Bet you didn't expect to see this at this point, did you :). I'll be trying to finish it over the next couple of weeks, but here's a new chapter.
"Anything?" Anne's husband asked.
"No dear." Dr. Possible replied. "There's been no change in her condition." She sighed. "I don't know how long this is going to last. Coma's, even "normal" ones, can vary greatly in when, and if the patient recovers." Anne realized she was falling into pedantry, since her husband was no idiot…but she wasn't used to being helpless.
"Protecting? The museum?" Kim blinked. "How can that… don't ghosts…" Her voice stopped. Kim looked around, trying to collect her thoughts. "Why are you here?"
"Because of guilt…and because you won't let us go." Andrews said.
"I won't let you go?" Kim said. "I'm just protecting the-"
"Memory of our shame…or more specifically, the thing that lets everyone else smile at our foolishness… from the safety of their houses…" He paused, "You do know that ghosts are not only kept on the earth by their own will…often they can be held by the will of others."
Kim stared at him, then looked around, listening to the orders, the cries, the sounds of rockets leaping up into the sky, blooming in bright, useless lights.
"But…everyone…"
"Wishes to be here? Or mocks us for our failures?" Andrews paused. "It was not we who gave entire generations to the fire, or devised weapons more terrible than the darkest nightmares of man… yet here we are."
"Wait…wishes to be…" Kim's voice trailed off. She thought about the Titanic movie, with the teen heartthrob, and her and her girlfriends sighing about how romantic it was…
"No…"
"Yes…"
"But…but what will happen to me?" Kim asked, her voice unsteady. Andrews looked at her in pity.
"Child… I didn't wish this to happen to you, but now…" He sighed, "In forty five minutes, the ship will sink, you will die here…your body will die in the living world…" He turned away, "And you will be one of us, repeating this final night over and over again."
Ron got off the scooter, and there, true to Wade's word, was a gas truck. No sign of the driver. Ron wondered if Wade had convinced him to leave…or if he'd left when he'd seen the odd lights flashing inside the museum, the greenish glow to the outside air…and the looming sense of power and anger that clung to everything like a funeral shroud.
Now, he could go in and ask them politely… or beg or… Suddenly Ron found something that rarely happened to him.
He was getting pissed.
No. He was not going to go in and ask, "pretty please, could you give Kim back." Kim didn't deserve this. She hadn't sunk the ship, and she hadn't deliberately tried to screw anything up. If they'd wanted to get her to back off, they should have tried to do something other than spooky tricks and songs.
Dead or not, Ronald Stoppable and the spooks were going to have a little chat. Besides, all the old stories said that the reason ghosts were dangerous was because they were righteously angry.
Well so was Ron. Ron walked over, grabbed a can of gasoline, thought about it, and unreeled one of the gas lines from the truck. He walked right up to the door, frowned for a moment, and then kicked it, once, twice three times, until the door frame came loose, the safety glass shattered and fell onto the floor of the museum.
"Oh yeah. Let's talk." Ron said, striding in.
"But… why here? I checked, all this stuff…none of it is really that unusual…why not the first people who came to the ship?"
"They were explorers, Young Lady." Andrews said, "But after them…the film makers, the collectors…the adventure seekers…" He paused, "All walking on the place associated with our deaths, and I may assure you, our deaths were not the deaths we had imagined or wished for ourselves." He paused, "But now, we are more awake than we've ever been…"
"The…the seaquake?" Kim paused, "Did you do that?"
"No. Maybe God, in His wisdom did…but we are closer to freedom than we have ever been….and I fear many here were not willing to understand that your intentions were good when you thwarted the thief. They simply see you as another vulture." He sighed. "And now, that you are here, it is too late—even if they repented, they do not have the power. I am truly sorry."
Kim shuddered. She was barely seventeen…she couldn't die here. She couldn't.
You mean you couldn't die here like Elsbeth did. A voice said to her. Elsbeth hadn't had the chance to become seventeen when the waters took her. In fact…
"Elsbeth?" Kim called. A voice came back, distant. "I can't find my mommy or my doll…" Suddenly, Kim turned and moved towards the interior of the tilting ship.
"Where are you going?"
"To find Elsbeth…to save her!"
"My dear…you can't… she's already dead." Andrews paused, "Where you die now, will be where you will lie for the rest of your existence here… at least stay top deck!" But Kim didn't hear him as she hurried into one of the hatchways, moving down into the ship, chasing a voice.
Inside the museum, there were sounds, and the scent of water, and odd moving shadows at the corner of the eye. Ron wasn't having any of it. If he stopped, if he started thinking about this, he'd take off and not stop until he hit Arizona, so he let his anger carry him.
"I'm here!" he shouted. "With the gas! Want me to burn down the place…Let's talk."
Burn it…burn it…free….. Thousands of voices assaulted him, desperate, hopeless, despairing. Ron shook his head.
"No."
BURN IT! YOU MUST, END IT!
The roar drove him to his knees, but Ron kept his head up.
"No." He repeated. "Not until you tell me what you did to Kim."
She's with us.
"Let her go, and I burn the place."
We cannot…
"Then no fire."
She will die with us… be trapped with us.
"And that's different if I burn this place how?"
She may be freed with us.
"To where?"
We do not know. Please… let us go? Now the voice was pleading, and Ron felt his anger flag, as much as he kept it up. There was agony in it, sorrow, a weight of despair that could fill the entire world.
"Then why did you take her?"
We were angry…after so long, to be so close… Ron paused.
"And you can't get her out."
…no. A chorus of screams of anger, or guilt rose around him, but it was not directed at him.
You are right. It was wrong… go. We will not stop you.
"And that will help KP how?"
You cannot.
"Hmph. You may be wrong…especially since I'm going to try." Ron paused, "So, can you suck me down the rabbit hole as well?" He paused, "After I set up something." Ron opened up the valve on the gasoline line and let it start running out into the main hall.
"Wade?" Ron called on his communicator. "Can you make a spark with this thing?"
"Um… yeah. Why?"
"Set it to go off in 45 minutes, Wade."
"Ron…"
"I'll be clear, don't worry."
He turned, "OK…now, let's do this."
"Elsbeth!" Kim shouted. The interior corridors were tilted, mostly deserted, the lights still blazing away. Elsbeth seemed to be just ahead of her, calling out for her mommy, for her doll.
And they were heading down, towards the bow. Kim could hear water sloshing ahead.
"Oh boy…" Kim shuddered. At some point the lights would fail, and then…she imagined feeling the ship start into its final plunge, the inky waters rushing up to her, the darkness and cold taking-
"Stop it." The cheerleader ordered herself. She was going to find Elsbeth. It didn't' matter if they were going to die. It didn't matter if she couldn't save her life.
Kim could at least make certain that if Elsbeth had to do this over and over again, she died in the open, under the stars. Not trapped in the guts of this dying ship.
Ron dropped onto the hard deck and rolled. Getting up he looked down the sloping deck as the water started moving up faster. Most of the people were moving up to the stern, as the ship slowly listed even further.
"God." Ron said. There was a woman near him, heading towards the stern, soothing the toddler she held clutched to her chest. The sounds of a priest offering final absolution rose into the cold air, mixing with the sound of the band.
"These people don't deserve this." Ron said. Repeating this night? How many nights had there been since the ship sank…
"Too many." He heard and turned and looked over at a well dressed man.
"Jacob Astor." He said to Ron, nodding. "Your… fiancée is currently inside the ship."
"Thanks…" Ron looked around. "Why can't you leave?"
"Because people keep remembering us."
No. That can't be it. Ron Thought. Because if that was it… they could never leave. There was another reason. God wouldn't let a bunch of kids dreaming about romance keep them here, what ever these people thought.
Ron turned and walked down towards the bow of the ship, heading for an entrance to see if he could find Kim.
Kim running, gasped as the cold water hit her legs, as it rose. Further down, the lights still blazed, eerily, underwater, the corridor vanishing into the green murk.
And there she was.
Elsbeth, holding her doll, perched on a cart that had not yet been carried away, looking terrified around at the rising water. Without a pause, Kim splashed into the water, up to her waist, and teeth chattering, grabbed Elsbeth and turned around, heading to the top deck.
"No! You'll die!" Elsbeth cried out.
"Maybe…" Kim said, "But not here…. C'mon, let's get out of here."
And then the lights flickered, once, flickered twice, and died.
TBC.