Chapter 6

First Night On The Job

How Darby couldn't even yawn once during the time they had been waiting here combined with the fact that he must have woken up fairly early this day was something Cora could hardly understand, since the only thing that kept up her from nodding off after a whole day of training were the occasional sips she took from her lukewarm, plastic, disposable cup of coffee that thankfully was still relatively hot enough to keep her hands warm at this moment. She had insisted on buying this much-needed beverage right after Darby announced to her that they would be heading off to Green Pines' local park/haunted grounds to see if they could do anything to ease the growing frustration of the ghost that had only recently entered its Restless phase, and even though the blonde ghost hunter looked at her in mild annoyance and said that she could go get some coffee after they were done with the job, she insisted, saying that she needed this after having trained for hours on end at that damn junkyard. Darby had rolled his eyes, mumbled a quick 'alright, fine, Jesus' and a couple of minutes later she had exited the same diner her traveling companion had picked up their breakfast at with a cup of coffee in her hand.

That must have been perhaps one and a half hour ago, and ever since then, they hadn't moved one inch from the spot Darby had deemed good enough to wait until the restless spirit would somehow make its presence known. Cora assumed, thanks to the little bit of experience she had with the paranormal as of late, that the signal for this would the air around them growing freezing cold, just like when the ghost of her ex-fiancé suddenly appeared with the intent of murdering her, but she wasn't quite sure to consider the rather pleasantly cool breeze that was rolling through the park as a threatening sign of a ghost's presence. Clearly Darby didn't think anything of it, considering how he remained leaning against the swing's frame the whole time, staring off into the distance with his hands in his pockets.

The exact spot in this park that the blonde ghost hunter thought would be appropriate to wait at was the park's sole playground, which consisted of two swings of which the iron, rust-stained chains occasionally creaked with a shrill pitch whenever a breeze came by and a seesaw that clearly looked like it needed to be replaced too one of these days, being the target of some nearly unintelligible scribbles coming from presumably local youths who just so happened to have a black marker with them wherever they would go to leave their 'artistic' mark. Sure, the kids of Green Pines may have loads of fun playing here during the daytime, but when night would fall, the presence of this playground alone greatly contributed to the eerie atmosphere that lingered throughout this whole park, where not many lampposts could be found and thus barely provided any light on their surroundings, and it only fueled the dread of something most people would think could only exist in horror movies and stories to be told around a campfire leaping at them from the darkness around them. The only thing that came close to actually doing something to make the atmosphere a little less unsettling were the sounds of the crickets hiding in the grass next to the few paths this park had to offer. Somewhere in the far distance, a dog briefly barked. Honestly, Cora had somehow thought the park would be bigger, but was a little surprised to see that it was actually smaller than expected. Was it maybe because she was used to the size of the park she would often visit in Autumnfield when she was a kid, with her beloved skateboard tightly clenched under her arm and heading straight to that one part of the park where all the cool skater kids where hanging out? Yeah, probably so, she figured.

Sitting on the swing, she slightly lifted her legs and gently swayed herself back and forth, causing the chains to creak once again. The rookie ghost huntress had to admit, though; even though the training she had undergone today was nothing short of exhausting and frustrating sometimes, she thought it was safe to say that she had gotten more of a grip on her ability to create fire. Who ever knew she had that much power inside of her to actually incinerate an entire table plus the pieces of trash that had been used as targets? But then again, it must have been due to the fact that she was getting tremendously fed up with Darby's comments. Luckily for them, there wasn't any lack of discarded items to replace the obliterated first targets and the table, and so Darby often had to scavenge through the massive piles of trash to look for anything to be struck by various sizes of fire balls. It had taken a while for Cora to figure it out, but after a while, she had not only started to figure out how to properly aim the fire at the target, be it from a close or relatively far distance, but was also able to control the size of the flames. Each time she had successfully scorched whatever piece of trash had been placed in front of her, a sense of pride rushed through her, which in turn boosted the confidence to keep going with the training. She had the feeling that Darby was starting to get less annoyed by her as she continued to strike target after target, hell, she even had the entertaining thought of him being somewhat impressed her, noticing how he would twitch the left corner of his mouth into a small smirk whenever she succeeded, even often vocally encouraging her to keep going. Hours had flown by before she could have even realized it, and that's when Darby had decided she had undergone enough training for today; it was right after he said this that Cora had felt the tiredness kicking in at full force, along with the need to get her hands on some well-deserved coffee.

Cora took another sip of the lukewarm beverage and lifted her head to look at Darby, who didn't seem to notice her stare. It had been pretty quiet between the two of them ever since her traveling companion had decided that they should wait here, having lasted this long to the point where the silence had grown somewhat awkward. Staring at the blonde ghost hunter, Cora couldn't help but wonder what was going on in his mind right now. Nothing about his body language indicated that he was feeling nervous in the slightest, which made sense, if you'd ask Cora; if you would hunt down angered ghosts for God knows how many years, you surely would develop nerves of steel at some point. Now that was a trait anyone could envy... because sure, Cora may have had some proper training today, but she sure as hell hoped it would be enough for her to make it through this mission alive.

It looked like Darby may have finally sensed a certain someone staring at him, because only a few seconds after Cora had set her sight on him, he darted his blue eyes into her direction. Oh shoot. Cora slightly widened her eyes and looked away, mildly flustered, expecting him to ask her why in the hell she had been staring at him like she had a freaking crush on him or something.

But little did the rookie ghost huntress know that her traveling companion was wondering about something this whole time as well… and just now, he had decided not to postpone asking this one question that had been bothering him any longer.

'I'm not going to assume that you're remembering this since it was the heat of the moment and all that shit, but… that night, when you came out storming out of your house with that Mindless right behind you, I remember you screaming his name at some point. Trevor, wasn't it?' he asked.

'Yeah… why?'

'You used to live in that house, you said so yourself. And you did avoid my question when I asked you if somebody had died in there recently. You knew that ghost's name, Cora, so that must mean you have known him... Now what's up with that?'

Not afraid of hitting that raw nerve again, wasn't he? Damn it, at least he could have asked this with some more tact, if you had to ask Cora. One day alone wasn't going to ease much of the trauma that had occurred last night, no, it would take much longer than that, she knew. Cora could already picture herself weeping like a blubbering mess in front of her traveling companion while trying to tell him her sob story and recalling the horrific events that had transpired less than twenty-four hours ago. It was too much for her, way too much, but still…

It wasn't hard at all for Darby to figure out that she was pretty damn uncomfortable with this question, seeing how she was staring down at her own feet and squeezing into the plastic coffee cup that was only a few sips away from being completely empty, her lips tightly clenched together. But just as he was about to tell her that it was okay if she didn't want to talk about it yet, Cora had decided that it may not only feel good to finally share her story with someone, but also if she and Darby were going to travel together for the time being, he might as well have the right to know about what had been going on. The rookie demon huntress closed her eyes for a few seconds, lifted her head, took a deep breath through her nose, breathed out the same way and looked at Darby.

'I did know him, yes. Trevor is… I mean, he was my fiancé.'

The blonde ghost hunter's response to this was slightly raising his eyebrows since this indeed came as a bit of a surprise to him, but didn't say anything else, allowing Cora to continue speaking.

'We had been together for three years. We met each other when we were both in our senior years in high school, and really, he hadn't always been this… homicidal. He was different, once. Everything was great between us, at first. Trevor was a great guy. I did love him, and I'm pretty sure he did love me as well. And things between me and my mom at the time… well, they weren't all that great. All I wanted was to get away from her as soon as possible, so I thought that the answer to this was to move away with Trevor as soon as we had both graduated, which we did. Hell, we even made plans to get married. But later down the line, Trevor just… stopped being this great guy. As it turned out, he didn't know how to make any priorities when it came to spending money, at all. He became so irresponsible, so selfish… only buying stuff that would only benefit him and him alone. There had been so many nights where I couldn't sleep, wondering how we were going to keep a roof above our heads if he kept spending money the way he did, I have lost count a long time ago.'

'And yet you stayed with him all that time?' Darby suddenly asked. 'That is just dumb as hell.'

Cora opened her mouth and was literally one second away from giving him a snappy response, but quickly closed it, because deep down, no matter how much she hated to admit this… he was right.

'What can I say…?' she said, her voice softened with a hint of shame. 'I… Despite everything, I… kept on clinging to this hope that it would get better. As much as I could hate him for being this fucking irresponsible, there was still this glimmer of hope, because I knew how he was like before he changed. Someway, somehow, I had the hope that one day he would open his eyes and realize what he was doing to us, and yes, it's like you said… it was indeed dumb as hell. And after months and months and months of being the one stressing out non-stop over our money, while Trevor refused to take the blame for once, I had to let that hope go. I couldn't live like that any longer, Darby. It was driving me insane. So that's why I began stashing money away, so that I could move away as soon as I would get the chance. When Trevor found out about this one night, he just fucking lost it. So much so even that he came after me with a knife, and so I… I didn't mean to, but… looking back on it now, he sure as hell would have killed me if I hadn't done anything to fight back.'

As if Darby had come to the conclusion that his traveling companion had gained the same powers as he had thanks to nearly being butchered by her narcissist piece of shit of an ex-lover, or simply because he was looking for any words that would be suitable for a reply, be it sympathetic or snarky, it remained completely quiet between the two ghost hunters for a few seconds. Cora mentally prepared herself for a response that was most likely going to be a snarky one and took what was meant to be the last sip of her lukewarm coffee.

Then, just when the air that brushed past them felt nothing like an average summer evening breeze and more like an arctic blast, freezing cold, bitter liquid washed over her tongue, causing her to immediately spit the coffee back into the cup and wipe off the few drops that had spilled from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. The sudden change in temperature didn't go unnoticed by Darby either, and when he looked up in alertness, Cora saw the air that had been breathed out through his parted lips turning into a small cloud before quickly disappearing.

'It's here, and it's close.' the blonde ghost hunter muttered, his eyes darting from left to right. 'Come on, let's go.'

The cup containing a thin layer of nearly fully-frozen coffee was abruptly left behind in the sand when Cora got up and followed her traveling companion.

She had no other choice but to stay close to Darby, given how poorly lit this damn park was at night, plus she had the feeling that their presence hadn't gone unnoticed by whatever weary ghost they were looking for; and it was this latter part that was perhaps the most frightening thing at all.

Ever since they had left the playground, Cora had not stopped nervously looking around into the semi-darkness, expecting whatever (or rather, whoever) was the cause of the sudden, massive drop in temperature to be lurking there, silently following them from a safe distance like some sort of predator until it had found the perfect opportunity to strike, fast enough before either of them had the possibility to fight back. She didn't even bother to be surprised by how calm Darby looked even now, walking down the path like this was just an ordinary evening stroll through the park, but damn it, did it spark some frustration inside her; there was this need to walk much faster than the pace they were currently in, but getting ahead of Darby wasn't going to be an option unless she was planning on getting lost in the semi-darkness and thus making her an easy target for the angry spirit that was roaming this place. So she decided to stay close to him while trying to ease the anxiety that was steadily building up. Sure, she may have trained for a whole afternoon, but was it going to be enough to make it out of her first night on her temporary job alive? Cora hoped so, so damn bad. The summer almost felt like a distant memory thanks to the sheer cold that hadn't let up during the whole time; it was more like time had fast-forwarded into the winter season, and a harsh one at that. In an attempt to keep herself warm, Cora continuously rubbed her arms since the jacket she was wearing didn't do much to ease the cold. Not even while they were walking (which must have been probably ten minutes by now, but hell, when you're walking in a freezing cold, dark place like this park, it's easy to make it look like an eternity), Darby didn't say anything, completely focused on the target that was ahead of them, somewhere in the shadows of the surrounding trees and bushes.

All of a sudden, Darby stopped dead in his tracks; looking into the distance, Cora could immediately tell why, and it made her softly gasp in shock.

No, it didn't come rushing at them in a blinding, murderous rage. In fact, it didn't move at all. As if it was completely unaware of the only two people in this park with a beating heart and a normal body temperature and surrounded by air that was so cold that it could turn your fingers blue, a fairly tall humanoid figure could be spotted sitting on a wooden bench in a slightly hunched position, underneath the light of one of the few lampposts that were installed near this path, like some sort of spotlight. It was at first a little hard to tell, but as she followed Darby when he slowly got closer to it, Cora could spot some features that could easily belong to a grown man. It was only when they were a little less than two meters away from him that the apparition finally noticed their presence, turning his head to see who was approaching him. Despite the dim light illuminating the area around the bench and the fact that almost his entire body, safe from one left arm and a small section of his head was covered in pitch-black darkness, Cora could tell that this poor sap must have been in his late forties when he passed away, with a few white hairs peeking through a patch of black hair. And she wasn't going to lie; the look on his face had something incredibly saddening. His left eye, that hadn't been reduced to a tiny, white dot, had sunken deep into their sockets and the skin on his cheeks were tightly pulled over his cheekbones; only adding to his rather unsettling appearance was the sickly pale skin on his face and arm, as if he hadn't seen sunlight for many years or had been deadly ill before his passing. But as the rookie ghost hunter looked at his arm, it became perfectly clear what kind of lifestyle must have led to this appearance and/or had been the direct cause of his death; the rolled up, long sleeve of his black-and-red checkered blouse revealed the countless puncture holes on his unsettlingly skinny arm, some of them freshly festering, others having blueish skin around the wound due to aging.

Every two seconds, the body of the ghost that had been haunting the park of Green Pines appeared to 'glitch', over and over again.

'You can see me, can't you?' the ghost asked, his voice sounding just as broken as his appearance.

'We sure can, pal.' Darby replied, surprisingly not sounding completely void of sympathy, giving him a small nod.

The blackness that had swallowed up almost his entire body began to creep down his left arm like a spreading virus as the Restless looked down his darkening, severely punctured limb, slowly shaking his head, which made his appearance even more saddening. 'Can you believe I once had it all?' he said. 'A wife, three kids, a business to support them all… it's all a man could ever wish for, right? That's what I had always believed. I was over the moon when I began my construction company, thinking that I would be able to afford my wife and children the lives they deserved. And it did go well… for a while. But other construction companies in the area proved to be way more successful than mine. It didn't take long before little to no money came in, no matter how much I tried to keep us afloat. I woke up stressed out of my mind and I went to bed with that same stress, day in and day out. And to cope with that, I turned to heroin. And before I knew it, I couldn't get through a day without shooting up. My business began to suffer more because of it, and not only that… on the day before I was officially declared bankrupt, my wife left me, shouting at me that I would never see our kids ever again. And when the regret kicked in, I only started using more, more, and more heroin. Until…' The Restless briefly paused to push back a sob that had been lingering in his throat. 'One moment I was shooting up on this bench, and the next thing I know, everything went black. Forever.'

Cora had decided to let Darby do all of the talking if needed, given the fact that he was far more skilled than her when it came down to ghost hunting and she almost wanted to speak up to express her sympathy for this poor bastard, but then the Restless shook his head; not only could she tell that he was getting angry, but the darkness had consume more of his face and arm.

'No… that's not true. There's one other thing I remember. I remember wishing anyone who had something in their life that made them happy to rot in Hell. They reminded me of the person who I used to be, until all of this happened.' He then stretched out his arm, which was only moments away from being fully covered by darkness. 'Before… this began happening to me, I couldn't let go of that hate. Not even now. And I don't think I ever will. Not too long ago I saw this girl walking here at night with her boyfriend, they… they reminded me so much of my wife and I, when we were younger. They reminded me of how lonely I was and still am. I dragged that little bitch down that path by her goddamn hair. She deserved it. They all fucking deserve it.'

'That is so selfish!' Cora suddenly blurted out. This caused Darby to shoot a glare at her, but she didn't notice it at the moment. 'Those people were not responsible for how you ended up! They were innocent! I'm sorry for what happened to you, I really am, but you can't do this. You have to move on and leave!'

'You…'

During the few seconds that followed after the Restless hoarsely whispered this, something had snapped inside of him, causing the rest of his body to be fully enveloped by the darkness in the blink of an eye and twitch violently, as if reality itself was rejecting his very existence, and he fell forward to the ground, able to support himself on his arms before his nearly featureless face touched the pebbles.

'You're not fucking sorry for me!' the twitching apparition spat out, not even bothering to look up towards Cora as he continued to let his rage spill out, hot and venomous like pure concentrated poison, his voice shifting into a disturbing, corrupted pitch. 'I have seen the way people had looked at me! I was just another dirty, fucking junkie to them! Another fuck-up in life who was bound to die by an overdose! You can say that you feel sorry for me all you want to make yourself look good, but truth is, you couldn't give less than a shit about me! Just… Die… Die, both of you!'

And just before Darby even had the chance to active his powers, three pairs of long, thick tendrils, just as black as the rest of his body, burst through the back of the Mindless that had been a Restless no less than ten seconds ago with a wet, crunching noise, immediately giving him an appearance that strongly resembled that of a massive, black spider. To make his new appearance even more disturbing, each tendril ended in what appeared to be large syringes, filled to the brim with a foul-looking, brown liquid and tipped with sharp, stainless, long, hollow needle. It was thanks to the length of these needles that his body was lifted from the ground, making his shriveled limbs, completely void of tissue, muscle and fat, dangle like useless, long twigs. This was by no means the end of the harrowing transformation that unfolded right before Darby's and Cora's eyes, as the vertebrae in the neck of Needles (a nickname Darby had quietly decided to give to this Mindless) ceased to function as it fully twisted in a sickening 180-degree angle with a wet crunch, causing his head to be turned upside down. His eyes and nose were no longer visible, though one unsettling feature was; that would be his mouth that had grown unnaturally large, opening wide as Needles let out a rage-filled bellow at the duo of ghost hunters and filled with rotten, brownish, chipped teeth, some of them even completely missing.

'You just had to go and piss him off, huh?' a visibly annoyed Darby snapped towards Cora before his heart ceased to function and the right side of his face grew transparent. There was no time for the rookie ghost hunter to apologize to him, since they were both forced to jump out of the way to avoid being pinned down by Needles, who had catapulted himself towards them thanks to the long length of the tendrils that acted like extra pairs of limbs. A deep, distorted, throaty growl of frustration escaped from the throat of the Mindless when he realized that he had missed his target, but it did give Darby a small window of time to start fighting back. Purple energy illuminated his clenched fists as he scrambled to get up from the ground and charged towards the rampaging spirit as fast as he could, planning to quite literally shove one of his fists down his throat and release the amount of energy that he had stored inside of his hand into his body until it would blow into pieces. But just as he had gotten close enough to do this, Needles launched himself towards one of the nearby trees, tightly wrapping his tendrils around the bark. Having completely missed his target, Darby swung into nothing but air, his glowing fist leaving behind a thick, bright trail of purple into the semi-darkness; he couldn't help but almost inaudibly hiss out a four-letter word.

Cora hoped to God that all of this training in the afternoon was going to pay off, because it sure as hell was time to put all of her skill to the test. Like Darby, she had also landed on the ground when they dodged Needles' attack, but unlike the blonde demon hunter, she hadn't gotten up. There was not a moment to waste, she knew, unless either she, Darby, or the both of them wished to be impaled onto those needles and either bleed out or be injected with whatever disgusting slush was stored inside those syringes. She reached out with her arm, aiming her open palm right at the Mindless that was still clinging onto the tree, as if he had already fully adapted to his newly-obtained spider-like appearance. It was thanks to the sole thought, the intense focus on the concept of fire that the first ball of fire was quickly created and quickly launched towards the Mindless, but much to Cora's dismay, Needles saw what was coming towards and leapt to another tree before the flames could brush against his skin. The fire instead struck the wood and left a black, smoldering hole roughly the size of a basketball in it. There was no way in hell Cora was going to give up, though.

'Come on… come on!' she muttered to herself as the next fireball was created, traveling towards her target in a faster pace compared to the previous one, but just like the latter attempt to strike him, the Mindless turned out to be much faster and avoided it by jumping onto yet another tree. Cora could almost swear she could hear him darkly chuckle, as if he were mocking her. But unbeknownst to that fucker, this would only spur her on, as a third fire ball was quickly coming his way. Again, it was dodged. Over and over again, Cora continued to aim her flames towards the insanely agile spirit, fully determined to strike the bastard no matter how many times she was going to miss, she was only going to stop when he would be knocked out of the air, perhaps set fully ablaze with some luck. And then, after what had to be ten attempts, he must have either started to get exhausted or just a matter of sheer luck, the brightly burning flames finally struck the Mindless right in the face, causing him to fall out of the air with a shrill, distorted shriek.

Needles landed on the ground on his back with a loud thud, further more owning up to the behavior befitting of a spider by making his tendrils wildly around. It was on that moment where Cora saw a chance to finish the job, forming yet another flaming ball in the palm of her hand. But just before she had the opportunity to torch the spirit, he managed to quickly to turn itself back onto his stomach and lift itself up by stretching its tendrils, the needles of the syringes sticking deep into the earth. Another furious bellow escaped from his freakishly large, rotten mouth before the furious apparition launched himself towards the rookie ghost huntress, his front tendrils sticking out right at her, ready to pierce through her body. One glance at the needles that were coming straight at her made Cora shriek in horror and stretch out her arm; just before one of the needles was a mere inch away from puncturing through her shoulder, a ball of flame of which the size greatly resembled the one that had obliterated the table in the afternoon struck Needles with so much force that it knocked him straight back to the ground.

That was the moment for Darby to rush towards the Mindless as fast as he possibly could, his fists still glowing just as brightly with purple as they did earlier. As soon as he reached the apparition, he grabbed one of the tendrils, and it took only one single, hard tug for the appendage to be promptly ripped off with a wet, gory, ripping sound, followed by a long, shrill scream that was so insanely loud that it could have easily shattered glass; not even covering her ears in an attempt to protect her eardrums did anything to ease the pain it caused to Cora's ears, but she didn't think about the possibility of the ringing that could be lingering in them once this was over, completely mesmerized by what she was seeing. Darby Allin finished off the job for tonight by plunging the syringe through the body of the Mindless, pinning it onto the grass. A choked-off groan was all that Needles could produce, aside from the weak twitches his body made before lying completely still. Then, just like it had happened to Trevor, Cora watched as his entire body disintegrated into a black fog, disappearing into thin air.

Was it over?

Did they defeat the ghost?

Holy shit… was this really over?

These thoughts played over and over again inside Cora's head like a broken record player. Perhaps it was the adrenaline rush that was slowly but surely wearing off, the astonishment of everything that had just transpired or a combination of these, but she couldn't utter a single word, only able to quietly stare ahead of her with wide eyes and slightly trembling hands. Darby didn't say anything when he calmly walked over towards her and helped her to get up by gently pulling her arm. Nothing was said between them either when they followed the path that would lead them back to the van (during which Cora couldn't stop looking over her shoulder, expecting the stabbing pain of a large needle in her back if she wouldn't do this), which Darby had parked at a nearby parking lot earlier. The silence was only broken when they both got inside, Cora on the passenger's seat, Darby on the driver's seat.

'You made the right choice, you know?' the blonde ghost hunter suddenly said, causing Cora to snap out of the three thoughts that hadn't stopped repeating themselves this whole time.

'Uh… really?' she asked, slightly confused. 'Was it the right move to keep firing at h-'

'I'm talking about killing your fiancé. It was either him or you.'

The engine was then switched on.