Barbara lead the way down the eastern branch of the cave system. Luckily, there had been a step up to enter the cave, so the water came to the middle of her thigh. Even so, the water resistance made it hard to walk forward with any kind of speed and made her legs burn with the effort it took to keep moving forward.
The water was still cold, but her body had adjusted so that she no longer noticed it. The caves were deadly quiet around her, except for the sound of loud splashing that their combined walking made as they slowly advanced.
Per Barbara's instructions, the group was walking in a very specific formation. Barbara was at the front of the group and holding the floodlight, their most powerful light, in front of her and periodically sweeping it to the left and right. Walking slightly behind and to the left and right of her were Tim and Steph, who were holding their own flashlights and shining them wherever her floodlight wasn't pointing. Behind them were Bruce, Damian and Selina with Damian in the middle.
It had been Barbara's idea to keep Damian and Bruce in the center of their group to give them as much cover as possible. Arguably, the two of them were the focus of the supernatural happenings, judging from the occurrences so far. Bruce had been reluctant initially, but putting him on the outside with Selina had seemed to assuage his hurt pride somewhat. All three of them also had flashlights, the two adults sticking close to Damian.
Finally, Dick and Jason were bringing up the rear, trying to keep their eyes toward their back as much as possible.
"Something's here," Jason whispered harshly, breaking the tense silence that all of them had been walking in for some number of minutes.
Everyone stopped walking, looking around nervously, flashlights flicking over dripping rock walls and rough but clear water.
"Don't stop moving," Barbara admonished them, pausing only to glance backward at everyone meaningfully before she started walking steadily forward again, slower now and moving her light around the cave with more purpose.
"How do you know something's here?" Barbara heard Dick whisper above the sound of their combined walking that stirred the water around them.
"I'm not just here for show, Dick," was Jason's caustic return. Barbara wasn't sure if he meant Dick's name or the cuss word.
"Oh. Right," she heard Dick mutter indistinctly, before another unfamiliar voice echoed through the cavern with them.
It was high pitched, making it sound very young and possibly feminine. Again, everyone in the group was brought to a quick halt in surprise only to be pushed back into movement by Barbara's sharp whisper of "Keep moving!"
As they continued to walk, the voice got louder and more distinct.
"Damian," was the first word that Barbara made out for sure, followed by "Where are you all going?" The young voice sounded distressed, even a little watery, its words wavering slightly with each intonation.
The disembodied voice continued on like that for some time, her questioning becoming more distraught and desperate the farther they went, not to mention clearer and louder. Finally, after one very loud cry of "Why are you leaving?" Barbara had to stop as her spotlight shined briefly on the indistinct figure of a small girl in pigtails standing against the right side of the cave.
Trying her best to follow her own advice, Barbara very slowly and deliberately stepped forward, keeping her light trained on the figure all the while.
The little's girl's skin was white, very white, like parchment paper. Her dark blue eyes were sunk deep in her head and her lips were a pale petal pink. She was dressed in a sailor outfit, navy blue with white striping along the collar and the edge of her pleated skirt with a white kerchief tied around her neck. Below the water, Barbara could make out white knee high socks with a matching navy blue ring around the top and black mary janes on her feet. Her black hair was tied in pigtails with blue ribbons and her eyes were wet with tears.
She wrung her small chubby white hands together and asked in a smaller voice, "Where are you going?"
"Don't talk to her," Barbara whispered, cutting a look back at the group of people behind her. They all looked pale and their expressions varied from terrified to pitying. She noted that Damian's eyes were especially wide and his mouth was open as if he wanted to say something, but couldn't conjure the words. Barbara didn't fail to notice Bruce had a hand on Damian's back, gently urging him forward.
"Why are you leaving?" the girl cried as they moved to walk past her, a sob tagging along quickly with her words, her face crumpling and the tears coming faster now.
"Are you just going to leave me here?" she flung angrily at their backs as they slowly trudged away through the water. None of them answered her and none, save Damian, turned to look at her as they left.
Afterward, the only sound they heard in the cave were the slowly diminishing sound of the girl's heartbroken sobs and their own footsteps.
A few minutes later, after the crying had finally receded into silence, Selina muttered, "Well, I'm not going to sleep well after this," with a hint of self-reproach.
"Were you going to before?" Tim asked dryly.
"Pipe down, you guys," Jason broke in on them, "and get ready for round two."
"You can't be serious," Steph whispered, perhaps only to herself.
"As a funeral," Jason answered anyway.
Sure enough, shortly after Jason had warned them, the sound of female laughter started to echo faintly around them. Weakly, at first, then stronger as they moved closer. The sound was flirtatious initially, warm and inviting, but changing into something harsh and cruel by the time that Barbara's floodlight finally illuminated its source.
What was obviously Olivia Havilland, the famous and mysterious 1930s Hollywood actress whose picture leant itself to the walls of the game room high above them, leaned against the cold stone cave wall and regarded them coldly.
She was dressed beautifully in a shining red satin dress that hugged her every curve, and she had many of them. The dress dipped low in the front to showcase a deep set of cleavage and was cut high on the side to show the long set of her perfectly shaped legs. Her dark lustrous brown hair was done up in finger waves and her lips were painted cherry red, her eyes smudged with artful dark makeup. Barbara could make out a set of matching red high heels in the clear water.
"Where do you think you boys are going?" she asked, her voice deep and smokey, a playful cant to her hips. "Surely you don't think you're leaving the Manor?"
Following Barbara's previous advice, none of them spoke to her and a few of them (Jason and Bruce) made a point of not even looking at her.
This seemed to make her angry and, as they passed her without a word or reaction, her face changed from one of sexual invitation to one of derision and disgust.
"If you think you can get out of here, you're a lot stupider than you look!" she yelled at them as they passed her, her stance falling out of its relaxed stance and into an aggressive one, her head thrust forward and her hands in fists at her sides. "Don't you think all those other Wayne boys tried at one point or another? All those other psychics?" she spat the last word. "You'll never leave here alive!" she screamed after them, her last word echoing after them long after they had passed and left her in complete darkness.
They kept walking forward for what seemed like a long time after passing the apparition of Olivia Havilland.
"Is this going to be a theme or something?" Tim asked quietly over the splashing of their feet collectively pushing through the water around them. His voice wavered, despite the bravado of the words themselves.
"I've never felt this much emotional spirit bullshit focused in one place in my whole life," Jason added, his voice sounding a little rusted itself. "I don't think that those two are the only ones who are going to show their ugly mugs before this is through."
"Whatever they throw at us," Barbara cut in sharply, "we'll get through it."
They continued silently for another few minutes, just the light of their flashlights, the sound of their footfalls in the water and their own heavy breathing to keep them company.
"It's happening again," Jason warned as the temperature in the cave dropped a few degrees.
They continued on silently with no sound to alert them to the presence of anything other than each other in the cave, until the edge of a flashlight lit on a shock of pink.
Faltering, Steph, Barbara and many others pointed their flashlights toward where the quick flash of color had come from. They all found themselves pointing their lights at Vicki Vale's pale angry visage.
"Vicki," Bruce whispered, stepping forward before Selina's hand on his elbow stopped him.
She looked much like she had in the solarium. She was still wearing a soft pink cashmere sweater, dark worn jeans and a pair of sporty sneakers. Her hair was no longer lank and dirty, but soft and coiffed like she normally wore it, garishly red in the dark cave. Her skin no longer looked oily and waxy, but was more pale than before, her bright blue eyes pale like the eyes of a dead fish and sunk deep into dark eye sockets. Her lips looked swollen, obscenely red and the blue veins beneath her skin could easily be seen in the bright flashlight beams.
"So, that's it, huh?" she rasped quietly, not taking her eyes off of Bruce. "You're all going to escape together and just leave me behind?"
"Vicki," Bruce said again, Selina's hand still firmly holding him in place.
"I guess I never mattered, did I?" she asked, an accusation and a sob of self-deprecation hiding behind her words. "You're always the hero of your own story, Bruce Wayne," she snapped, her brow crumbling with the words. "There's never any spotlight left for anyone, but you. So, just go! Forget about me!"
Vicki folded soft white delicate looking hands over her face and bowed her head as Barbara tugged and gestured for the group to keep moving.
"I know you meant to anyway," Vicki's soft lament followed them as they moved away from her, abandoning what was left of the female reporter to the beast that was Wayne Manor.
They kept walking, silence falling again, guilt and confusion seething in the silence until Selina broke it by saying, "What is the meaning of all this?" Her hand tightened where it was still hooked in Bruce's elbow. He had no intentions of shaking her off. "They all line up like little toy soldiers and we walk by as they shout their regrets at us. What's the point?"
"Maybe they're just following the source of their energy," Barbara suggested, cutting a backward glance toward Damian who was walking to the right of his father now, maintaining the eerie silence he had started since he first fell unconscious. "Because Damian is down here, so are the ghosts," she added.
"Nah," Jason said dismissively. "The big bad bitch is sending them to try and scare us off. Obviously they're not as put off by the light as she is," he said, shaking his flashlight at the ceiling for full effect.
Dick laughed nervously. "You really are some kind of expert on this ghost stuff, I guess."
Jason huffed, deflating and folding in on himself at the compliment. Dick frowned, but didn't comment any further, taking the hint. Obviously, his talent wasn't something he was proud of.
"Either way, there's no more, right?" Steph asked hopefully, shining her light down the cave and into the heavy darkness ahead of them.
"There's more," Jason sighed. "Two or three is my guess. Not counting our lady captor."
The rest of them fell silence, the strain and fear of meeting their, up til now, dead and invisible house companions weighing on them heavily.
Jason didn't bother to say anything when the distinct feeling cold invaded his limbs, the feeling that indicated to him that a dead spirit was around. He could feel the tenseness in the group and knew that they were already expecting it.
They heard rattling breath and nervous laugh before they saw him standing slightly bent along the right side of the cave. Bruce corralled Damian back between himself and Selina, finally allowing her hand to slip off of his arm.
Allan Wayne was dressed in a black tuxedo with a starched white shirt. He was bent slightly forward, his long bony hands pressed against his sternum as quiet nervous laughter filtered out of his mouth. His dark hair looked like it had been slicked to the side at one time, but was falling free of its mold a few strands at a time. Above the starched white collar of his shirt were livid purple marks on his neck, similar to what might be left by a noose.
"Allan Wayne," Damian muttered, recognizing his ancestor from the stories and pictures he had seen.
As soon as they came even with the quietly laughing apparition of the long dead Wayne scion, he froze as if he had suddenly run out of air and looked up at them with wild eyes, his pupils blown so wide that only a thin ring of watery blue hugged them.
"It's not safe here," he muttered urgently. "It's not safe."
"Keep moving," Barbara frowned, marching forward steadfastly herself. The others weren't as fast, lingering slightly in front of the dead man.
"It was safe in the Manor. I could protect you somewhat there," Allan said, almost to himself, his eyes not training on any single one of them. "She's far too strong here. This is what she wants. You're playing right into her hands," Allan whispered urgently.
Suddenly, the ghost lunged and grasped onto Jason's sleeve pulling desperately. Steph gasped before covering her mouth, sounding out the surprise that everyone else in the group felt at seeing an apparition actually touch and effect something and someone in the physical realm.
Jason didn't share their surprise or their fear. He harshly shook off the old man, disgust curling his lip as he snarled, "Fuck off! Why don't you parrot her some more?"
The ghost stumbled back a few steps and then looked up at Jason confused for a moment. Everyone frozen, save Jason, who folded his arms over his broad chest and frowned down at the apparition in challenge.
Allan Wayne's lips twitched and then pulled themselves into a manic grin before he folded over himself again, hands pressed to his chest, head bowed, rocking back and forth slightly as he giggled to himself.
Huffing out a dismissive breath, Jason turned away from the ghost and started walking slowly forward again. Taking his cue, the other's did the same, turning away from the apparition of Allan Wayne and moving forward.
When the silence became too heavy, Steph squeaked hesitantly, "Is it really safer upstairs?"
"No!" Jason, Barbara and Bruce answered her in unison. The three looked at each other bashfully, before Barbara explained, "No, honey. Jason was right. They're taking their lines from the woman. She can't face us directly, so she's sending other ghosts to do her dirty work."
Steph nodded to indicate her understanding, but her expression stayed doubtful and scared. Tim sent her a sympathetic look, hoping that she understood that he felt the same way.
It seemed like they walked a long time in silence after that, the longest between meeting any ghosts since the first one. As they continued forward, the cave started to curve slightly toward their right. The floor widened even as the ceiling grew lower, the stalactites started to reach low enough to cause them to have to detour and duck around them and sometimes growing into large columns along the walls.
It was past one of these columns that Barbara's light momentarily lit up left half of a man tucked behind one. He was revealed so quickly that Barbara jumped and let out an undignified squeak at the sight of him, before quickly smoothing herself back down with an embarrassed, "Excuse me."
The group gave the ghost a wide berth with the extra room afforded by the wider cave as they pointed their flashlights at him.
He was dressed in some kind of period clothing, a thick dark blue wool coat with tarnished brass buttons, heavy tan linen pants tucked into the tops of black leather boots that looked like they had seen better days. There was a leather strap across his chest and an old musket attached to it, slung across his back. He was wearing a wide brimmed hat and had a black handkerchief tied over his nose and mouth, sharp mean looking dark blue eyes glinted in the electric light back at them under thick dark brows.
Then, there was the knife. It had a black handle with a silver pommel and was embedded deep in the man's chest, just to the right of his sternum. There was a dark stain around the blade that bled slightly downward across his coat.
"Joshua Wayne," Bruce breathed as he shuffled past the man. At his name, the man's eyes snapped to Bruce and didn't leave him until they were many yards past him.
"Who is Joshua Wayne?" Damian asked quietly when they were past him.
"He died in the Civil War," Bruce replied simply, not wanting to go into details. Like how Joshua Wayne had been heavily involved in the Civil War fighting for the Union. Or, how his primary job in the war was ferreting out spies within the Union army and killing them. Or, how he was killed on the ground where the Manor would eventually be built after confronting a confederate spy. He didn't need to add to the dark thoughts already swirling in his son's head.
The dead eyes of Joshua Wayne left the group feeling as unnerved as they had when the ghosts had first started showing up. They squeezed closer to one another as they traveled forward silently. As they did so, the cave continued to widen and the smell of the ocean's salt started to come in on the breeze.
"We have to be getting close," Tim said quietly as the distant sound of waves crashing against the cliff started to echo through the still cavern.
The sound and smell of the ocean got stronger until they finally say a faint light appear around a corner, the half light of a cloudy night sky shining down on the rocky cliffs of the north east coast. Silhouetted sharply standing along the lip of the cave, frothy white waves stirring around her ankles, was a woman.
Her long wavy black hair hung over her shoulders, over the swell of her breasts and past her tightly cinched waist to swing at her hips. Her skin was pale white in the thin light afforded by the moon and stars hidden behind a thin veil of clouds. She wore a threadbare and torn black dress with a full skirt that stirred around her bare feet and ankles with the incoming tide.
Her face was not hidden behind her hair and in the soft light it was beautiful. She had full lips, dark eyes framed by long full lashes and an artfully crafted brow over high cheekbones. Her face was beautiful, even though it was contorted into a wrathful expression.
"You will go no further," she spoke, her voice low and harsh like the waves crashing around her, barely audible as it melted into the sound of the sea.
She stretched her arm out and as she did so the shadows milling around her feet stretched out as well, far beyond the reach of her long thin white fingers. Darkly defined shadows twined beneath the churning water around their feet, their trajectory determined and fast unfolding.
Barbara quickly pointed her floodlight down around them and watched as the shadows twitched sharply before dissolving into the opaque water around them.
The woman hissed in a breath, curling her full plum colored lips away from a set of straight white teeth. Dark eyes focused accusingly on Barbara and the hand that was once outstretched clutched at her heaving chest.
"This stops here!" another voice called out, strong and feminine, loud and unwavering. It was so different from the softer and breathier voice of the dark haired woman in front of them as to be immediately noticeable.
The heads of everyone in the group as well as multiple shafts of flashlight light cast around the cave in panic until they started to land on the figure of a woman standing to the left of the entrance and becoming more solid the longer she stood there.
She appeared as a pale red haired woman in a dark green velvet dress. Although, her hair was more of a bright orange than red, piled on top of her head and curling in wisps around her face. Her eyes were dark brown smudges in a proud and angular face. Her form was much less real than the woman standing in the center of the cave's mouth. She was like smoke momentarily forming an image of color and shape, shifting out of focus for a moment, only to twist back together into sharp again.
"You can't stop me," the dark haired woman sneared, as the group held very still, thrown off by the appearance of the red haired woman. "You can't stop anyone!" she hissed and the sound of the waves behind her rose and grew more fervent as if responding to her turbulent emotions.
"Quite the contrary," the red haired woman's cultured voice responded, her mouth twisting to indicate a crooked smirk before her form fell apart, her colors running and shifting as she blew toward the dark haired woman, dark greens, pale cream and bright orange twisting around the woman that blocked their path, causing her to wave her hands and scream, stumbling and twisting every which way. She appeared that she couldn't decide whether to flee from the other woman's assault or to try to stand her ground and block their way.
After only a moment's hesitation, Barbara shouted, "Run!" grabbing Tim by his elbow and hauling him along behind her, trusting that the others would follow.
Her trust was wisely placed, as the rest of her group did follow her as she ran to the far right of the cavern, giving the two tussling ghosts room to spare as she hustled out into the brisk ocean air and onto the gravel shore a few feet below. The water pooled around her waist, high tide coming in with a vengeance, the waves throwing her and Tim against the rock wall as they stumbled outside.
She cast around wildly, praying that her map was right and that the stairs would be nearby. Just a few feet to her right she saw the stone steps cut into the side of the cliff. They were precarious, shining wet with the ocean spray coming up around them. The bottom steps were so badly worn that just the suggestion of steps were left, years of crashing ocean surface having slowly chipped away at their definition.
She tugged Tim toward the stairs and, once she was sure he was following, let go of him so that he would stop crashing into her every time a wave came in. Ascending the stairs was treacherous and she went on all fours at first, hands and feet getting nearly no traction against the slippery well worn stone. The higher she climbed, however, the dryer and rougher the stone got until she felt confident about standing on two feet and pressing her hands against the rock wall to her right.
Looking back, she saw the string of people following her, making much the same movements she had made just moments ago. Tim and Steph were cautiously getting to their feet behind her, as was Damian. Bruce and Selina kept their fingertips brushing the steps in front of them and Dick and Jason appeared to be fully crouched over, still soaked by the surf and pushing one another away from the entrance just behind them.
"No!" a voice like the ocean screamed and the sound was like wind struggling against the cliff face. The voice was chased by a mocking laugh, loud and strong and obviously emanating from the cave that they were busy trying to escape.
Barbara ignored the voices, pushing through the feeling of her own heart pounding in fear behind her ribs, and climbed the dangerous staircase as quickly as she could manage and still stay safely pressed to the cliff face.
When she finally reached the top of the stairs she collapsed on her hands and knees into the soft high grass a few feet from the edge. She kept her head down as she heard and felt other people come up the stairs behind her and collapse in limp soggy heaps around her.
Once her heart stopped hurting from all the shocks it had suffered in just the last few hours alone and her stomach had settled somewhat, she lifted her head to survey their surroundings. The first thing she saw was the imposing figure of Wayne Manor standing on a high hilltop above them. The moonlight was breaking through the clouds, shining brightly enough through the low hanging cloud to illuminate the Manor's high stone walls and large overgrown trees that were unable to overtake her tall towers and branching wings.
Barbara put her head down on the grass and decided that she didn't want to look up again.