Another thing has been asked of me, and I feel should explain why I'm doing things the way I am. I've been asked to include more about BJ and Lydia in the story. Although I do realize this is a Beetlejuice story, BJ isn't the only character to write about. Sometimes I feel bad for saying that, but it's entirely true. The way I have things going, I have five major characters and a multitude of supporting characters to write about. And if you really think about it, we already know a lot about BJ and Lydia to begin with as almost the entire first story (BJA - A New Beginning) was about them and their growing relationship. Now we know they're together, we know they're doin' the funky in bed, so why repeat the same information and actions over and over about characters we already know about when there are about three more new people to get to know? I feel (and I'm guessing here) that this story shares 50/50 with the new and old characters. Okay? Is everybody okay with that? Hope so, because I'm not changing anything. ^_~ *Hugs everyone for being good sports*
And I can't forget...Thank you for your reviews! They are always welcome and appreciated!
Spencers13 2002
Beta Reader — Rachel
PG-13 — Sci-Fi/Fantasy — Action Drama
Story concept, Endri, Kyle, Avo, Dr. Pepper, Faygo © Spencers13
Kiara & Jumper © readbooks__172
Beetlejuice and all other BJ characters are © Geffen Film Co.
Dr Pepper (the soft drink - with no period ".") © Dr Pepper/Seven-Up Inc.
Faygo (the soft drink) © Faygo Beverages Inc.
Chapter 20 - The Limbo Drinker
"Wake up!"
Water splashed into Beetlejuice's face, and he started awake, shaking the wetness off and blinking his bleary eyes. He saw no one in the darkened room, but did notice a bright light being shown on him from above. Looking to the left, he noticed Kyle trying to adjust to their surroundings as well. The ghoul finally realized that they were both tied to wooden chairs with their arms behind their backs.
"Good you're awake," a monotone, throaty voice echoed in the room all around them. "I have some questions to ask you, Mr. Juice."
Kyle leaned over as best he could and whispered, "Beetle where are we?"
The ghoul snarled. "In the clutches of the NBI: Neitherworld Bureau of Investigation. They're a bunch of lowdown, dirty rats"
A rat skittered across the floor into the circle of light surrounding the two bound figures. It looked up at them and twitched its whiskers. "I resent that!" it squeaked before scuttling off.
Beetlejuice and Kyle blinked.
"Now, Mr. Juice," the voice continued very slowly, "Tell us how you came to be involved with the Limbo Drinker."
"Limbo what?"
"The creature you claim to have killed."
"Oh, that thing? I owed it one," he muttered dangerously.
"Tell me how you were able to fell the Limbo Drinker."
"I ain't talkin'! I want a lawyer!" Beetlejuice shouted into the dark room, struggling in the chair.
The voice took on a smugness that the two men didn't think possible. "I suggest you cooperate, Mr. Juice, or you may find your stay here unpleasant."
A skeleton dressed in white scrubs and a face mask wheeled in a cart with some very nasty-looking tools on it.
Kyle and Beetlejuice gulped.
"Mmmmaybe you should talk," Kyle suggested.
Beetlejuice took to hoping around in the chair. "If I could just get Hey!" The skeleton, with a tool that looked like a drill in hand, stopped advancing on him. "Gah! I'm so stupid!"
With a small yellow flash, he turned two of his fingers into a pair of scissors and snipped the ropes away. He stood up, tossing the remaining strands of rope to the side. Staring at the skeleton with the shiny drill, he gave him the ugliest grin he could muster, and the skeleton dropped his tool and ran away into the darkness of the room.
"Guards!" the monotone voice shouted.
A dozen men rushed into the circle of light surrounding Beetlejuice, all ready to attack on command. The ghoul sized them all up and took on a defensive posture. His voice became thick and raspy when he spoke, and his words came slowly, testosterone dripping from them.
"Come-on! Who wants some? Huh?!" He slowly turned in a circle and pointed to one guy. "You!"
The ghoul looked around at his peers then back to Beetlejuice, pointing a questioning finger at himself.
"Yeah you. You want some, don'tcha?"
The guy shook his head and ran off, intimidated.
Beetlejuice reached into his pants pocket with his left hand and whipped out a shotgun. His right hand disappeared into his jacket, and when it emerged, it had transformed into a dirty red chainsaw.
"I got some for everyone, baby!" he growled in the same thick voice.
All the guards pulled out automatic weapons and cocked them at Beetlejuice.
"Groovy," he purred.
"All right, boys. That's enough fun for today," a pleasant female voice issued from the darkness.
All the men lowered their weapons, but Beetlejuice stood firm.
"Why don't you testosterone bags untie the other one and get outta here?" she suggested.
One ghoul moved to untie Kyle, and the human stood, massaging his sore wrists. The guards left the lighted area of the room and filed outside, closing a door behind them.
"Sorry about all that," the woman continued when the three of them were alone. "I didn't think they'd be so rough." She flipped a light switch on, and the rest of the room brightened, illuminating her standing near the closed door.
The woman wore a white, calf-length lab coat, a grey blouse and black slacks underneath. Her red hair was the color of fire and drifted to just her shoulders, and her ruby red eyes sparkled behind some loose strands. Delicately pointed ears poked out through her fiery locks as well. Her skin was as white as her lab coat but with a creamier, milky tint.
Beetlejuice put his weapons back into his clothes and tried to ignore her stunning beauty, but Kyle just soaked it all in.
"I'm anxious to talk to you both. You were able to accomplish something I've spent my entire time here in the Neitherworld trying to do."
"Wait a minute," Beetlejuice halted everything. "Who are you?"
The woman smiled gently, casting a quick glance to Kyle before she answered. "My name is Dr. Pepper. You can just call me Pepper if you want, but call me 'Peppy', and I'll use those on you myself," she warned, pointing toward the tray of nasty tools.
"Whoa! No problem!" Beetlejuice agreed.
Kyle walked up slowly and extended his hand. "It's nice to meet you, Doctor. My name is Kyle."
Pepper smiled warmly at him and took his hand but didn't shake it. "I know." The human raised an eyebrow but wasn't able to ask anything before the redhead spoke up again. "Follow me, gentlemen. I'm sure we all have questions that need answering." She released Kyle's hand and turned to walk for the door.
Beetlejuice and Kyle shrugged, then followed. They exited the door and walked a pace behind Pepper as she lead them down a huge hallway with lab doors on each side, stretching almost as far as the eye could see.
"Where are we?" Kyle asked, looking almost like he was suffering from vertigo.
"A lab based in the outskirts of Catmandu. No one knows of its existence but a select few," Pepper answered, not looking back.
"What are we doing here," Beetlejuice wondered.
"My officials tell me that you two killed the Limbo Drinker. I want to know how."
Beetlejuice snorted. "I shot the stupid thing."
"With what?"
"My powers."
Pepper stopped and turned into a room on their left. She picked up a small scanning device from a table near the door and ran it in front of Beetlejuice's body. Pushing a few buttons, she read over the readout and looked up at him.
"Your power level is extremely high; higher than most ghosts or ghouls ever get. How did you do this?"
He shrugged. "Practice?"
Pepper bit her lip. "Are there any others like you?"
Beetlejuice lowered his head a bit, sadness pulling at the corners of his mouth and eyes. "Yes but he's gone."
"Gone?"
"That Limbo thing killed him!" he growled. "It brought him back to life and killed him!"
Pepper looked on him with sympathy. "I'm sorry."
He calmed a bit, not able to hold onto his anger for long, as the fatigue he felt set in a little more. "Yeah, well I got the bastard back."
"Don't celebrate too soon. It's a lot harder to kill than you may think. I suspect it isn't even dead yet, just hibernating until it repairs its body."
"Well, why don't you just cut it up into little pieces then? You guys seem good at that."
"It isn't that simple, Mr. Juice."
"Ah! How is it everyone knows my name?!"
Pepper smirked at him. "Don't be so modest, Mr. Juice. Everyone in the Neitherworld knows who you are."
Beetlejuice grumbled as they left the room to continue down the hall.
After a while, Kyle finally spoke back up. "Doctor?" Pepper turned to smile sweetly at him, and it made him blush and look down at his feet. "Um the creature told me that it found a way to reanimate ghosts. How is that possible?"
The female ghost looked forward again. "It's an unsavory process. Bursts of electricity are introduced into the body in several key points: the brain, heart and lungs. The energy must then travel about the body reanimating the rest of the organs. It can be done to anything that was alive before, but the process won't work on ghouls since they weren't alive before."
Beetlejuice humphed.
"How did you come to know all that?" Kyle asked.
"I and several of my colleagues discovered the process several years ago. It will never be used by us, though."
"Why not?" Beetlejuice asked. "You could bring people back to life. They could live all over again; do things right the next time around."
"True," Pepper agreed, "but things and people die for a reason. It would upset the balance of the Neitherworld to tamper with that process of life and death."
Beetlejuice and Kyle nodded in understanding, and they continued walking in silence. They stopped in front of a huge glass window looking into a gigantic, square white room with the Limbo Drinker lying on the floor.
"Look at it," Pepper said in disgust. "It's regenerating even as we speak. Filthy thing."
"Why did you bring it here," Kyle asked quietly.
"As much as I wish I wasn't, I'm the only expert in the Neitherworld on this thing, but there is still much I don't know. This is the first time I've been able to study it up close. All previous attempts to capture it have failed miserably. I need to figure out how to kill it permanently so it can never steal people's Zeta energy again."
Kyle was rapidly being sucked into the conversation. All of this was right up his alley. "Zeta energy?"
Pepper crossed her arms and stared at the Limbo Drinker through the glass. "When Humans die, their bodies release waves of energy as they make the transition between life and death. I've named it Zeta energy. The Limbo Drinker collects this energy and 'eats' it, giving itself more power and strength."
"Why do you call it a 'Limbo Drinker'?"
"It takes the energy given off between life and death. Zeta waves come from a sort of 'limbo' an emptiness in that void of a few seconds or minutes as a person dies. It 'drinks' the energy from a 'limbo'."
Kyle stared at the thing wide-eyed. "Wow"
Pepper turned to Beetlejuice. "What I find fascinating is how powerful you've become. From what I understand, people used to be afraid of your words because they had a habit of becoming reality. You don't seem to have that problem now."
The ghoul chuckled. "Yeah my puns. Well, back then, I didn't have a firm grip on myself, ya know? So my powers would literally translate my words on their own 'cause they needed to be released some way. A few years ago, I started to buckle down and get a hold of myself. Now I can control it."
"Amazing," Pepper mumbled, pulling out her scanning device again. She tweaked a few buttons and knobs, then ran it in front of Beetlejuice again. "For someone who still has their Zeta energy, you are extremely powerful"
"Whoa, back up and explain that to me"
"Every dead thing has Zeta and Alpha energy inside them. The Alpha energy is what makes you powerful, but Zeta is almost like a screen around the Alpha. By the time you pull your energy to the surface to use it, it's been diluted through the Zeta energy. Now if you had no Zeta energy in you, you would be even stronger without that screen for your power to pass through."
Beetlejuice looked down at his hands and turned them over, examining them before he asked, "How can I get it taken out?"
"Only ghosts can have it removed, and it must be stripped from them as they die. That's the only way I know of, and it seems the Drinker can do it. But I can't allow it to do it again." She slowly drifted off saying, "Too many have fallen to its hunger as it is"
Beetlejuice nodded. "If you need any help to get rid of it I'm here."
"Me too," Kyle joined in.
Pepper looked between the two of them and smiled. "Thank you. I'm giving you both security clearance in this building," she said, handing them each a key card. "Go wherever you wish, no one will stop you. Except inside there," she said, pointing to the Drinker's room. "Only I have clearance for that room."
Beetlejuice agreed and went off in search of a phone to call Lydia, smugly thrusting his new security pass into the guard's face that tried to stop him. Kyle stayed behind and stared at the Drinker for a short time before looking over toward Pepper. He was surprised to see her already staring at him.
"Doctor, I'd like the opportunity to work beside you to help figure out a way to destroy that thing."
Pepper smiled and took his arm. "I'd be delighted. Oh, and please call me Pepper."
They smiled at each other as they walked off to her lab.
A ringing telephone jolted everyone sitting around the Roadhouse living room, and Lydia walked over and picked it up on the third ring.
"Hello?" she spoke into the receiver, her voice shaking from crying.
"Hey, Babes, it's me."
"Beetlejuice?!" Lydia covered the phone and turned to everyone who attended the picnic that wasn't kidnapped or or killed. "It's Beetlejuice! BJ, where are you? What happened?! Are you all right? Is Kyle with you?"
"Calm down, Lyds, I'm fine. Kyle's here with me; we're both okay."
Lydia almost cried in relief. "Oh, thank you!"
"I can't tell ya where we are, though It's some secret government thing."
"When are you coming back?"
Beetlejuice shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not sure. These people might need my help to kill the Limbo Drinker."
"The what?"
"That's the thing's name."
"You mean it's not dead?!"
Beetlejuice pulled the phone away from his delicate ear and scrunched his face in pain at Lydia's screech. Slowly, he brought the receiver back to his mouth. "No. It's regenerating right now. Kyle and I are staying here 'till they figure out what to do with it."
"Oh, BJ, please be careful!"
"Don't worry, love I'll be fine," he whispered.
Lydia blushed, loving every time he called her that, but all too soon, sadness gripped her again. "BJ there's one more thing."
"Yeah?"
"I can't find Percy," she said quietly.
"Percy?" Beetlejuice became eerily quiet.
Percy was Endri's cat.
"With all the confusion and chaos in the Neitherwoods I think he ran away. I've looked everywhere," she continued.
When Beetlejuice spoke up again, he sounded a little distant at first. "Endri he really liked that cat Well, do what you can, Babes, but don't go anywhere without someone with you. I really think you should go back to the Real World with Claire. You two stay together too I'm sure Claire's really upset."
"You have no idea" Lydia said, covering the receiver and glancing over to Claire's vacant face. "And she's not the only one upset, Beej" her voice shook, and she stopped speaking before it was too late.
"I know I know It'll be all right," he said soothingly.
"How can you say that?! One of us is gone! We'll never see him again!"
"You think I don't know that?! I'm hurting too, Lyds, but I have to put it off for now 'cause something else is just a little more important. I'll cry when this is all over" he faded away, his voice on the verge of cracking. He would have to be strong for Lydia's sake, and everyone else's for that matter.
She sniffed and tried to calm down. "Okay I understand."
"'Kay I need to go, Babes. Take care of yourself and look after Claire. Try to find Percy, but remember what I said."
She nodded, but Beetlejuice was unable to see, so she said, "I will."
Softly, his voice caressed her ear. "I love you, Lyds."
"I love you too," she sniffled.
"I'll call ya later."
"'Kay, bye."
"See ya."
Lydia hung up the phone and went back over to Claire, trying to hug her comfortingly, but the blonde would not move. She only stared straight ahead in a trance.
Prince Vince held his wife, Kiara, on the couch. She wiped a few tears from her delicately pale face and looked up at him.
"What a terrible way to spend a holiday."
Vince only hugged her tighter in response.
**********
Lots of questions answered in this chapter, eh? We found out what that creature was exactly, and what it does. But now there's an even greater question: how do they stop it?! Hope everyone's enjoying this so far! ^_^ Keep tuned in until next chapter, when some creepy, wild, and dangerous stuff happens!