A Turtle's Journey Beyond
A.N.: Hello again! It seems I've run into a little bit of a computer problem and for awhile, lost access to Windows! It was very scary. I thought I lost all of my precious files! I save as often as I can, but I strongly knew I had old text to this chapter on a zip disk. Anyway, I'm quite pleased with the final results after doing grammar/spell check many times over. Enjoy what I've got and I'll continue to type (and fix) the rest of the chapters already in progress!
Chapter 5: More Unsolved Mysteries
"Nooooo!! Pleeeease....nooooo!!" *bang*
"And that's all we got." Leo looked to everyone as they stared with cringed expressions. The young woman sounded very distraught before the gun went off, leaving the others to question who shot her and why. "At least we know the ghost is a woman who was murdered some time in the forties era."
Mike looked shocked. "Murdered! But, who would do such a thing?"
"Maybe she was a Hollywood actress who cheated on a rich director." Raph answered with a shrug. "I dunno. The forties was a weird time."
The group paused outside the garage entrance, each of them giving it a good look before entering. It was a typical family-size garage made of white steel and sporting two large doors to allow two cars to fit inside its enclosure. Only the left side of the double doors appeared accessible and opened easily, plummeting them into a semi-dark, cold, and very windy atmosphere. Roxanne was somewhere inside and the thought of finding her dead made the mood seem even more grim. Shadow gave a good three-sixty turn around the huge garage. Had her Chevy Suburban made its complete destination, it would have fit perfectly inside.
Mike smirked to Raphael. "There's no car in here to hot-wire."
"Not with our luck." He scowled. "This way." The group followed his lead over to a rickety staircase in the far right corner. Donatello noticed a door, but decided to ignore it. Much as he wanted to, it wasn't the right moment to start scanning for more ghost voices. The stairs creaked and groaned with each step they took to reach the garage's loft. Once at the top, Raph side-stepped to let the others get a good view of what he previously saw. There she was, sprawled out on the hard, wooden floor. Strapped to her forehead was an identical headset they found in the parlor room, but just like her, it was completely inactive.
"Roxanne!" Shadow bent down and shook her. She didn't respond. "Oh, please answer me, Roxy!" Splinter bent down on the other side, placing two bony fingers to her neck, then to one of her wrists. "Is she dead, Grandpa?"
"No, she is not dead." Splinter looked up to each of them. "She is in another state of consciousness."
"Huh?" Shadow looked to him with a crinkled nose.
"Limbo." Raph blurted.
"No man's land." Mike said next.
"Plunged into an abyss." Don added.
Finally, Leo called it, "The astral plain."
"Well, which is it?" Shadow asked after darting her eyes from each of them.
"I do not know." Splinter shook his head. "It is hard to tell of her current whereabouts."
"But, why can't we get her back?" She looked to him sadly. "It's like she can't even hear us!"
"She does not even know we are here at this very moment." Splinter looked back to her lifeless body. "This unusual head piece must have shut down while she was astral, dividing her between multiple locations. I can try communicating with her through meditation, but it would do no good in bringing her back. She can only return to her normal state with the software that put her there in the first place."
"And the software is on her computer," Don said with regret, "software that is locked behind an unknown password."
"What password has ever stopped you, Boy Genius?" Raph asked, giving him a look. "You've cracked hundreds of passwords in 5 minutes flat. Can't you do the same on Roxy's comp?"
"I probably could try cracking it." He shrugged a little.
"Please do. We gotta get her back. All of her." Shadow stood and gazed down, her eyes growing misty. "Now, let's get out of here before I really get emotional."
Looking as if they had come from a funeral, the six started to head back to the house in silence, just in time to catch another ghostly detection on the PeeK. Luckily, they were outside when it happened. Light fixtures began to sway in the kitchen as a large butcher knife sprung to life on the counter. It calmly rose into the air, spun around, and then plunge into the tile floor as easily as it would have made contact with a slab of meat.
"Yikes." Mike glanced to Shadow who suddenly grew multiple goose-bumps. "Did you say they were benign or malign spirits?"
Raphael, growing tired of the indoor romp-around, told them he wanted to look around some more behind the house. The others let him wander off as he headed north behind the garage and into some pine trees. Heading along the grass, he spotted a dirt road blocked by hundreds of weeds.
"Damn weeds." He muttered, turning to pull out his faithful sai blades. Like Edward Scissorhands taking no time at all, he made an accessible path into the next clearing. He grinned to his progress. "Heh! I should've been a gardener!"
The path continued through a long series of steps made out of round pieces of tree logs. This must have been a favorite spot to go to among the many past owners who lived at this residence. Wide open space with surrounding wilderness all around would make any outdoors man right at home. The log steps within the grass hill climbed higher and higher until he paused at another clearing, getting a full view of--
"A gazebo?"
Raphael took only one step closer and caught a large, black figure rise in front of him. It groaned with anger to see someone had disrupted its home, but then vanished into thin air. Very odd, he thought. More weird sensations began to occur, such as the grounds vibrating with high activity. If he stood still long enough, he could actually feel the presence of a strong, evil being, perhaps not of these earthly bounds.
Once inside the gazebo, his skin began to crawl with fear. Whispering echoed through the walls, and Raphael swore he caught glimpses of dark formations floating just passed the corner of his eye. An old radio talk show host named Art Bell had people call in with such stories, referring to their encounters as Shadow People, or beings that would cross through walls behind one's back. Some callers said they were harmless while others admitted to being attacked by them. With that in mind, Raphael was beginning to think twice about why he made the decision of strolling out here alone. Humming softly, he tried to think of other things then hearing voices and seeing creepy shadow forms.
The gazebo itself had seen better days. It was a shabby little enclosed area, something right of those castle-like playground forts he used to sit up in when Shadow was a youngster. The only way down were a few exits, all in the form of a twisty slide. He usually got his shell stuck in those slides and ended up leaving the way he entered: the boring stairs. Sitting there long enough, an old memory flashed before his eyes:
He never forgot the time he took the little tyke out to the playground an hour before dusk. Other children were still out playing and the parents didn't seem aware of him sitting on a distant bench, keeping a watchful eye on her. Shadow played with the other kids but one showed her a trick that will forever haunt his mind. Sliding down the slide standing up, the newest and most challenging style for any kid wanting to show off. The trend began right away. Kids started removing their shoes to make their socks go faster all the way down to the awaiting sandbox.
Shadow looked down from the top, leaving her shoes by the ladder. She squatted a little to avoid bumping her head in the little tunnel and half-way down, started to stand up. As she went, another kid couldn't wait and came sliding down right behind her, pushing her out of the way and out of the slide itself! Shadow tried to grab onto the side but the edge was too thick for her small fingers. Raphael's jaw dropped when he watched her land on her stomach with a hard smacking sound. A young man holding his little boy rushed over to her, gazing down with utter concern.
"Kid, are you all right?" Shadow just laid there gasping. "Kid?!"
"I...I'm fine." She coughed out, trying hard to breathe in.
For the remainder of her play time, she sat on a log and hugged her sore stomach, holding back the tears as best as possible. It pained Raphael by the second to have to sit and wait for the playground to clear before running over to check on her. It also angered him when the parent of the impatient child did no reprimanding whatsoever. If only April or Casey weren't out on a date, the incident would have been dealt with. Well, he figured, April would have handled it better. The police would have been involved if Casey were around! As soon as the playground cleared, Raphael stood up and ran over to her side. By then, she was okay, but still upset and quite scared from the huge drop she just experienced.
"You're one tough kid, you know that?" He whispered as he carried her home.
"Uncle Raph?" She asked shakily.
"Yeah?"
"Please, don't tell my parents."
"I won't, kid. I promise."
"K, and Uncle Raph?"
"Yeah?"
"...her answer was a vomit spill all down the back of my coat. Shoulda known I would deserve such a punishment for not being there for her." Raph opened his eyes, seeing he was still seated in the gazebo. Deciding he had enough of its gloomy atmosphere, he started down the steps and headed back over to the house. "I've been gone too long. Heh, Leo's probably worried sick by now."
"I'm worried about Raph." Leo stated as they sat in the living room. Now, he was reading the book Michaelangelo had previously skimmed through. He glanced to the title: Realms of the Paranormal. He remembered Donatello telling them it was a book Shadow had to read to learn more about the Stonetape Theory, where ghosts live, what they see, and so forth.
"Hmm?" Shadow yawned and lifted her head up from the sofa cushion. Apparently, she started to doze.
"Raph's been gone a long time. I was just worried about him." Leo looked to her sitting up and rubbing her eyes, obviously fighting to stay awake.
"You should sleep if you are tired." Splinter said soothingly.
"Can't sleep with ghosts all over the place..." She groaned and yawned again.
"When is that head thing going to work?" Mike asked, looming over Donatello as he checked out the large generator next to the headgear unit. "Not that it thrills me to think what'll happen if I put it on my noggin."
"I don't know." Don shrugged. "Shadow put the oscillator in and so far, it doesn't seem to be working."
Before Leonardo went back to reading, he noted the PeeK start to flash on the coffee table where Donatello left it. Picking it up, he watched another activity detection, only this time, it was something he couldn't believe he was seeing. The BT camera clicked on in Roxy's bedroom to capture a bright light emerging from the television, just like when Michaelangelo turned it on and got an unpleasant surprise. This ending was different, however, as Leonardo watched the bright light transform into an object and lightly plunk down in the empty night stand drawer.
"I'll be right back." He told them as he put the book and PeeK down and head for the stairs.
"Going to the bathroom?" Mike asked as he returned to the living room.
"Yeah, right." Leo told him and took off running.
Shadow sat up and looked to Splinter and Michaelangelo. "Oh, yeah. Let me tell you what happened to me in there..."
Leonardo started to climb up the stairs but paused half-way up to watch a smoky-white figure form in mid-air, floating for a few seconds and then quickly vanish. Was this a sign to prevent him from going any farther? A simple wisp of fog wasn't going to stop him and he proceeded forward without any other interruptions. In Roxy's bedroom, he headed straight for the night stand table and picked up the new object, staring at it with growing tension. It was a simple brass key.
"I think I know where this goes." He breathed out as he walked right over to the locked room and inserted the key into the keyhole. The door easily opened, revealing to him a nice-looking bedroom with, as Roxanne said, wartime decor.
Leonardo entered and looked around, noting a typical bed, bureau, end table and some posters on the walls. There was one titled 'Winged Victory' with soaring war planes, another titled 'Stop Hitler!' shown cannons firing and the last poster by the bed showed several marching soldiers. Its war slogan read, 'The men are ready: only YOU can give them wings!'
Other things on the wall included a framed advertisement of the Modern Home and another frame by the bureau held some very proud war medals. He had to admit Roxanne did a very good job at recreating this room to its 1940's look, though, if he stayed in there long enough, he'd actually feel as if he was in that era!
Before he left the room, the mirror on the bureau got his attention. The glass started to mist and glow and in its place a young woman stared back at him. Leonardo's jaw instantly dropped as he watched the woman brush her hair and place on an old hat, humming softly to a mellow tune playing in the background. Staring at herself, she lowered her head and began to sob before the image faded back to his own reflection.
"So, did you get a mirror message?" Shadow asked as he came back to the living room. He got a mirror message all right, but his was far different from hers. She sensed something was wrong when he didn't answer right away. "Uncle Leo? What happened to you?" He went to speak but felt he'd have a hard time explaining what he just saw. Donatello saved the moment.
"Well, the AMBER unit is working fine. I can't seem to find anything wrong with it." He eyed around to see their faces looked neither happy nor sad about the news. "Did I miss something?"
"I was about to find out." Shadow said, rising up and walking over to Leonardo who now rested against the living room entryway, looking very sullen. "Uncle Leo, what happened to you up there?"
Leonardo sat down and started to tell them about finding the key, going into the locked bedroom, and seeing the ghost woman in the mirror. She seemed fine until something struck her deeply, causing her to burst into tears. All he knew is that she needed help and guidance to the other side.
"She needs to know that she's dead, and I want to help her." He finally said, looking to Splinter.
"Hold that thought, Leo. Looks like we've got another one." The PeeK started to flash again at that point, making Don pick it up this time. It was another activity detection, but to their dismay, the BT camera clicked on in the living room where they all were. "Oh, no!"
It looked like the twister scene from The Wizard of Oz as the furniture and knick-knacks began to go haywire, lifting and spinning around the room. Shadow felt the couch rise underneath her and screamed when one of the flying objects smacked against her head. Michaelangelo grabbed for her, taking her to the entryway. The couches rose and fell, the knick-knacks spun in large circles and the BAR's needle crackled out large and scraggly wavelengths.
"What the hell is going on?" Raph came through the front door just in time to catch the last of the show as well as spot the others huddling together. "Let me guess, another activity detection, huh?"
"Got that right!" Don's eyes darted all over at the wild furniture doing the most unimaginable feats ever.
"I wanna go home!" Shadow moaned in Michaelangelo's chest.
"Hey, if you brought your ruby slippers, allow me to go with you!" He joked a little. Again, like all the others, the phenomenon didn't last long, and everything went back to normal. Donatello looked down to watch the PeeK screen turn to static, thus ending the little display of ghostly games. After Leonardo repeated his incident upstairs in the locked room, Raphael proceeded to tell them his story.
"There's a strong presence in the gazebo behind the house. Saw it with my own eyes. That first voice we heard is probably the spirit of the man who died there. Something was chasing him and he ran all the way to the house, finding the back door locked and being attacked by whatever was after him."
"Do you know what attacked him?" Mike asked while gently rubbing Shadow's head where the knick-knack nicked her.
"Nadda clue." Raph shook his head. "I feel like the only way we can help these ghosts would be to actually see how they died."
"Not just how, but also why, where, and...." Don raised his eyes from the PeeK, "...when. You're not going to like this, but I think I just figured out what we have to do for our...ghost hosts. Leo wants to help the spirit in the forties room while you're trying to figure out what happened to the man who was attacked outside."
"And don't forget that weird figure we saw by the lake!" Mike pointed out to them.
"Well, we don't know about that spirit yet." Don put the PeeK down. "When we were coming here, Roxanne had already gone astral. She was in the middle of solving these spirit's problems when something went wrong with her AMBER unit. That's why she's trapped in her dream state and we can't get her back."
"So, what do we do?" Shadow asked, enjoying her head rub yet knowing the dumb knick-knack will leave a nasty scar.
"We need to get that other headset working..." Don glanced over to the parlor room, "...and with the headset on, we can enter the worlds where the spirits dwell at the time of their death." He heard some gasps.
"But how?" Mike asked.
Don glanced around. "There's probably some sort of portal that can only be accessed with the AMBER unit. For instance, the portal to the spirit in the forties era is undoubtedly in that spare bedroom upstairs. Or the spirit outside has a portal in the woods somewhere."
"Probably in the gazebo." Raph muttered.
"Right." Don agreed. "Entities usually prefer four walls than no walls."
"So, we enter these worlds by a portal and..." Mike began to gesture, "...and then what?!"
Don shrugged. "I guess help them solve the reason for their untimely death." Nobody looked pleased with hearing this and, to make it worse, it looked as though there was no getting around it. "There is a problem, I should add. With one headset, only one of us can enter those worlds at a time."
Mike gulped. "You mean alone?"
"Yep." Don nodded.
"Would there be any other problems?" Leo had to ask.
"Yeah, the electricity could go while you're astral and you'd wind up like Roxanne, stuck in-between worlds forever." He shrugged, making Leonardo's eyes flare wide. "But, of course, the rest of us are here, so we'd do our best to prevent that from happening."
"Oh, God." Shadow bowed her head. "And I thought being isolated out here was bad enough."
"Okay, whatever." Raph said without haste. "But, we still gotta get that head-bangin' thing workin' somehow."
"Maybe it'll start to work once we hear from each spirit." Mike suggested. The others glanced up to him. "Just a suggestion."
At that suggestion, Michaelangelo marched down the cement path to the lake with the scanning device in his hand, the rest slowly following with reluctance. Shadow buttoned up her coat when the breezes started to strongly pick up around them. Minutes later, the boathouse came into view with the lamp post still brightly lit, welcoming them to its watery edge.
"Here's the knob. You do it." Mike pointed as Donatello came over to attach the scanning device to the boathouse door. "We all saw that glowing, giggling figure, right? Hopefully, we'll get a better clue with this thing."
"We'll see, Mike." Don gave him a pained look. "The last two voices didn't give us much detail on their problem."
Shadow yawned and sat on the grass bank, not caring if she got green stains on her faded-color jeans. She only became more exhausted when she realized how long she'd been awake. There was the long drive from New York, almost drowning in the cold lake, wandering through a haunted house and being scared out of her wits. Splinter did suggest she should rest for a little bit. She might be able to do so now that she was outdoors and away from the house.
"Are you all right?" Leo looked down to her as she nodded and yawned again. Crouching down, he gently patted her back with a smile. "I know how you feel. I'm pretty tired myself. It's been one rough day for all of us."
"Too bad the day isn't even over yet." Shadow lied down flat and looked up to the dark blue skies, blinking her eyes softly.
"Mm-hmm." Leo nodded, catching Donatello walk over to them. "Well?"
"It's got five minutes to detect." He said, gesturing over to the boathouse. "I gave the PeeK to Mike so that he can play the tonal residue when it's ready."
"So, now what, brain guy?" Raph asked as he rested against the lamp post.
"No sense in all of us waiting here." Don looked to the house. "I guess I'll go start toying with Roxanne's computer and see if I can get passed that password."
"I'll go with you." Leo started to walk with him and Splinter back up to the house, glancing back to the other three. "Let us know what happens."
"Nah, on account of getting tired of your same ol' orders, we're not going to tell you." Raph rolled his eyes. "Sheesh, as if we had a choice! Right kid? Kid?" He looked over to spot Shadow asleep on the grass bank. Michaelangelo sat on the steps of the boathouse, staring intently at the PeeK. "Man, you guys! Looks like I'll be bored out of my shell."
Michaelangelo decided to move and sit down at the edge of the dock, whistling the tune of "Sittin' At the Dock of the Bay." As he leaned back, he could hear an unusual bubbling sound coming from the broken plank Shadow tripped on earlier. He continued to whistle and ignore it but the sound grew louder, almost as if it wanted his attention. Looking left to right, he decided to look down between the planks. He paid the price for his curiosity as his eyes caught a ghostly pale face staring back at him from the murky waters. Although the eyes and mouth were hollow, they still seemed to become animated in the most horrifying expression. An eerie voice gurgled out next, sending chills down his spine.
Hel....lp....me-ee-ee-ee....
"Yaaaaaaaaaah!" Mike fell backwards as Raphael ran up to him.
"What's wrong, bro? Did you see your reflection again?"
"No, a monster! There's a monster in the lake!" He told him with bulging eyes.
"What are you talking about?" Raph, now growing annoyed, crossed his arms at him. "Are you saying that giggling voice belongs to a monster?"
"I guess so!" Mike spat as he pointed to the planks. "I saw it myself! It said 'help meeeeeee'!"
"Yeah, sure. Enough with the theatrics, k? Just let us know when that thing is done scanning." Raph looked over to Shadow who continued to sleep on the grass bank. "Or more like let me know. The kid's coppin' some major Z's over there."
"Should we wake her when it's done?" Mike asked, glancing down to the PeeK.
"Nah, we'll just bring her inside with us. She deserves the rest after what we've gone through." Raph sighed a little. "We all do."