Ever since the accident that made him half ghost, Danny had acquired a sort of sixth sense. It wasn't his ghost sense, which only went off when ghosts were near. It was something else, a feeling that all people who deal with danger on a regular basis acquire after a while. It was a soft prickling on the back of his neck that almost made his hair stand on end.
Someone, or something, was watching him. As strange as it sounded, he hoped it was just Darwin. He knew that creature, now, and though he could handle seeing him again. He wasn't sure how he would react to something new, but previous experience told him it wouldn't go well.
Where had his nerve gone? Where was his stubborn determination? It was left with his ghost half, of course, leaving him to cower in the shelter of a doorway. About ten feet away, a gorger slurped at the remains of a creature that looked like a human/cat hybrid might if it were hit by a semi doing eighty miles an hour, then stuffed and sewn back together by a three-year-old who had no idea what anatomy was and thought it would be fun to add a few extra limbs.
It had an arm sticking out the top of its head.
It had been an hour since Silver last bothered him. Staring at the…catman, he almost missed her, if only for the familiarity. Unfortunately, while she was absent, her two pet marksmen were not. Cobra and Mongoose, the malefactor representations of her favored colt handguns of the same names, had been on a nonstop rampage.
If Danny had been brave enough, he would have leaned out and started firing while they took aim, but his backbone was gone with Phantom. He had the distinct impression that Silver was out there, laughing at him from some invisible vantage. "Why me?" he muttered, leaning his head against the brick.
The sound of gunfire slowly faded away as the marksmen chased some other bizarre creature. After a few minutes, the boy dared to peek around his corner and was gratified to see that they really were gone. It was a good thing, too; his imagination had him convinced that something was whispering right behind him. He started to stand, and a pair of hazy hands clamped around his face, obscuring his vision. "Guess who…" the apparition whispered.
Danny fought off the darkness that threatened to engulf him and managed to pull free to start running. Behind him, the thing emerged from the wall and laughed faintly. "Don't run away," it whispered, proving that the Malice was vaguely aware of some things at least.
He ran harder. The last thing he wanted was to live through another person's death. The first two had been bad enough. A hand caught him on the shoulder, but he managed to shrug it off. He was tired, and he was slowing down. There had to be some way to get rid of it.
Left with not much in the way of options, he turned and started blasting. Unlike the drowned girl, however, this one didn't even stop. He continued to back away from the headless boy, but it was a hopeless cause.
He chased her down the wooded incline, laughing all the while. He loved to make her mad; actually, he thought she was kind of cool, for a girl.
Danny fought his way free again. "Leave me alone!" he yelled as though it would possibly do any good.
"Don't run away," the boy whispered again.
"Don't run away!" he taunted. "I just want to play with you!"
"You're not ready for my game," she replied from somewhere nearby and made him jump. He hadn't realized she was so close.
"You're such a freak, Silver Devil."
"Do you really want to play with me?"
He shouted and whirled around to find her just behind him. With an exasperated scoff, he rolled his eyes. "What are we playing? House?"
"No," she replied, a strange smile on her face. "We're playing this." She lifted an axe from the nearby woodshed and swung.
"No!" Danny yelled, cringing fearfully. He stumbled backwards and started running again. He passed a pack of slayers that were too busy to give chase and a horde of gorgers that simply couldn't catch him. Finally, however, he tripped over something and went sprawling across the concrete. He couldn't move; he could barely breathe. It was a long time before he realized that he must have managed to lose his pursuer.
A pair of dilapidated work boots appeared in his field of vision, but he was too exhausted to care. The boots shifted slightly as the wearer got down on his knees and a pair of wrinkled, claw-like hands landed on the pavement to either side of his head.
He wanted to move, but his body didn't want to obey. It lay right where it was despite his increasingly panicked commands to get up. He shuddered involuntarily as Darwin sniffed at his hair like a dog might. No, it was more like a pig might.
"I can sssmell your fear," the gluttonous creature confided. "It sssmells so sssweet."
"Go away," Danny muttered weakly.
Darwin stood again, and the boy actually thought he was going to comply. Then those claws dug into his side, and he found himself hoisted into the air and thrown over the creature's shoulder. "What are you going to do?" he asked fearfully.
"You're not ssstrong enough. I will add your ssstrength to my own."
It took a few minutes for him to realize what that meant. As soon as it clicked, he was suddenly inspired to move again. "You don't want to eat me!" he protested, trying to kick free. "I don't taste good! I swear!"
"Little boysss are the sssweetest of all," Darwin argued. His amused tone had the effect of causing the boy to redouble his efforts. The skeletal malefactor was surprisingly strong, but Danny managed to kick him in the head with a knee and break away. He dashed the few feet to his dropped weapon, then turned and started firing.
The rifle might not work on the Malice, but it was wonderfully effective against the cannibal. Darwin cried out and tried to protect himself with his bare arms, but it didn't work out. After a few more shots hit, he simply vanished. "You confussse me," he whispered from nowhere. "I think that I want you."
Danny sighed and mumbled, "Get in line." It seemed like every time he turned around, some new villain was trying to kill him. Or, in this case, eat him. It got really old, really quickly. He glanced around and was forced to sigh again. In all the running, he had gotten turned around and ran away from the clock tower. He turned in the appropriate direction and started walking.
What if the headless boy was up there?
After a moment's indecision, he kept going. He would deal that when he got there. He was tired of the constant fear he felt. He was a Fenton, darn it; he shouldn't be so scared, but it was all he could do not to run all the way home and lock himself in the lab.
He wished Jazz was there, or his parents. Really, he wished everyone was there so he could go home. He was tired and scared and…
He closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears as Jazz appeared in the road. It didn't really help to blot out the screaming as she was set upon by mainliners. The hospital was about a block away. He tried to focus on it and failed miserably.
"Don't run away!" called a voice. Danny gave a panicked gasp and started running again. He didn't even bother to look around to see how far away the headless boy was; he ran straight into the hospital in the hopes that he could-
"…And this is the electric chair, where Horace died," Meryll was saying. "He died the day I was born."
"Wow…" he breathed. "Can I sit in it?"
"I don't think you should do that," Diego interjected uncomfortably.
The white haired girl laughed brightly. "You're no fun! Let's play executioner! Kev, you can be the victim."
He hooted with joy and jumped into the chair while Meryll led her boyfriend into the control room. After the initial novelty subsided, however, he squirmed uncomfortably. Maybe this wasn't the best idea. People did say that Meryll might have killed that-
The pain was all-encompassing. The last thing he remembered was one of the inmates standing before him with a very sad look in his eyeless face.
Danny fell and scrambled backwards as the boy called Kev reached out to catch him again. This was getting ridiculous; the things were everywhere. They were even worse than the malefactors. At least he could destroy them.
He ran to the door of the hospital, but the headless boy met him there. He couldn't get past, so he dodged around Kev and ran deeper into the apparently abandoned halls. He saw a few faces peeking out from behind doors that slammed shut as he drew near. Not that he could blame them. He certainly wouldn't want anyone running from the Malice to get to close to him. It was practically suicide.
A mainliner wandered into view, and he destroyed it before turning down the hall it had come from. Immediately, he tripped over someone's leg and slid along the wet floor. "Sorry," he gasped as he regained his feet. There was a second exit up ahead. The door had been torn off its hinges, but the culprit seemed to have moved on. He dashed beneath a still-working light and out the door.
Suddenly, something shrieked behind him. Had he been thinking, he would have kept running. Since he was only reacting, he stumbled to a stop and turned. The two parts of Malice hovered helplessly just beyond the light. They couldn't stand the florescent light? Even slayers didn't mind that, as long as it wasn't too bright. Danny grinned and wondered where the nearest nice, big flashlight might be. He set off at a more leisurely pace to find one.
He started to walk with his head down, a sign of his exhaustion, and noticed that he was covered in something red. After a moment, he realized what it was and what he had tripped over. The fear threatened to overwhelm him again, but he pushed it firmly out of mind and resolved to find some new clothes in addition to the flashlight. He wasn't sure how long he'd be able to ignore the sticky, wet blood, and he didn't much want to find out.
A/N: You know, I really hate that horizontal rule. I prefer just using an extra space because having this huge line across the screen is very distracting to me. Oh well.