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37
Ain't That A Shame
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Darkness stretched out, eternally, in all directions. On her hands and knees, Sam groped around in the black, feeling nothing but ice cold water. Her hands hit what felt like shoes connected to ankles connected to… Two red eyes glared down. "Gotcha," a cruel voice whispered.
Sam woke drenched in sweat and unable to breathe. For a split second she was afraid it hadn't really been a dream, when she heard low murmuring voices and the hum of a cheap mini fridge and remembered she was in Dr. Matthews' hotel room.
A soft snore came from next to her. Valerie, asleep. In the corner of the room, near the curtains, two dark shapes moved. Danny and Dr. Matthews, sitting across from each other at the table. No way they heard Sam wake up over the rain continuing to pour. By their inky silhouettes, Sam figured night had officially descended. She wondered how much time they had left.
"...at do you think?" Danny was asking.
"She's in shock," Dr. Matthews murmured. "I think I am too. This is all very strange."
"You've been helping her? With counselling?" Danny asked and Sam could feel how awkward this conversation was for them.
"She doesn't talk to me much."
Danny's shadow shifted. He barely taller than his sister, although without the slight hunch, Dr. Matthews probably would have had a good inch on him. "So you ended up going to college?"
A pause. "Got a doctorate in psychology."
"I'm sure Mom and Dad loved that."
"They were skeptical, for sure," Dr. Matthews admitted, suddenly amused. "I think they were just glad I wasn't with that Johnny guy anymore."
"That guy was a skeezy asshole," Danny burst. Based off the shadowed movements, Sam guessed that he had crossed his arms. Sam could tell this was an old fight, if Danny's too-strong reaction was anything to go by.
Dr. Matthews laughed. "Yeah... Not one of my smarter moments."
They both lapsed into silence again. Dr. Matthews turned slightly, her voice almost too soft for Sam to hear as she asked, "What really happened that day, Danny? August 12th, 1962?"
Sam's heart thumped as Danny didn't react. Tell her, she urged silently, pressing her head deep into the pillow in frustration.
There was the glow of an igniting cigarette and Danny let out a long sigh. Sam could see the smoke in the air in the way it dampened the light coming from the outside hallway. "It doesn't really matter anymore."
"Of course it does." Dr. Matthews' voice cracked. "What would Mom and Dad say if they saw us like this?"
"They'd probably just think they were dreaming. And they'd make a dumb comment about my smoking."
"Danny," Dr. Matthews pleaded. "Be serious."
Danny flicked the butt of it and stared down. He heaved an exhausted sigh. For a full minute he stared at the ground, and Sam could tell he was trying to figure out how to begin. "After we fought, I was so mad at you. I drove miles away, back to where we used to live. I dunno why. Maybe I thought going back to where we used to play as kids would help me figure out what to say to adult-you when I got back."
The shadow to the left of Danny had gone very still.
"I took a break at that place Mom and Dad stopped at when we moved to Cincinnati."
"You ordered a strawberry milkshake," Dr. Matthews broke in. At Danny's stunned pause, she explained, hurriedly, "We found the receipt in your car."
"You did?" There was a weird hitch in his voice, like he had thought no one had tried all that hard to find him. Like he had thought everyone had just forgotten him and gone on with their lives.
Dr. Matthews must have heard it too, because she said, voice vehement and shaky with tears, "We looked for you everywhere. We showed your picture to everyone. You were on the news. We had three police districts, dogs, the entire state looking. For years we searched for you."
"That's…" Danny trailed off, silent for a long moment. He took another drag, blew it out, and cleared his choked throat. "Anyway, I needed gas to get back home."
"So you went to Lucky Strike. Saw Skulker. That's what the police thought," Dr. Matthews pieced together.
"Yes. That's right." There was almost humor in Danny's tone as he continued, "But it was more like he saw me. He came up to me, started asking me all these questions. I didn't even know who he was at first, but when he mentioned Vlad it clicked. He had worked the grounds back when we were kids."
Dr. Matthews nodded. With her one good ear pressed on her pillow, Sam strained to hear.
"He was being really weird. Like… Nervous. Nervous for whatever reason about me being there. He really didn't want me going by Vlad's."
"So you went," Dr. Matthews guessed, unimpressed. "Idiot."
Danny snorted. "I mean at this point I was more worried about Vlad. So I was going to just go up and ring the doorbell, but something about how Skulker had acted stopped me. I decided I would sneak up and scare Vlad instead, like I used to. So I snuck in through the bathroom window."
"The footprint."
"...What?"
"Police found a footprint in the bathroom… matched your size and… oh God…" Dr. Matthews' shadow hunched even more than it already did and wobbled like she was about to be sick. She seemed to connect all the dots in that moment, and even though Sam knew she had already blabbed about Masters, she doubted that it had really sunk in yet. Maybe it was Danny being the one to tell her that made it ring true.
Sam felt the impending doom one feels right when an elderly person trips.
Danny reached one hand out to steady his sister. "I can stop. We don't have to keep going," he said, voice barely above a murmur.
Dr. Matthews straightened. "No. I have to hear this. From you."
Reluctantly, Danny let go and ran a hand through his hair. "Ok…" He didn't seem convinced. "So I looked around, but nothing was out of the ordinary. Vlad wasn't home. I figured I'd just leave a note under his door saying I was there and be on my way, so I went into the study to find his typewriter. When I got there I heard this weird snapping sound coming from behind the bookshelf," Danny was speeding along now, breathless, like if he stopped or got interrupted he wouldn't be able to get going again. "I knew it had to be some sort of secret passage. Remember when we stayed there in the summers? The star room attached to our bedroom?" —Dr. Matthews nodded solemnly— "The thought that there was another secret room I hadn't found yet was… exciting."
"You found it," Dr. Matthews guessed again. This time, her tone was tight and strained.
Ambers exploded as Danny flicked the butt of his cigarette. "I found Vlad. He had a kid strapped down, cut open." Danny made a gesture as if to say from here to there, but Sam couldn't make it out.
Her blood ran ice cold. None of these details she had heard before. It was doubtful Danny had told anyone this, what with the curse normally in place.
"At first I just stood there kinda frozen. I couldn't believe it. Then Vlad turned and saw me and I knew I had to run. Almost made it back up the stairs too, before he got me from behind. Stuck some kind of tranq in my leg and... that was that."
The beads hanging off Dr. Matthews' glasses swayed and caught in the dim light from right outside the door as she shook her head. "He let us stay with him during the search. He put up reward money for you. He…" It was as if she no longer had words to fathom what kind of a person could do something like that.
"I know. I heard you guys," Danny said matter-of-factly.
Dr. Matthews stilled. "You did?"
Valerie shifted, her snoring abruptly ending. The hum of the mini fridge suddenly kicked off and Sam could hear their voices crystal clear.
"I heard Dad. At least, I'm pretty sure it was him. I could hear people every once in awhile if they talked loud enough from the study." He sounded exhausted. "The first few days I screamed a lot. Vlad started drugging me. After that I just kinda laid there."
Dr. Matthews moaned. Her shadow moved behind the curtain and it looked like she had her head buried in her hands. "You were right under our feet. I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry..."
"Don't be. It was a long time ago. I've come to terms with it," Danny said.
"Then why are you still here?" Dr. Matthews pointed out.
"Yeah, well," Danny tossed his cigarette and stomped on it. "Just because I'm over what he did to me doesn't mean I'm okay with what he did to all those kids. What he did to Sam."
At the mention of her own name, Sam pressed her head down into the pillow, closing her eyes. She was hit with a pang of guilt. She shouldn't be eavesdropping like this. She should try to go back to sleep, for real, and leave the siblings to their reunion, but she dreaded the thought of enduring another nightmare.
"That's a big ring," Danny said, switching topics.
"That's right. I have a husband, a son, and three granddaughters."
"You have grandkids?" Danny groused. "Man, you really are old."
"That means you have grand-nieces, you know," Dr. Matthews countered.
"Grand-nieces," Danny echoed, sounding dizzy at the very idea.
Sam's pretend sleep started to turn into the real deal. Danny's voice was soothing. Now that he was back around, she felt a bit safer. Safe to relax back into this bed that smelled like off-brand fabric softener…
"I bet they don't even know about me," Danny was saying.
A huff. There was a sound like Dr. Matthews had reached out and whacked Danny's arm. "Stop. Everyone in our family knows about you. My son was obsessed. When he was ten he was convinced he'd find you and bring you back home to Mom and Dad." Dr. Matthews voice turned giddy. "Wait until I tell him I found you."
"That's an inventive way to tell him you have alzheimer's."
"I'm not that old."
Sam's body grew heavy.
"...What's your son's name?"
"Isaiah. Isaiah Daniel Matthews..."
.
.
Sam woke to pain. While she had been asleep, all the muscles in her neck had seized. Moving her head hurt enough to cause tears to spring in her eyes. Her hipbone throbbed and her entire body ached like she had been in a car accident, which wasn't too far from the truth. A whimper fell out of her lips.
Underneath her shoulder, the bed dipped a fraction, and Sam couldn't help the cry that flew out of her as her head screamed in pain.
"Can you sit up?" Danny's voice asked, soft and close to her ear.
Sam felt the cold press of his arm hook beneath her back and try to haul her upright. The arm retreated. Sam let out a breath of relief.
A cool hand pressed down on her forehead, wiping away the sweat. It traveled down, spreading ice-cold numbness to her neck and her shoulders. It felt amazingly good on her hot skin. The other hand reached around and found hers, coaxing it open from where she had balled up the comforter in a death grip, weaving icy fingers through hers.
Sam opened one eye.
Danny smiled. The ticking was strong this close. He let go and she instantly missed the contact. "Water and painkillers," he said, brandishing the two.
Sam managed to swallow them down. "How long was I out?" she croaked.
Valerie glanced over at her from the small table, where she was pouring herself a bowl of cereal, towel wrapped around her head as if she had just taken a shower. She was wearing an ill-fitting black t-shirt and jeans. Most likely part of the supplies Dr. Matthews had gotten. Her backpack was still strapped to her back. "Two hours," she said, shoveling some of the cereal into her mouth.
Outside was still dark. Sam calculated inside her head.
"Nineteen hours left," Danny confirmed.
Sam let Danny help her into a seated position. "Where's Dr… Jasmine—Jazz?" She stumbled over the name. It felt wrong to call her psychologist anything other than Dr. Matthews, but it felt even more wrong calling her something as formal as Dr. Matthews to her brother. Sam's brain flipped, trying to reconcile that bit of information. Even now she found herself stunned.
Danny's gaze flitted to the door. "Outside, processing. Left a few minutes ago. Hopefully she doesn't run into any trouble." He moved to leave her side and Sam reached out, grabbing him by the wrist. He turned, blinking.
"Thank you," Sam said.
Danny shrugged. "The pills were Jazz's."
Sam let go with a sigh. They both knew she wasn't thanking him for the painkillers, but whatever, she'd let him avoid talking about it if he wanted. She supposed he had talked enough.
"So what do we do now?" Valerie muttered around Cheerios.
How she could eat anything, Sam had no clue. Her stomach was one giant ball of stress. She glanced at Danny. "How do we beat him?"
His gaze darkened. "We don't. We focus on the one thing he's doing everything in his power to distract us from. Nothing else matters."
"And what's that?" Valerie growled.
Dawning realization bloomed in the back of Sam's head. Everything else in her life had changed, grown more abysmal and complicated, except this one fact. "We find the bodies and we tell everyone where they are. Then it will all be over."
As if in agreement, Danny produced a cigarette. Just for a moment, with a quick flick of a lighter, his entire face glowed. He sighed out a plume of smoke. It drifted around his shoulders like a scarf.
Valerie waved her hand through the air a few times. "That's got to be your third one in the last, what, hour?"
"He has the whole town at his disposal. At this point, anyone could be a puppet," Danny said, ignoring her. "All it takes it one touch."
Sam eyed Danny's cigarette, having half a mind to ask for one at this point. She needed a stiff drink. Maybe an Ambien. Definitely her prescription painkillers that were back at the mansion... "Can't you do the same thing?" she asked.
Valerie rolled a plastic cup of water along her forehead, eyes closed. "No."
"Why not?" Sam turned to Danny. "Can't you trick people too? Possess them?"
A soft thud resounded. Sam whipped in shock, finding Valerie had thrown her plastic cup at the wall. Being plastic, it had done nothing more than spray water across the carpet and make a sad crinkling sound. "No," she snarled. "No possessions." With that, she got up and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door shut.
Danny sighed in her wake. "No possessions," he agreed, even though she was gone. His gaze meandered, sticking on the bathroom door.
Following his gaze, Sam leaned back against the pillow. Suddenly it all seemed to make sense. Valerie's stint in a mental institution. The quirks in her personality that, at times, felt like they were somebody else's and the anger that always wavered on a knife's edge. "So, Valerie…? Did you...?"
"Not Valerie, no, although it's happened to her before," Danny cut, quickly, looking distinctly uncomfortable. He moved into a vacant chair at the small table, using an empty sweet-and-sour sauce container as an ashtray. "I possessed her friend. Didn't really work out."
Sam ran a mental list of all of Valerie's friends. It was a short list, consisting of only her, Valerie's father, and— it was a huge stretch— Danny. Brow furrowing, she expanded the list a bit more. Tucker? Star? ...Paulina's face flashed across her mind. "Ah," she said. "No wonder Paulina is obsessed with you."
Danny almost dropped his cigarette in shock. He let out a disbelieving snort. "Damn," he breathed, hand pausing halfway to his mouth in thought, before taking another drag.
She crossed her arms and watched him, knowing if she glared at him long enough he'd break down and elaborate. The painkillers were already doing work behind her eyes.
Just like she predicted, Danny shrank a little. "Alright, fine, jeez," he muttered. "Paulina broke into the mansion as a joke after the Grays moved out. She woke everyone up, got into trouble. I knew Paulina was a friend of Valerie's and… and after everything that happened… I dunno... I guess I felt like I owed her a favor—"
"Mr. Hero decided to butt in and make matters worse," a gruff voice muttered from behind the bathroom door.
"He had her walking right into oncoming traffic," Danny argued. "I saved her life."
The bathroom door cracked open. One green eye glared through the dim light. "You could have saved her without possessing her," Valerie shot back.
"He would have made her try again until it worked and you know it."
Sam made a face, ignoring the bickering pair. She stared at the cup on the floor. Her brows furrowed, thoughts spiraling. If possession was out of the question, then they were going to have to figure out another way...
"How did you escape?" she asked, loudly. At the ringing silence, she looked up and found both Danny and Valerie staring at her, mouths hung open in mid-argument. Valerie was back in the room, towel off her head, pointing an accusatory finger at the ghost.
Danny frowned. "What do you mean?"
"You outsmarted Masters before. Twice," Sam prompted.
The anger faded from Valerie's face. It must have been the first she had heard of Danny's near-escape attempts. Sam wondered just how much the other knew about the bunker and what Masters had been doing down there.
Danny leaned back in his chair and shrugged. "First time was dumb luck. Sawed through the chain. Made it to the highway when the dogs caught up." He swallowed a few times and, with a frustrated shake of his head, took another drag.
"And the second time?" Sam pressed.
"Second time was a lot harder," Danny admitted, going quiet. He put out the cigarette and, with a glazed look in his eye, used the butt to push around the ashes. "I had to become someone else."
Valerie crossed the room and sat on the end of the bed.
Blue eyes dark, Danny continued, "I had already figured out how to escape my room, but I couldn't just run. After the first time, Vlad always locked the doors out of the bunker. So I waited a long time, maybe months, until he brought down a kid that was around the same height and build as me. Until after he had… you know."
Valerie made a noise in the back of her throat. Sam couldn't tell if she was angry or disgusted. Probably both. "Isaiah Moore," she blurted.
Danny blinked.
"The boy. His name was Isaiah Moore. He was fourteen when he disappeared while attending a circus. He was 5' 10'' and skinny. The timing makes sense. My family worked this for three generations. I know about every kid that went missing. Not just him." She pinned Sam in an accusatory look.
Sam swallowed. She didn't try to defend herself. Valerie was right, and it stung.
Danny cleared his throat and, after a long pause, continued, "After he left I switched with the body. I dragged him into my room, pulled my blanket over his head. Then I rubbed dark surgical disinfectant all over my skin and waited. I knew eventually Skulker would have to get rid of the body. He always wheeled them out in a cart through the back entrance in the dark. He didn't like to look at them long."
Sam thought of the locked door, the one in the basement facing away from the study entrance. That must have been how they got the bodies out without anyone seeing. Wherever that tunnel led was sure to be close to the dump site. Skulker knew how to dismantle and dispose of animal carcasses. Not much of a stretch to do the same thing to a human.
"Wait. Wait. You let him bury you?" Valerie interrupted. "Alive?"
Danny shot her a look, a little edge from their fighting still in his gaze. "No. But I would have."
With a grimace, Sam swung her legs out of the bed and got to her feet. She crossed the room gingerly. Her body complained the whole way. With a grunt, she deposited herself in the chair Valerie had vacated.
"Eventually he left, so I pried the top off to look around." Danny was grinning now, which made him look a little off. He had probably never had an audience for this story. "It was snowing. I cried like a baby."
"Because you were free?" Sam asked.
Danny's smile faltered. "No. Because I was outside."
After a beat, Valerie asked, "No offense, but how does knowing this help?"
Sam reached over and grabbed her own paper bowl, loading it up with Cheerios that she would try and force herself to eat. "Because, what Danny did worked." At Danny's skeptical expression, she winced. "Well, sorta worked," she amended. "What I mean is, we need to do something completely out of character. Become someone new. What's the last thing Masters would expect us to do?"
With a derisive noise, Valerie got up from the bed and sat back down at the table, grabbing her bowl of now soggy cereal back. "Go to the police. Off ourselves. Off someone else…" she muttered, pouring a fresh bowl.
"He expects Sam to run for help," Danny stated.
Leaning back in her chair, Sam ran a tongue over her split lip, mind racing. She didn't bother entertaining the idea that Danny might be wrong. Danny knew Masters better than anyone. Besides, Master had been right. The first thing they had done was run to Dr. Matthews; it was only luck that they'd run to someone with no real ties to Amity, and hadn't been in town long enough to become Master's puppet. Sam felt a little nauseous at the idea they were still playing his game.
"Right now, he's probably searching with every puppet he has, trying to figure out who she went to for help. Sam knowing my name wasn't in his plan." Danny sounded entirely pleased about it.
If Masters was running around town trying to find her, what could she do to disarm him? Where was the one place he'd never think to look for her?
Valerie shoved her spoon around her bowl with more force than necessary, knocking Sam out of her thoughts. "We've already stayed here too long, then," she grumbled. "We need to go."
"Go where?" Danny challenged, grin flipping into a scowl.
"We stay here, we're sitting ducks," Valerie argued. Heat bloomed in her voice. "We shouldn't have even slept here for as long as we did."
Danny bristled. Them sleeping had been his idea and that was probably the only reason Valerie was questioning it. "I'm starting to think you want to shoot people," he accused, tone quiet.
Valerie stiffened and Sam could tell that whatever Danny was dredging back up went further back than the car chase. "Have you been outside lately? We're at the end of the world," Valerie spat, leaning over the table until she was up in his face. "Might as well say what you really mean. You think he's still in my head? Is that it?"
Sam had never seen anyone besides herself talk to a Danny with such idiotic lack of fear. Valerie had her spoon almost poking his chest.
Sam eyed him cautiously. Rile up any ghost enough— even Danny— and anything was possible. Although, based off the stricken look on his face, Danny looked more likely to apologize than he was to crawl up any walls. She pointed between them, breaking up what was sure to be another pointless continuation of Valerie and Danny's fight. An idea had come to her. A crazy idea. Which, at this point, meant it might be a good one. "What if we went back?"
The pair paused.
Seeing their blank looks, Sam clarified, "I mean, back to the mansion."
Still leaning over the table, Valerie froze. "What?"
Danny's expression twisted, turned thoughtful. He leaned back in his chair.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!
Right behind her, the hotel door rattled in its frame. The noise was so loud Sam's head lurched. For a heart-stopping moment she was back in that bunker two seconds away from Master's filleting her skin with her father's knife.
"Police! Open up!" a woman's voice announced. Ramón.
Bright light spilled through the window, shedding across the rumpled bed and the far wall of the hotel room. From this angle, it couldn't reach where they were seated, tucked in the corner almost directly behind the door.
Danny reached out, grabbing their shoulders in his icy grip, dropping them through the floor into the room below just as the there was a loud crash.
a/n: Lots of talkin' and plottin' in this chapter. They're not out of the woods yet. Things have been going good over here. Beginning to get my feet back on the ground, I think. Big thanks to Eris, Frankie'N, SheWhoFollows, sammansonrepilica, helpivefallenandicantgetup, Alakazamboni, Annie Android, catoayla, and TheSmilingRose for your reviews.