Maddie sighed irritably and glanced at her disgruntled husband. The tour guide had promised there would be ghosts on this tour, but so far, there were none to be had. Several of the mediums kept reporting cold spots; considering the low temperature, she wasn't surprised. The Fenton Finder hadn't gone off since they left the hotel, but the self-titled psychics kept trying to say they felt various presences. One of them even tried to convince everyone that he was being possessed.
"Who does he think he's fooling?" Jack leaned down to whisper.
Maddie shook her head and yawned, then glanced behind her to see that Jazz had somehow managed to sneak one of her books along. She momentarily considered telling the girl to put it away, but decided to simply envy her the entertainment instead.
A barking rottweiler finally ended the debacle as it crashed headlong into the "possessed" man, scaring him witless, and kept running. Three more followed behind it, scattering the humans like sheep. The dogs seemed to be running from something, as though they were terrified of it. Maddie glanced at her husband and saw that he was thinking the same thing she was: dogs could sense ghosts.
"Sweetie, wait with the group," Maddie told Jazz, who nodded worriedly.
"Not to worry, everyone!" Jack announced. "I, Jack Fenton, will take care of that little ghost problem." Maddie arched an eyebrow, but decided not to challenge him in front of their colleagues. They pulled their hoods over their faces and cautiously walked in the direction the dogs had come from, failing to notice the amused smirks.
The Fenton Finder began acting strangely. It beeped a few times in response to a ghostly presence near an open manhole, then started to make a high-pitched whining sound. The digital display wavered and shook like an old television with bad reception. Little green dots that would normally show a ghost's location appeared and disappeared completely at random. Coming to a silent yet mutual decision with her husband, Maddie simply turned it off before they climbed down into the sewer.
Jack made a noise of revulsion as he picked up his foot. "I don't want to know," he said simply.
Maddie chuckled lightly. "Honey, no one ever said ghost hunting would always be glamorous." She patted his shoulder as he pretended to pout, then they were all business again as they moved forward, ecto-pistols at the ready.
A noise slowly intruded on their awareness. At first, it sounded like someone sobbing, but as they walked further and it became louder, it sounded more like insane giggling. It stopped suddenly as the sound of a woman screaming pierced their ears. Maddie ran toward the sound, trusting Jack to follow. It was difficult to track the echo, but eventually she rounded a corner to see the body of a young prostitute hacked to pieces and scattered everywhere. Time seemed to slam to a halt as she took in the violent scene and noticed the large, grinning man in a trench coat standing in the middle of it all.
The scene vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving nothing but bloodstained ground. "Jack, did you see that?" Maddie asked quietly. When she got no response, she turned to see that she was alone.
Now, this should be fun, whispered a voice.
The ghost hunter whirled around, pistol at the ready, to see nothing. "Who said that?" she demanded, turning in a slow circle. "Who are you?"
So like my pequeño muchacho, aren't you? Very well. I am El Fantasma de Platasignora. I know the fate of your hombre. Come and find me in the temple of self medication. I fear his life and that of your daughter are rather…limited...
Maddie went cautiously back the way she came. There were no signs of a struggle; Jack's footprints simply stopped. She swallowed fearfully and looked around. The loving mother and wife inside her head was aching to fall apart, but that would do no good. She had to find this "temple of self medication" and quickly.
A flash of white caught her eyes, and she quickly turned to see a woman in a white dress draped in chains disappear around a corner. She remembered the nightmare her son had described to her, and the apparition in white he had called Silver. That creature had plagued his dreams for weeks; she still heard him cry out from time to time. She hadn't believed it was anything more than a ghost-induced dream until now.
"She led me around," Danny had confessed quietly, staring at his feet. "It was part of the game; she wanted to give me a sporting chance, I guess."
Maddie stared after Silver for a few seconds, then gritted her teeth and followed.
People called them gorgers. They were vaguely humanoid monstrosities that seemed to exist only to eat everything in sight. Most of the people he had rescued had simply run away in fear, but one of them had stayed to tell the story. The young man had done so grudgingly, but he said he owed Danny that much at least.
Several years ago, a pious priest had run a homeless shelter and mission in the area. Food was sparse at the best of times; when it finally ran out, he had made the decision to find alternative meat. When his flock had found out what they were eating, they had turned on him and set fire to the mission. According to the legend, those people had become the gorgers.
"But what was the meat?" Danny asked, confused.
The man looked at him as though he was completely daft. "Human," he answered, then ran off.
Danny stared after him, grateful that his ghost form kept him from completely loosing his lunch. A sharp pain in his back brought his attention to the froglike creature that had appeared behind him. He groaned at the sight of one of his more annoying foes, the mainliner. Like its Carnate cousin, it had syringes sticking out of its back and through its eyes, which it yanked out to throw at him. Although the liquid in these was glowing orange instead of green, it seemed to have the same effect on him: none whatsoever. He destroyed the thing with a single energy blast and continued his fast paced flight across Baltimore.
He flew low, as much to help the few people he came across as to find his family. Fortunately, this time around, he had full access to his ghost powers. The monsters were no match for him when he could simply turn intangible and blast them, and he wasn't about to let Silver make him think she had locked his powers away again. In fact, he wasn't going to fall for any of her games.
Maybe that was why she had yet to bother him. The thought was a very heartening one.
He stopped short as a voice cried out for help, and shot through the wall of an electronics store looking for the source. "Is anyone here?" he called out.
Every television in the room came on suddenly. The snowy images flickered yellow a few times, then settled onto a static-plagued picture of a doctor with a bloodstained apron over a black suit, a pair of rubber gloves, and some kind of reflecting disk on his forehead.
"Ah, come on!" Danny pleaded.
Dr. Killjoy, who had opened his mouth to spew some elongated prose-filled greeting, closed it again with a snap and glared. "Really now, my dear boy," he chastised in his jovial English accent. "I am here to help you. I do wish you would simply accept that."
"Are Haight and Horace here too?" the boy asked, his voice bordering on bitter. Although he wouldn't have minded seeing the executed inmate Horace Gauge again, the executioner Hermes Haight was another matter entirely. He and Silver had been jointly responsible for the nightmare of Carnate Island.
Killjoy sighed and threw up his hands. "Very well, my boy. I can take a hint. No, they are not. However…well, you'll see."
"I'll see what?"
"You may find it prudent to follow our dear Silver again. Though, I'll confess, the game is not hers this time."
"What do you mean?" Danny demanded, but the screens flickered out. Before he could react further, the one creature he hated more than any other spoke into his mind.
Hello, niño. I've missed you.
The boy froze as the burning feelings he had thought long gone threatened to overwhelm him. At last, once he thought he had himself firmly under control again, he turned. "Silver," he greeted the lady in chains in a somewhat choked voice.
She smiled happily. You didn't come back to visit me. I thought you had forgotten me.
"Oh, believe me, I tried."
Now, that's not very nice, is it? She pointed to the right and vanished.
Danny clenched his fists and took a slow breath to center himself. A pair of rottweilers ran by, barking frantically. He looked at them before flying off in the direction they had come from. He remembered his parents saying dogs could sense ghosts; were they running towards the ghosts or away?
The only people he saw were in states best left not described. To say they appeared to have been ravaged by wild animals would have been understating the situation. He repressed a shudder and flew higher. A few hulking marksmen tried to shoot him, but he went intangible and made quick work of them.
Suddenly, he saw his father and sister standing down below and dropped down to greet them happily. He realized all was not right moments before time stopped to show him the man from his dream standing behind the two humans as they were ripped apart by a pack of human-faced hounds. Then the image was gone.
Danny hung in the air, his head in his hands. It never got easier. But then, that was a good thing, after all.
A/N: Copperfield, Creeper, and all of the monsters are from the game. Silver and Ed are OCs. Most of the locations are from the game, although I do make up a few. Like the hotel. I'll also say that I'm not just copying the plot the game took. A few of the events were inspired by this game or its predecessor, but most of them were inspired by the twisted side of my mind.