Enjoy!
Shadow 2.5
Boogeyman emerged from the shadows like a vengeful wraith as she set herself down. The old rickety stairs creaked underneath her weight, a testament to the age and the state of disarray of the building. A single half burned out light bulb was the only source of illumination besides a closed shutter to the outside world. Some rays of sunlight managed to squeeze their way through the blinds, but they were too small and weak to be anything of consequence.
She halted her Nightmares in their tracks with a single command, freezing them in place inside the shadow realm. She had no need for them at the moment, and they were more likely to fall through the floorboards if they tried to put their full weight on them.
She had been here once a few weeks ago when she had been ready to rip out Sophia's throat and leave it at that. She had been surprised when she had seen the state of Sophia's apartment complex. While she knew that the cream of society didn't send their kids to Winslow willingly, she had always suspected that Sophia had a much nicer house than her. It was pretty ironic that Sophia had teased her mercilessly for how poor she had been while she had to live in an apartment that was barely big enough for her own family.
Boogeyman supposed that jealousy played a factor in that.
The apartment complex in question was seated just on the edge of the Empire's borders, a rather precarious position for any minority family to be living in. While they wouldn't be subjected to the same torment as those that lived far deeper in the Nazi's territory it still posed a significant risk for them to live here.
Beggars can't be choosers I suppose, Boogeyman thought with a slight smirk. She had caught a brief glimpse into Mrs. Hess' fears the night she had come here to kill Sophia, and found a woman who was constantly worrying about losing one of her two jobs and being forced to give up her kids because she couldn't provide for them. Boogeyman, for as much as she hated the woman for allowing her daughter's activities to go unchecked, had to feel for the woman's hardship. She had seen firsthand the wear and tear that happened from trying to provide to your family. Her own father had been forced to work double shifts and almost weekly overtime in order to keep themselves and the Union afloat.
Still, understanding the woman's position did little to quench the anger she felt toward her sheer inadequacy as a mother. Honestly, how hard was it to notice that your daughter was a budding sociopath?
The fear and dread that wrapped around the building was almost a physical thing. She could feel the terror rolling from the Hess' room a mere few floors above as helpful news stations informed them just how much of a monster their daughter was. The other occupants of the building fared no better as their own fear coiled and trembled. They all knew what would happen if the Empire came knocking, and white or not they were likely to be labeled "race traitors" for living this close to Sophia and not doing anything.
The stairs under her feet creaked like the screams of a dying woman as she made her way down to the first floor. She paused as she reached the steps that looked down into the lobby below. The room was just as destitute and run down as the rest of the building, even the lock that was supposed to keep the occupants of the building safe was worn down and rusted from years of misuse and disservice. She would be surprised if it even worked.
It was somewhat amusing how little the PRT seemed to care for their Ward and her family. Did they all honesty think that it was impossible for their little "heroes" to be hurt while in their civilian clothing?
Boogeyman was snapped out of her musings by the sound of a group of obnoxiously loud voices echoing from outside.
The Empire had arrived.
The brown shirt, shaved head goons of one of the largest Neo-Nazi groups in the country approached the building with all the subtly of a bull in a china shop. They jostled each other as they tested the door to the building. The frame of the door shook in its hinges, but it surprising held up against their weight.
The door did not hold up against them throwing a rock through the dirty and scratched glass. Boogeyman watched with detached interested as the group shuffled their way through the shattered door, each one being mindful not to cut themselves on the jagged edges. They stopped to mill around in the center of the room while they reoriented themselves, none of them apparently noticing the looming parahuman in the stairwell. They were all armed with makeshift weaponry that varied from baseball bats to crowbars. This wasn't just a pack of stupid kids who didn't fully appreciate the idiocy and evil they were taking part in, these were hardened adults who were ready to commit heinous acts in the name of their twisted philosophy.
"I still don't like this, Ben," one of the younger ones said. His entire form just oozed with nervousness and hesitation to the point that Boogeyman doubted that she would have even needed her powers to recognize the signs. His skin was pale and clammy while his eyes darted around the room nervously. She could feel the second thoughts that he was having about this entire operation and the fear of being locked in a cell for the rest of his natural life.
Boogeyman could feel her lips curling in disgust. If he didn't want to be thrown into prison, then he shouldn't have joined a gang of literal Nazis.
The apparent leader of the group, Ben, snorted back. "You worry too much, Chris. Nobody is going to do anything to us, not with all that crap this kid has done," the man said with a sneer. He was easily the tallest member of the group and had his bare arms covered in various tattoos that were all forms of Nazi imagery and icons. "Now how 'bout we go teach that nigger's family a lesson?"
Most of the group, save the still nervous Chris, broke out into sick grins.
"Is that what you'll do?" Boogeyman asked softly, almost conversationally. She had to hold back an amused grin as the group collectively jumped away from her voice in surprise. "Teach them a lesson?"
"Who the hell are you, bitch?" Ben asked with a snarl as he pulled a snub-nosed pistol from the back of his pants. Despite his angry look, Boogeyman could feel his fear and surprise swirling around on the inside. She had surprised him and shattered his preconceived notion that this entire operation would be a walk in the park. But what was odd was the brief flash of terror of the possibility that she was an Empire cape? Why would a group of Empire thugs be afraid of one of their own capes unless…?
…The Empire didn't know that they were here.
"Someone's been naughty," Boogeyman said in a sing-song voice that sent chills down the spine of more than one of the goons below. "Does your little would-be emperor not know about this?" she asked as she waved her hands to the indicate the building while her mind whirled around the implications of this event.
Kaiser was many things, but short-sighted and foolish were not words that she would use to describe the fascist. Every one of his "public events" were planned out to the highest degree, each one being used at critical points to hone in his gang's message about being "protectors of the white man". While he wasn't above putting the odd civilian or two yo the spike, his victims had always been despised or at the very least uncared for. Nobody was going to swear vengeance for a Jane or John Doe so long as it didn't directly affect them. Nobody was going to want to help the local pedophile as Nazis tore him apart.
Attacking a Ward's family was so far outside of his acceptable target list it wasn't even funny. This was the kind of thing that would bring the wrath of the Protectorate down on his little Empire.
"We don't need permission from Kaiser to help the cause, do we boys?" Ben sneered in defiance, but there were more than a few spikes of fear at the mention of Kaiser not knowing what they were doing. It seemed while the group was eager to let their inner sadists loose on what they deemed as acceptable targets, they also understood the danger of going against their parahuman overlords. All except Ben were coiled with nervousness at the thought of getting on their leader's bad side. Apparently unsatisfied with the lack of vocal responses, Ben turned around to face his little gang and gripped his pistol a little more tightly. "Do we?"
The chorus of agreements were halfhearted at best, but Ben seemed to be satisfied. He turned his attention back to Boogeyman and raised his pistol as a warning. "Now why don't you move out of the way so we can deal with the niggers, girly."
Boogeyman felt one of her nonexistent eyebrows twitch. Girly? She who had made grown men wet their pants out of sheer terror was being called 'girly'? If it wasn't for the fact that most of the lobby was lit out with the rays of the sun, she would have killed him right then and there. As it was, she settled for tearing him apart mentally.
"Tsk, tsk Ben," Boogeyman said with a sneer. "Your parents must be truly disappointed in you. No wonder they left you to an orphanage."
Ben's previously calm façade transformed to one of rage and anger. It was amusing to see how easily he gave into his fear and nightmares. To have to live with the idea that he was absolutely worthless and unwanted as a person, to the point where not even his own parents wanted him. And that was what this entire thing was really about, it wasn't to prove that whites were somehow superior to others, but that he wanted to be recognized as important.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Ben asked as he tightened his grip around his pistol's trigger. It was at this point that Boogeyman realized that the group didn't recognize who she was. With the only real lighting coming from the sun they stairwell was virtually unlit, and her dark form blended into the shadows with absolutely no effort on her part as they clung to her like a second skin. They crept and pulled towards her like pairs of hands seeking an open hug. To them, she was nothing more than an indistinct figure in the hands of an unnaturally deep darkness.
Boogeyman said nothing in response to his question, instead of taking a step forward. More than one of the men flinched at the unearthly sound that the steps made as she slowly made her way down the stairs.
"Who am I?" she asked lightly, a wide grin overtaking her features that made Ben flinch. She stopped just above the first step on the stairwell that was receiving direct illumination from the sun and allowed the shadows to fall away. Chris and a few of the younger and less hardened of the group paled rapidly as her appearance became far more recognizable. Even Ben took a step back at her seemingly towering form.
"I'm the Boogeyman," she said, an amused chuckled bubbling under her calm exterior. She could feel the sweet terror rolling off their forms, a delightful smell to her metaphorical nose. She could tell that most of them had seen her little "get together" with the Merchants and were now reconsidering their plans.
"So, you've heard of me," she said with a wide grin that sent chills down their spines. None of the Nazis nodded. Instead, they were frozen stiff at the sight of a parahuman who had the capability to rip them apart within seconds. "Well then, I suppose you all know what happens to criminals that cross my path?" Oh, the spike of terror at her words was delicious and oh so satisfying.
"I'm not afraid of you," Ben snarled, his finger mere nanometers from squeezing the trigger. She kept smiling at the man even as she saw through his paper-thin lie but also kept a close eye on his pistol. While she doubted that she would die from a gun as small as that when she had survived a point-blank shotgun blast, she didn't feel eager to test her theory quite yet. "None of us are afraid of you, are we?"
The group was caught in the claws in indecision. She could feel their fears warring with each other as they struggled to make up their mind on who scared them the most. Her, or Ben. She could feel the terror that she had inspired coursing through their veins like cold ice, but it was muted by the fear they held for their leader. A man who they had seen commit horrible acts to others without nary a second thought. They knew what Ben would do to them if they tried to run, they had no idea what she would do to them.
I suppose it's time to teach them, Boogeyman thought with great relish. She would show them that her treatment of criminals wasn't limited to the Merchants or the "lesser races" like Sophia. Every criminal would fear her with equal dread and terror. She wasn't one to discriminate.
"I suppose we'll have to see about that, won't we?" Boogeyman said as she drew herself back into the darkness, becoming one herself as she sank into the shadows, becoming nothing more than an indiscriminate blob to the eyes of the Nazis.
"Maybe we should…" one of the men started to say after the intervening silence, only to be cut off by a snarl from Ben.
"We aren't turning back now just because of some pale bitch," he growled, his form wreathed in anger borne from fear. Boogeyman could tell that he wasn't going to change his mind, even with her threat hanging over his shoulders. If anything, he was even more committed to seeing this entire thing through to prove that he wasn't scared of her like he claimed.
"But…" Chris tried to intervene, his face pale. She could feel that the young man was terrified of her and was weighing the odds of how far he would be able to get before a bullet was placed in his back. The fear of Ben killing him was the only thing that was keeping him in place. All she would have to do was show them that they needed to be more concerned about her killing them.
"Do you really think she's going to stop us? You all saw what she did to that nigger," Ben said with a sadistic grin. Boogeyman knew from the moment that she set out against Sophia there would be fools who thought that her actions would align her with the Empire. It appeared that Ben was going to be the first of these fools.
She would just have to correct him of his little misjudgment.
There were few hushed murmurs at Ben's words, a brief relief overtaking the group as the man's racist logic overtook their common sense. They wanted to believe that they were doing what they believe to be the right thing so much that they were willing to ignore the facts laid out before them. It might have been funny if it wasn't so sad.
"Now come on, let's go teach that nigger's family a lesson," Ben said with a smile as he climbed up the darkened stairs. The stair squeaked under his weight, but to the relief to the Nazis, she didn't jump out of the shadows and skewer their leader on a pike. Emboldened by their apparent victory the rest of the gang followed Ben up the stairs as their caution started to be superseded by their bloodlust.
As they climbed up the creaking stairs, Boogeyman followed, her shadowy form slithering up the steps like a dark stain. As they rounded the first corner and lost a direct view of the front door Boogeyman started her work.
"Five little Nazis climbing up the stairs," Boogeyman sang with the voice of a seven-year-old child. The group tensed at her words, each one tightening their grip around their makeshift weaponry in an effort to stave off the fear clinging to them like a second skin.
"Ignore her," Ben growled as he waved his gun in a vaguely threatening manner. The group hesitated for a moment before continuing their way up, though from the shadows Boogeyman could see that each one of them was glancing at every scrap of darkness, looking for her point of entry. Even Ben, who tried to hide his fear behind a wall of anger, couldn't help but let his eyes flicker around the room to ensure his own well-being.
Not that it would save them.
"One died suffocating from a lack of air."
She let the words sink into the group for a split second as she relished in the spike of fear that they all felt at her words. Then, without a moment to lose, she jumped out of the shadows and wrapped her arms around the rear member of the party. The tall but wiry man gasped as his airway was cut off by her supernatural strong arms. He dropped his baseball bat and desperately grasped at her limbs in an attempt to free himself, but he might as well have been trying to carve through solid stone. Just as the rest of the group started to realize what was wrong and turn around to help their comrade Boogeyman pulled.
She could feel the man struggling as she carried him into the shadow realm as he screamed in pure terror. The sound immediately cut off as the entered the other world. The man's eyes bulged out of his sockets as he whirled around, examining his new environment, looking for a means of escape. A futile effort as she and her minions were the only ones that could travel between the two worlds. The man struggled for a few more seconds as his face started to turn blue from a lack of oxygen. Boogeyman was curious to how long he would be able to last before dying, but she had four other Nazis to take care of.
"Four little Nazis climbing up the stairs," she sang as she relished in the panicked screams that came from a few members of the party. She could feel their fear and terror rolling around inside of them as what little critical thinking they had was eaten away.
"One died being stabbed by a spear." Said Nazi didn't even have time to realize what was happening to him as Boogeyman impaled a large spear into where the man's heart was. Or rather now, where the man's heart used to be. Blood and viscera splattered as her cone-ish spear shredded meat and bone in a single move, the tiny grains of sand tearing up everything they touched like a chainsaw. The man in front of him screamed and wet his pants as the warm sticky fluids and bits of his heart were strewn all across his back.
"Ben!" Chris, the man who had been standing in front of the man she had just impaled screamed at the top of his lungs. "Do something!"
The man in question snarled as he tried to hide how pants-shittingly terrified he was from his fellow Nazis. His pistol glinted in the dull lighting as he took aim. His former friend's body hadn't even hit the floor yet when he let his first shot loose. The bang of the gun inside the tiny stairwell was deafening and made Boogeyman's ears ring in displeasure. The shot went wide as a result of the man's tremoring hands. Wood splintered and fragmented and Boogeyman could feel the fear of those living in the apartment complex suddenly redouble at the sound of gunfire.
A second shot rang out and this time Boogeyman grunted as her shoulder was rocked backwards by the blow. She stumbled back a bit, but quickly reoriented herself. Compared to the point-blank shotgun blast she had taken from Skidmark, this was nothing. She gave the remained Nazis an unfriendly smile as the bullet clinked onto the floor. It was more than a little amusing to finally see Ben's anger give way to his fear as the full realization of how screwed he was hit him.
"Run!" Chris screamed as he and the others started to fight to get away from her and up the stairs first.
"Three little Nazis climbing up the stairs," Boogeyman sang as her scythe formed in her hands. Chris, who had the misfortune of being the last member of the group, turned around, eyes bulging out of his skull in pure terror as she raised the deadly farming instrument.
"One died from his neck being sheared." The blade swung down, splintering wood and plaster as the arc carved along the walls before finally slicing the man's neck. Chris' head rolled down a few steps with his expression of pure horror forever frozen on his face. His body remained standing for a moment longer before it slumped to the ground like a puppet that had it string cut. As she stepped over the body and climbed up the stairs, she could hear the last two Nazis fighting it out for whoever got to die next.
As if they had a choice in the matter.
"Two little Nazis climbing up the stairs," she sang as she rounded the corner. The man who wasn't Ben was clutching his nose as the aforementioned Nazi raced up the stairwell as he tried to save his own hide.
"One died trampled by some mares." At her command, the Nightmares that she had gathered erupted from the shadows like a herd of the damned. In the narrow stairwell, they couldn't manifest completely, instead retaining a wispier quality as they descended on the screaming man like a pack of starving wolves. Boogeyman didn't bother to watch, she already knew what was going to happen to him.
She weaved around the black writhing mass, ignoring the terrified screams as they started to die out. She'd give him a minute before he finally died. As they rounded the corner to the third floor, she found Ben desperately clawing at the doors, looking for a way to get out of this nightmare.
"One little Nazi climbing up the stairs." The man spun around, arms shaking as he held his pistol in her direction, but to her, he might as well have been waving a wet noodle in her face.
"He died because he couldn't face his fears."
The man crumpled in on himself as she approached him. She loomed over him like a massive bird of prey, her very form blocking out what little light remained. She smiled at the small and pathetic whimper he gave her as he tried to back away from her, to escape her grasp, only to hit his back against the wall. She could feel his fear of dying or being torn to pieces as his friends had. She decided to relieve him of that fear.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you," Boogeyman said with a small knowing smile.
She could feel a small spark of hope flicker inside the man at her words. "Y-you aren't?"
"No, I'm going to do something worse." Whatever relief the man felt was quickly swept away by a tidal wave of terror. She could practically hear his bones cracking against each other as he shook on the spot. A dark stain spread across his pants as she drew herself in closer. The man gagged and sputtered as her hand wrapped around his throat like a vice and pulled him off the ground. As he struggled impotently against her iron grip she slammed him into the wall, knocking the air out of him.
"Y-you can't do this," Ben said, his face as white as a sheet and eyes as wide as dinner plates as he tried to get her to back off. She could feel his pulse slamming against his flesh like a jackhammer as she held him up against the wall like a toy. She could feel his fear of being helpless bubbling to the surface like tar, consuming everything it touched. The man was terrified because he was no longer in command, no longer in control. Boogeyman had all the power and Ben knew it.
And it terrified him.
"Of course I can do this to you," Boogeyman said in a tone that one would usually reserve for when they were talking with a particularly thick child. "You're a Nazi, I could skin you alive and wear your face for a mask and nothing of consequence would be lost."
She smiled at the bone-chilling terror that shot up his spine at her callous attitude towards his life. Did he really think that after a lifetime of treating other people like dirt that he thought that he could pull the morality card on her after having ignored his own for so long?
"Tell me, and do be honest," Boogeyman said with a smile. "What did you think of my little song? It still needs some work, and it probably won't be winning any music awards anytime soon, but I'm quite proud of it. What do you think?" The man whimpered as memories of his friend's deaths flashed through his mind.
"I still haven't quite worked out what the final verse will be, but that's what you're here for aren't you?" Boogeyman said. The man's eyes were so wide now that if they got any bigger they were liable to pop like a pair of overinflated balloons. Boogeyman felt her grin stretch even wider as a blade of sand formed in her free hand. Ben whimpered and tried to move away from the insanely sharp blade being brought within millimeters of his face, but he couldn't move at all in Boogeyman's unyielding grip.
"I really need something that will hit home the consequences of being a Nazi," Boogeyman said in a musing tone as the tip of the blade traced the man's cheek. The man flinched as his skin broke along the thin tip of the blade, a single trickle of blood running down his face as he whimpered, his face as pale as death. "It needs to be something that everyone in your little army can relate to," Boogeyman continued, unconcerned with her victim's state of mind.
"You've said a lot of hateful things, haven't you? Maybe I should take your tongue," Boogeyman said as she allowed her knife to draw closer to the man's mouth. The man tried to struggle against her grip in a raw untamed panic, but it still did nothing more than ruffle her robes as his legs kicked the empty air.
"Or maybe I should just skin you," Boogeyman mused as she ignored the man's muted cries for help. "It be pretty hard to claim that your skin color is superior when you don't have any, don't you think?" The man screamed behind her hand at her words as his pulse beat against her cold lifeless fingers like a drum.
"You know, you're not that different from Sophia Hess," Boogeyman said in a conversational tone as her cold yellow eyes studied the man's form like he was a particularly interesting insect. Ben didn't stop squirming under her grip, but he did calm down a little once he realized she wasn't mutilating him quite yet. "People like you and Sophia, you always have to be stronger than someone, don't you? Because none of you can stand the idea that you're weak, there always has to be someone or some group of people beneath you so that you can feel better about yourself. It's pathetic, really."
Boogeyman carried on with her minor rant as she waved her knife in the air while her grip around the man's jaw started to tighten. "I mean, it's ridiculous the lengths that people like you go to, to provide yourself with the illusion of strength. And the moment that illusion shatters, you all act like a bunch of broken cowards. Your true colors, I suppose," Boogeyman said with a look of distaste marring her features.
"But you know what really irks me?" Boogeyman asked as she stared the man in the eyes. The man shivered but shook his head the best he could. It came across like the thrashing of a dying fish, but Boogeyman got the idea. "It's that behind each one of you is a system. A set or group of people that enable your behaviors and encourage you to continue it, and no matter how many of you I'll kill, the system will just make more," she groused with a dark look.
"So, I'm going to break the system," Boogeyman said, her tone taking a gleeful and disturbing aspect that sent shivers down the man's spine. "The PRT tried to contain it, to keep the damage away from those that 'matter', but all they've done is allow it to spread like a weed. They've allowed themselves to enable your behavior and have convinced the city that this is the best that they can do. After all, if they can't stop you, then what's the point in trying?"
Ben shivered at the cold spark in her empty yellow eyes that seemed to stare into his very soul. "But the only way to deal with a weed is to pull it out by the roots," Boogeyman hissed, her tone as cold as liquid nitrogen. "So, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to rip your precious little Empire to pieces and bring your whole system crashing down. My video to the city was a Declaration of War, but you? You're my declaration of intent."
The knife in her hand suddenly took a serrated edge as it drew far closer to his flesh than Ben would have liked. Boogeyman reveled in the Nazi's terror as the tip of her blade depressed against his skin and drew the tiniest traces of blood to run down the black blade.
"FREEZE!"
Boogeyman paused as a warm feeling of relief passed through the man's system. She dismissed her blade and slowly turned around to face the interloper.
Miss Militia stood in front of the open stairwell, her scarf covered most of her face, but it did little to detract from her piercing eyes as they stared her down. On the outside, Boogeyman kept up her calm appearance, while on the inside she was kicking herself for allowing herself to be so intoxicated by the Nazi's fear that she didn't even notice someone else entering her range. It was a mistake that she wouldn't allow herself to make again, but all she could do now was roll with the punches.
"Miss Militia," she said in a calm and even tone while her mouth stretched into a wide unsettling grin. "So nice to finally meet you."
Special Thanks to my Patrons: Velzon, Sphinxes, Sanjay and xxpowerxx1qz