, I'm sorry."

Before she could tell him not to be an idiot, he pushed her away from him, and let the two white rings appear around his waist, a look of terror and disgust on his face. She didn't know what made him resent his ghost half suddenly, but it couldn't be good.

When the transformation was complete, he immediately started hovering, his eyes shooting from one direction to the other, and she realized he was actually more vulnerable in his ghost form in this house, not less. She was about to ask him what he had in mind, when she suddenly saw the tiny flames dancing in his eyes.

"Burn," he hissed.

Sam blinked. And in that blink, the house changed. She was in a box made of fire, blazing around her, the flames consuming the walls, the ceiling and the door frame that was right in front of her. The door was there, crooked, ajar, burning. Beneath her feet, the wooden planks were smoking.

Then the heat hit her, the air she was breathing burning her lungs, and she started coughing. Smoke filled the room, glowing orange in the flames, growing thicker, and obscuring her view on the door. The flames seemed to scream somehow, or maybe it was the house itself that was screaming, hundreds of voices sounding as one, crying out in pain and rage. She definitely needed to get out of there.

And then he was next to her, a cool hand grabbing her arm, grabbing Dash, who was still laying at her feet, and lifting them, flying in the direction of the door at high speed. The door frame seemed like a burning gate, and she screamed when they hit the door full force, despite his attempt at intangibility.

The door flew open, and they burst out of the madly burning house into the garden in a rain of sparks, crashing to the ground with a force that knocked the air out of her lungs. For a moment, she couldn't breathe, and she just laid there, wheezing, trying to get her chest moving again, gasping for the smoke filled, yet, in comparison, fresh air outside the house.

A bright flash next to her, bright enough to even outshine the orange flames of the house, told her that Danny had just reverted back to human again. Gasping, wheezing, she pushed herself up, willing herself to take a look at him, to see whether the transformation was intentional, or if he just passed out. She hoped it wasn't the latter, she didn't know how to carry two boys out of there.

And they did need to get out of there. They were only ten feet from the house, and the heat started burning her skin. She pushed Danny's still form and to her relief, he moved his arm, aimlessly groping around until he found the ground and managed to push himself up on his hands and knees.

He looked awful, and she realized that he had taken the full impact of them hitting the door, which was now laying flat on the ground, burst out of it's hinges. Blood was streaming down his face from a cut just below the hair line, and she could also see multiple cuts on his hands. But his eyes, although slightly unfocused, told her that he was at least aware of their surroundings.

"Let's get out of here," he yelled, or that was what he intended, but it came out as a whisper.

Struggling to her feet, Sam again grabbed one of Dash's arms, while Danny took hold of the other. Together they started pulling, dragging the heavy jock through the grass and nettles, staggering and falling down every two or three steps. But they were making progress, they were getting away, and at long last they stopped, far enough away from the house not to be directly affected by the heat, but still feeling the intensity of the fire. Only then she noticed that it was still raining, water dripping from her hair, cooling her hot skin, extinguishing the fire.

Danny saw it too. He started shaking his head, muttering to himself as he clambered to his feet. Swaying, he stood there, his face turned towards the house, his arms stretched in front of him. Sam couldn't see a thing, didn't know what he was doing, but the flames sprang up higher again, reaching the roof, the treetops, lighting the garden and the forest like an angry beacon. Sam wondered if the fire could be seen from Amity Park, and if there was anybody awake to see it.

A loud wail suddenly joined the thundering of the flames, and Danny started to shake. To Sam's horror, the flames suddenly looked like people, burning people, running around madly, trying to escape their fate, screaming in agony. But the fire was unstoppable now, and even the rain couldn't extinguish it anymore. Part of the roof caved in, sending a cloud of sparks and burning debris into the garden.

Danny's knees buckled and he went down, screaming, rolling on the ground, trying to pad out invisible flames. It hit her that he must still be linked to the house somehow, and was feeling it's burning, or maybe the house was trying to pull him in, to join them in their inferno.

She grabbed his flailing hands, squeezing them, yelling at him to focus on her. He tried to yank himself free from her, writhing, moaning, but she pulled him close and forced him down, a feat she only accomplished because he was weakened considerably. After what seemed like hours, but was probably only minutes, he calmed down, but she kept holding on to him, letting the rain soak them both, Dash laying forgotten behind her.

The flames were still thundering through his mind, and he could feel their heat, he was their heat, the tiny glowing carbon particles that made up the orange flames. His skin was peeling away from him, blistering and breaking. Faces flashed before his eyes, faces surrounded by flames, a little girl glaring at him, her eyes an uncanny red. Other faces as well, and he knew them all, was them all, and together they were burning.

Cool hands that grabbed him, a familiar voice, yelling at him that it wasn't real, it was the house that was burning, not him.

But I am the house, he thought, confused. The thought took hold, however, and he pulled away, concentrating on something else. The world was alive around him, the grass he was laying on, the nettles, stinging his arms, the pebbles and stones and rocks in the ground, grains of sand... he admired their structure, their angular shape, the way the light from the flames broke through the slightly transparent particles.

His already painful head started to pound. There were animals around them, insects crawling nearby, worms digging through the ground. Their presence disturbed him, and every time he tried to pull away, to concentrate on himself, he felt himself turning to yet another peculiarity, an object, or something living.

His mind was a haze, a cacophony of noises and movements, and beings, touching him without really touching him. He clenched his fists, holding on to the person who was holding him, feeling her shivers, her warmth that was quickly leaving her, her arms wrapped around his shoulders. He realized he was slumped against her, his face buried into her stomach, and he had his arms wrapped around her waist.

Slowly, he relaxed, feeling himself go weightless, feeling the darkness closing in on him. The noise of the flames and the animals and the growing grass wasn't so loud now, and the wiggling cold inside of him, his tainted ghost form, seemed to get further and further away from him. He heard her voice, far away, echoing, telling him to stay with her, not to leave her, she couldn't live without him.

"Sure you can, Sam," he thought.