A/N: For your reading pleasure, I present to you Chapter Three. I'm having fun writing this aspect of Screamer; I hope you'll have as much fun reading it!

Chapter Three: Poltergeist

"What are you talking about, Spades?" Tomcat asked her friend, shaking her gently by the shoulders. Alexis's skin was a ghastly shade of white, her eyes were glassy and nonresponsive—it seemed almost as if the woman was in shock. "Speak to me!" Tomcat shook Alexis a little harder.

Finally Alexis gave her head a shake and looked Clarissa in the eye again. Her pupils were dilated within those striking green irises, a clear indication that whatever this woman saw had frightened her almost senseless. "I-I saw a man in my cockpit," she finally stuttered.

"That's it? You freaked out over a man in your cockpit?" Clarissa repeated, sounding slightly annoyed.

"Not just a man, Clarissa! I could see straight through him! I could frickin' see the seat on the other side of his body! Not only that, but he had red eyes. Red Eyes! So, yes! I am freaking out over a man in my cockpit!"

"Are you sure you weren't just imagining all this? I mean, you were working awfully hard this afternoon."

"Damn it, Tomcat! I wasn't imagining it! I saw a fucking ghost in my jet's cockpit!" Alexis shouted angrily. She stormed past her roommate and ran her hands through her hair irritably. She couldn't sit down, couldn't stand still. Her body was too keyed up to relax and allow her mind to calm down. Her mind was a swirl of emotions—one part of her wanted to reject what she had seen, to delete it completely and deny it ever happened, but the other part of her mind, her subconscious, rebuked her other half, silently confirming the one thing she had always believed to be the material of campfire stories and silly superstitions. She heard a slight click and turned her head sharply to the right. Tomcat had picked up the phone and already had the receiver to her mouth.

"What are you doing?" Alexis snapped, striding over to her roommate.

"I'm calling your crew chief," Tomcat replied in an equally snappish tone.

Alexis didn't even bother to ask why; she already knew the answer. Clarissa didn't believe her. Alexis threw her hands up in defeat. She would probably be doing the same thing if her roommate had come stampeding into the room shouting about ghosts haunting her plane as well.

"Hey, Crowbar. This is Tomcat," Alexis heard her friend say. "Yeah, that's right; I'm Spades' roomy. Say Crow, I need to ask you a quick question."

A pause.

"Yes, I know it's late…Was anyone scheduled to work on Spades' jet tonight? No? Well, Spades went on a midnight stroll and she says she saw someone playing around in her bird's cockpit."

Clarissa eyed her roommate thoughtfully; she placed a slender hand over the receiver. "Did you get a good look at him?" Clarissa asked Alexis softly.

"From what I could see, I think I could give a pretty good description," Alexis responded quietly.

Clarissa removed her hand. "Yeah, she can give ya a description…Oh, are you?...Great! We'll meet you there." The redhead hung up the phone and grabbed Alexis by the elbow. "Come on."

"What the hell? Cat, where are we…? Oh! Hell no! Not tonight! Can't this wait until morning?" she pleaded. She really, really didn't want to go back to that hangar tonight.

"And why should we? If there's an asshole messing around your bird, then we need to make sure he didn't screw anything up. Besides, Crow is going to meet us there. There's nothing to worry about."

"Because there's no one there! Clarissa, I know what I saw!"

"Well, we'll just go make sure, now won't we?"

With that, Clarissa dragged a very reluctant and displeased Alexis back into the hallway and towards the apartment complex's exit. This was going to be a long night.

Crowbar was a man who valued his sleep; actually the gruff, old mechanic valued any sleep he could snag within a twenty-four hour period. So, when he received a phone call at approximately 0130, he was not very pleased and for that matter neither was his wife.

"Who's that, baby?" Mrs. Barr sleepily asked her husband as he crawled from bed, growling lowly to himself.

"That damnable Tomcat Tabor," Crowbar groused almost incoherently as he slipped into his ABU pants and boots.

"What's wrong?" she asked, slowly sitting up in bed and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"She says Spades saw a man messing around our bird. I'm going to go check it out; make sure nothin's missin' and what not. Damn! A lot of shit has been happening around that jet lately," the tired crew chief, mumbled almost to himself. He ran a hand over his short-cropped, blonde hair and pulled a tan PT shirt over his muscular frame. "I'll be back in a few," he said, giving Mrs. Crowbar a quick peck on the cheek and walking out of the bedroom.

As the door quietly clicked shut behind him, Mrs. Barr snuggled deeper into the covers and rolled over onto her side. She sighed heavily and whispered, "That damn jet," but there was a tiny smile on her lips as she drifted back into sleep.

Crowbar walked quickly to the hangar, almost jogging the distance from his house to the tarmac. Large sprinkles of rain splashed his face and a strong wind pulled at the crew chief's light clothing; it was almost as if the weather was persuading him to go back inside. An occasional flash of lightning and the grumbling protest of thunder could be heard in between the howls of wind as it whipped between the buildings. The smell of wet asphalt and moist sand mingled in the damp, night air. The normally dry and cool desert night felt unusually warm and humid, a sign that the storms were not quite finished with the area yet. As he approached the hangar, nothing seemed immediately odd or suspicious; all was quiet and still-as it should be. There were no night flights tonight on account of the weather. Slowing his pace, Crowbar walked into the hangar, every sense keyed to pick up the slightest oddity.

Nothing.

Nothing stirred within the peace of the hangar. The overhead lights flickered briefly, but never went completely out. Crowbar attributed it to the storm. A soft breeze had found its way into the hangar and was gently pulling on the crew chief's pants legs. Warily, the staff sergeant made his way up the center aisle, blue eyes darting back and forth, scanning, searching, seeking. Finally, he approached his captain's jet and he ran his blue eyes over every visible inch.

Nothing.

The ladder had not been disturbed and there were no dusty footprints on the wing indicating someone had hopped up to the cockpit. The jet appeared as he had left it earlier that day. Maybe Spades was seeing things. Shaking his head tiredly, Crowbar grabbed the ladder and pulled it next to the cockpit. He scaled the ladder with practiced ease, having performed this simple function every day since entering the Air Force as a mechanic. He slid the hatch open and scrutinized the cockpit, his highly trained eye looking for even one switch flipped where it ought not to be. Everything was as it should be. Except…

His forehead wrinkled in puzzlement and he leaned further into the jet, eyes focused on the radar screen. It was illuminated. Not by much, but a very faint greenish glow reflected off the edges of the console. Now that was odd. He'd have to get Scotty, the Avionics Tech, to look at that in the morning.

"Find anything, Crow?" A voice broke the solitude quite abruptly.

"Aaaahhh!" The crew chief quickly lost his balance and fell face-first into the cockpit. Tomcat burst into a giggling fit while Alexis tried to hide her face in shame.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to sneak up on you, Crow," Tomcat managed to say between snickers.

"Damn it, Cat! Give a man a little warning next time!" Crowbar barked angrily from the jet as he floundered around in the cockpit trying to try and right himself. He acted something like a fish caught in a hand net the way he was kicking and squirming about trying to get in the best position to crawl out of his awkward predicament.

"I said I was sorry, but I just couldn't help myself," Tomcat replied, elbowing Alexis in the ribs. "Did you find anything?"

As Crow finally managed to sit right-side up, he deliberated telling the girls about the oddly-lit radar screen. He thought better of it; it was probably just a minor technical glitch anyway. It was nothing to worry his pilot over. "Nope. Nothing out of the ordinary. Everything appears to be in order." He backed out of the cockpit, slid the hatch back into place and slowly made his way down the ladder. Once on the concrete, he directed his level, blue eyes on Alexis. "Tomcat says you saw someone in here. Can you elaborate for me, Spades?"

Alexis shuffled uncomfortably under her crew chief's stare. She may have been the commanding officer, but when that bird was on the ground, as it was now, Crowbar was in charge. She already felt like a fool in front of Clarissa; she really didn't want to repeat the process in front of her crew chief. But the young woman took a deep breath and repeated her story almost verbatim to her mechanic.

"And he was gone just like that?" Crowbar snapped his fingers.

"Yes, by the time the lightning flash ended and the lights came back on, he was gone," Alexis confirmed.

"What did he look like?" Crowbar asked, arms folded across his chest. He had his head cocked curiously to one side.

"All I can give you is a facial description, but he appeared to have dark brown hair, crew cut, wore one of the older made flight suits; it wasn't quite like the ones we wear; it had some patches, but I couldn't make them out. Ummm, he had really sharp facial features; no mustache or anything like that and…he…uh…had red eyes," stumbled over the last part of her description.

"What was that?" Crow prompted, twirling his hand in a circular manner.

Alexis hesitated. She bit her lip in nervous agitation. "He had red eyes," she whispered.

"Red!?" Crowbar echoed, sounding slightly surprised.

"Yes! Red! I swear the guy's eyes were red! When he looked at me I thought I was going to spontaneously combust!"

Crowbar didn't say anything more as he chewed over the information he had been given. Something wasn't quite adding up. Apparitions in cockpits, homicidal rubber mallets, mysteriously moving tools…He hadn't told Spades about the trouble his crew had been having, but he wasn't quite ready to attribute all the shenanigans to the "other realm" just yet. Some Air Force crews were notorious for their pranks on fellow crewmen.

"OK, I tell you what, Spades. I'll keep my eyes open for this guy, if he appears again. I'll even see if Security Forces cam stage a watch if you like. I'm inclined to believe what you've told me, but right now it's all circumstantial. Now, I checked your jet over, we've agreed to a Code Two status, so you're still on to fly tomorrow. You think you can handle it?"

He watched his pilot's reaction carefully. He could tell that something had deeply disturbed her. Alexis was as rock solid as they come. In the air, she was as cool and collected as a bucket of ice, very little rattled her. She acted almost exactly like Scotty had earlier in the week—nervous, shifty, flighty even. He was determined to get to the bottom of this. At least Spades had Tomcat to steady her. Crowbar doubted anything short of a MOAB could rattle that redhead.

Alexis nodded her head slowly at first and then more vigorously, "Yes."

"All righty then! Let's get some sleep, shall we folks. Some of us 'round here actually work for a living."

Crowbar received a few playful punches for that comment. He wrapped both arms around each of the pilot's shoulders, one on each side, and together the three made their way out of the hangar. However, Alexis couldn't help but glance one last time at her jet, mistrust and suspicion clouding her emerald eyes. The jet sat there as innocently as before, quietly waiting for the next day to begin. Reluctantly, she focused forward, trying to concentrate on one of Tomcat's lame inter-service jokes.

But had Alexis looked back for a second time, her fears might have been confirmed, for there standing at parade rest in the center of the aisle stood the very same man she had seen sitting in her cockpit. He was a tall officer, standing close to 6'4" with dark, black-brown hair, neatly shaven around the edges in an immaculate, military crew cut. He was quite a handsome representative of the human race, with finely cut features and a powerful muscular frame. He wasn't of a bulky muscular build either, but rather the lean, lithe type, a poised cobra ready to strike at the slightest provocation. His flight suit was a crisp, olive green and displayed the patches of a renowned squadron. Too bad that squadron had cased their colors almost thirty years prior, after an unfortunate encounter.

The ghostly pilot smirked to himself as the three mortals disappeared from sight. So, what if one of the females had seen him? No one was quite ready to believe her story. It may have been her jet, but now it was his. Of that much he was certain. And if a few humans got in his way? Well, he had already proven he could hurt them; what were a few more deaths added to the already hundreds he had killed?

Silently, the translucent human figure slowly faded from sight, still maintaining that perfect parade-rest pose, a malicious and cruel sneer pulling at the lips. The last thing to completely disappear from sight, were two glowing red eyes floating ominously in the void. Several seconds later, they too disappeared.

The sun dawned bright and beautiful, casting the peaceful desert into a brilliant display of blues, deep purples, fiery reds and magnificent oranges. The storms of the night had passed, leaving the desert air cool and fresh. It was going to be a fantastic day to fly. But instead of feeling excited about today's events as she would normally feel, Captain Alexis O'Conner felt nothing but deep dread as the morning rays pierced her window. Ever since she had arrived back at her apartment, the young pilot had been unable to sleep. She had tossed and turned in the remaining hours of the night, visions of a red-eyed ghost haunting her mind. That stare. It felt as if he were seeing straight through her even as she had seen through him. But she had felt so much more. When she had told Crowbar that she felt as if she would spontaneously combust, she had not been exaggerating. That stare not only had made her feel exposed and vulnerable, but she had literally felt the malicious heat radiating from his eyes. She had wanted to run, to hide her face from such a scathing glower, but at the same time she had been unable to move, frozen in place by fear. Never had Alexis been in the presence of so much hatred and loathing. It sent a cold shiver running down her spine just to recall the feeling.

Slowly, she got out of bed and began to prepare for the day. Alexis thought she would never see the day she would be reluctant to fly. Every tug on a zipper, every lace that needed tied was performed with deliberate slowness. When she had finally dressed and prepared her satchel, Alexis confirmed she was the only one left in the apartment. Tomcat was due out on the flight line as well. They would be performing different exercises with different flight partners, but Alexis couldn't help but feel a little relieved that Tomcat was not her partner today. She loved that fiery she-cat, but sometimes her manner could be quite annoying, such as how she had reacted last night. Alexis felt there really had been no need to contact Crowbar until in the morning; she still felt a little rankled over that stunt, but she knew Tomcat was just trying to help in her own special way. With a reluctant sigh, Alexis left their apartment and locked the door. It was time to head for the hangar.

"Good morning, Captain," one of the members of her crew called cheerily. Alexis gave the subordinate a half-hearted smile in return. It sure as hell didn't feel like a good morning.

With hesitant steps, the pilot walked down the center aisle of Hangar Seven Alfa. All the aircrews were busy tending to their respective jets, milling around each piece of machinery like ants around an apple core. About that time, Alexis caught a brief glimpse of her crew chief disappearing around the tail-end of her jet. Setting her jaw stubbornly, Alexis strode the remaining distance with false-confident strides. She stopped at the nose and gave the cockpit a wary eye. Maybe she had imagined it? In any event, she had a job to perform and now was not the time to allow petty worries to cloud her judgment.

"Spades! You ready? You're due on the flight line by 0700! Let's get crackin'!"

Alexis smiled to herself. Good ol' Crowbar; business as usual. She ran her required pre-flight check before approaching the ladder. It was already propped against the jet, the cockpit open and waiting. 'Here goes nothin',' she thought to herself. Alexis adjusted her satchel and began to climb the ladder. She swung a leg over and into the opening and then slid into place. She fiddled with the buckles of the safety harness and checked all the switches and gauges. Everything was in order; everything was as it should be. Time to rock and roll.

Back on the line once more, she gave the signal to pull the chocks and kept her eye on the marshaller, waiting for the salute. She copied the all-too-familiar signal and throttled the jet up, taxiing down the ramp to the runway. Another jet was approaching to her left, her flight partner for this morning's exercise. She groaned inwardly when she read the name below the glass—Lt. Jerry "Coldstone" Stoner. Whereas Alexis got along with almost everybody in her squadron; Coldstone was the remaining 1% that she absolutely loathed. He was below her in rank, but that only seemed to aggravate the hostility between the two of them. Coldstone despised her with a passion; why, Alexis had yet to figure out. The only good thing she could credit him was that he was one hell of a pilot.

"Ready to get your ass kicked, Spades?" her radio crackled to life with the arrogant tone of her flight partner's voice.

"Got that backwards, don't you Butterbar?" Alexis retorted. Really, she was sick of his attitude. What was his problem anyway?

"I have a feeling your luck is going to run out today, Captain."

Alexis didn't even dignify him with a response; it was best to let your actions do the talking for you. She shoved her hand forward and was rewarded with the almost simultaneous thrust of her engines. White-orange licks of flame leaped from the thrusters as her bird shot forward and down the runway.

Together they flew out and into the deep desert, wings inches from touching. As if on some hidden command, the two jets veered apart, each banking into a different direction. 'Let the fun begin,' Alexis thought grimly, this would probably be as close to a real aerial battle as she would ever come.

She pushed the throttle forward, feeling her airspeed drop but savoring the height of the climb. She banked her bird hard to the left and then leveled out. She scanned the clear, blue sky for any tell-tell flashes of sun reflecting off of metal. Nothing.

Suddenly, one of her proximity alarms sounded; Alexis pulled the stick to the right and executed a beautiful barrel roll. She continued to roll her plane to the right and down, trying to catch a visual of her attacker. Like a streaking gray comet, she saw Coldstone rocket away from her, about 1,500 feet below her present position. 'Sneaky, son of a bitch tried to take me from below! Not today, Stoner!'

She pushed the throttle to the limit, feeling the kick of the afterburners pushing her back into the seat. All at once, her earlier reservations disappeared, her fears dissipated and her worries ceased. A new animal took over mind, her inner predator. The only thoughts streaming through her mind was that of tracking and tagging her prey. A loud crack echoed over the desert as Alexis broke the sound barrier and pursued her quarry. The tiny dot slightly to her one o'clock was quickly taking form, two tiny pinpoints of orange in a brilliant azure sky. Alexis quickly closed the gap, drawing within a quarter of a mile of her target. She lowered her jet's velocity to below supersonic speeds and began to maneuver over to get onto Coldstone's six.

He must have detected her presence, for suddenly his jet banked hard to the left. Alexis copied the maneuver, intent on not losing him a second time. Then quite abruptly, Coldstone pulled up and disappeared into the blinding brilliance that was the morning sun. Alexis tried to pursue him, but lost the other jet to the intense glare.

"Damn it!" She cursed out loud. She had lost her advantage and to one of the oldest tricks in the book. She puzzled over her next course of action. If she went high as well, there was every possibility that Coldstone would meet her half-way. After all, he had the sun in his favor. If she stayed where she was he still had the advantage of being higher in altitude than her and the blinding sun factor. If she ducked and ran, he could easily pursue her and she would expose her six. The options didn't look promising. She cursed again, using some words that were less than becoming, but she didn't care; she wanted to win against this arrogant bastard and show him just why she was deserving of her rank.

Suddenly, the flight stick jerked itself from her hands and shot forward. Alexis didn't even have time to respond. The nose of the jet shot down into the vertical and began to plummet to the earth. Alexis felt her vision swim, the edges of which began to turn a rosy red due to the abrupt change in inertia. Vaguely, Alexis pulled back on the stick. No response. She tried again, still no response.

Her airspeed reading was cycling through numbers at an astounding rate, the altimeter was recording a descent speed she could barely comprehend; if she wasn't able to slow down and pull up soon, she would be a little charred spot on the desert floor. She pulled on the stick with all her strength, but the jet continued to plummet like a stone over the edge of a cliff face. Her vision began to fail, the dials and readings blurring within a red haze. She was beginning to red-out, a situation in which all the blood in her body was rushing to her brain due to the force of the negative g's.

The parched earth filled what was left of her vision; the jet was still not responding. Behind her although she couldn't see at the time, Coldstone was beginning to pull out of the suicidal dive, not daring to follow the Captain's flight line.

"Spades, you crazy idiot! Pull up! PULL UP!"

All Alexis heard was a jumble of garbled words. Her head lolled forward as the effects of the dive began to take their toll. She attempted one last time to take control of the stick, but it refused to budge. By this point, ejection didn't occur to her; she was trapped between consciousness and unconsciousness, aware of her plight, but unable to do anything about it.

As the jet breached 1,000 feet and falling, Alexis lost total consciousness; the jet however, did not. With only hundreds of feet to spare, the Eagle leveled out and shot across the desert floor, dust and grit swirling in its wake like a mini-sandstorm. As the aircraft screamed feet above the deck, Alexis slowly regained her senses. At first, she was totally disoriented, but then realization began to seep into the red fog that still clouded her mind.

'What the hell…just happened? Am I still…am I still flying!? Holy SHIT! '

Alexis's first reaction was to scream bloody murder. After all, she was currently strapped within a jet that was flying itself. But years of Air Force training dictated a separate course of action. She took several deep breaths to try and clear her mind. How in the hell was this happening? Why was it happening?

Her eyes darted down to the flight stick. It was currently managing itself, making small corrections here and there in order to maintain straight and level flight. Next her eyes darted outside to the landscape—she couldn't have been 15 feet off the deck at the least. Next, her eyes traveled over the gauges and displays on her console; there were illuminated with a brilliant green light. Normally this wouldn't have been any cause for concern, but since it was happening during the vibrant, desert morning sun, Alexis caught her breath within her mask.

"What the hell is going on here?" she said softly to herself.

Suddenly, the Heads-Up Display illuminated with the same green glow. Her eyes grew wide with fear and shock as words began to scroll across the display.

I am in control.

"What are you?" Alexis continued watching with horrid fascination.

I am in control. The words repeated.

"You're that psycho I saw last night, aren't you?" she asked hesitantly. There was no further response. Cold fear washed over Alexis's body. Tiny beads of sweat began to trickle down the back of her neck and tickle her spine.

Suddenly the radio, crackled to life causing her to flinch. Coldstone's voice filtered over the connection. "Spades!? What in the hell were you thinking!? What happened?!"

Almost simultaneously, scrawling green words appeared on her HUD.

Tell no one.

Alexis swallowed the lump in her throat. That was as clear a threat as one could be. So much for contacting her wingman for help. She briefly debated going against the ghostly warning, but thought better of it. She genuinely didn't have any great escape options. Against her better judgment, she acquiesced and feigned a response. "What's wrong, Stoner? Can't take the heat?" To her credit, Alexis's tone was as steady as a rock.

"The hell I can! But I'm not going to pull a stunt like that! You could have been killed!?"

"Is that concern I hear in your voice?" she teased with mock bravado. This was not the conversation she wanted to be having over a recorded transmission. But what else was there to say?

"Yes! I'm fucking concerned!" Came the strained reply.

The radio fell silent as Alexis watched the tiny blip on her radar screen draw closer. "Now what?" she said out-loud. A fleeting thought crossed her mind about how absurd it was to be talking to a jet, when her thoughts were violently interrupted. The jet banked hard to the left and shot into the sky. The afterburners were screaming with living fire as the Eagle rocketed back into the azure sky. Suddenly the tiny blip on her radar screen became a full-fledged jet directly in her flight line. Once again, Alexis' eyes widened to the size of saucers as Coldstone's jet grew larger and larger with every passing millisecond. She closed her eyes not wanting to see the imminent collision.

At the last possible moment, Alexis's jet banked hard to the right, looped up into the air then rotated back around to come around behind on Stoner's six—a perfect Immelman turn. The next thing she knew, she heard Stoner cursing profusely over their radio link. She didn't catch all of what he had to say and some inner voice told her she probably didn't want to, but the gist went something along the lines of suicidal stunt maneuvers on a training-X and court marshals for everyone involved. She blanched on that last comment. Her on-flight cameras would surely tell that tale.

With the exercise decidedly over, the two jets turned and began to head back to base, albeit Alexis as still just a passenger.

"What in the fuck was that!?" She exclaimed more to herself than anything. "What the fuck is happening!?"

The HUD blinked again as if in response; however, no words were forthcoming.

Alexis shook her head in dazed wonderment. They were cruising just under the speed of sound; however, her thoughts were racing much faster than that. How was she going to explain this? It was bad enough the in-flight cameras recorded every gyration, but how was she going to justify extreme maneuvers that no doctrine covered? Maneuvers that should have violated every mechanical limitation on this airframe? Yet, it was still flyable and she was still breathing. For now. Her eyes stared out the cockpit glass straight between the HUD reticule as they finished what she felt was the longest passenger flight of her life.

Did priests even do exorcisms on machines?

A/N: Just a little terminology help.

MOAB-Mother of All Bombs or Massive Ordinance Air Burst Bomb; a really big bomb that makes a really big BOOM!

Deck-In short, ground level.

One o'clock, six o'clock etc.: positions relative to hands on a clock. Someone "on your six" means someone directly behind you. One o'clock would be forward and slightly to your right.