Chapter 14: Fenton (doesn't) Works
While Sam stole a car to get to her kidnapped husband, latter witnessed his 'parents-supposed-friend' turning into a glowing, floating vampire-like-ghost with fangs, wearing a white (but frightful) outfit, with glowing red eyes. Danny screamed. It was everything he could do. He screamed and tried to escape but he was still trapped. His hands were tied up behind his back and the something he was tied on to, was too heavy to lift it from the ground. He forgot that he was still naked. He forgot that he was obviously somewhere in an underground lab. He only wanted to flee.
The 'ghost' meanwhile floated right in front of him and came closer. "You know... we had the same fate: We got both hurt by your father and his clumsiness. The only difference is that I got powers and you low blood-pressure!"
"My father did that to you?" Danny asked shocked. "How? He killed you?"
"No! He didn't kill me! But I wanted to kill him after that accident, which actually gave me a chance to do things I never thought I will able to do." Vlad praised. "So poor for your parents... If they haven't try to convince me to allow them to do the same as they did with you, they would be here to make thier weird stuff..."
"What?"
Sam meanwhile tried to find her way threw her former hometown, but everything changed. She had no clue where she was. She didn't recognized anything. Finally she saw a street-sign. But many roads were renamed...
Vlad meanwhile turned back into his human-form, thinking that it would stop Danny from screaming and walked closer to him.
"Do you know how lucky you are? You survived your parents! You have a loving family! You were able to not to attract the attention of the guys-in-white for all these years. And the only side effect of your parents experiments is low blood pressure. The clones I created from you didn't survive the process..."
"Experiments? Clones? What are you talking about? My parents... they never..."
"You think that... but I know the full story!" Vlad said with a vicious smile. "You know... back in college, your father had this weird theories about ghosts, the ghost-zone that excists next to our realm and tried to create a portal. Your mother helped him. And I couldn't resist to your mother so I agreed to help them."
"The... the accident?!" Danny remembered what his sister told him over the phone. "You... that was an accident..."
"The insitute was just afraid for it's reputation. Everyone, even your parents, were convinced that your father was fault. That was so stupid... spilling Cola over the device causing it to overload... Imagine, holding your head into a kitchen-stove, that's been working on the highest level and than spilling boiling water over it... that wouldn't be as painful as what I felt... and than comes this feeling that your whole body is torn apart molecule by molecule and than put to gether at the same time."
Danny was shocked. It really sound extremely painful. He didn't dare to imagine it.
"Four months! I spend four months in hospital. You wanna see a picture of my face?" Vlad said, pulling out an old black-and-white photo of a young man with terrible burns and huge pustules in his face. Danny was shocked. The young man was disfigured beyond recognition. Vlad saw how Danny became pale and looked like he was going to vomit. "Disgusting, isn't it?"
"Yeah..." Danny said, a tear running donw his face. He felt so sorry for Vlad. "...What happened to you is really terrible!"
"Oh, yeah... it was terrible. Months of pain. Years of recovery. A broken heart... Seeing the love of my life going away with the person who ruined it." Vlad told. "But... after figuring out that this accident also gave me ghost-powers made it easier for me to come over it."
Vlad turned into the 'vampire-like-ghost' again to demonstrate his powers to Danny...
In the meantime, Sam drove threw the city. She had to be careful. She knew that she was still wanted and that the woman propably told the police that she stole this car. She wanted to race threw the city to get to Danny's former house as quick as possible. Now she was forced to fight herself threw the heavy traffic. One thing, Amity Park was not able to improve after the fire. She already reached the city-center. The part of the city that was worst affected by the fire and was nearly entirely rebuild...
Danny meanwhile, witnessed Vlad demonstrating his ghost-powers, that included the ability to fly, turning invisible, beeing able to pass threw solid materials, shooting ecto-energy beams, creating doubles of himself... "...and that is not everything. Years of training and I was able to use this powers..."
A lot of thoughts suddenly went threw Danny's head. Most of them about how Vlad became wealthy. And Vlad even bragged with his auctions. How he was able to get into banks, listened invisible to buisiness-meetings for insider-trade, overshadowed real businessmen to force them to invest in his companies or transfer thier own businesses completely over to him...
"...you... you liar. You monster!" Danny said shocked. "And... and these stories about your worldwide huminitarian work? Your wife...?"
"Now that we are confessing... I am actually not married. The picture you saw was a painting of me and your mother I commissioned when I moved into the castle. It was my way to keep her in my heart..."
"THAT IS MY MOM ON YOUR WEDDING PHOTO?" Danny screamed disgusted. "Gosh... you are obsessed! Just obsessed!"
"Full-ghosts have obsessions. I am a half-ghosts!" Vlad explained. It made it not better. "Yeah, the 60s were a eventful time. Than in 1970... your parents really had to come to Green Bay..."
Danny's memories on that day were a blur. He was four years old. He barely remembered anything from that time. Never mind this particular day. He was barely able to remember that it was a very long drive, a walk by the lake, a playground, Jazz, and that... the man his parents talked, to... "We... that was you? The man..."
"You should had seen the shocked faces of your parents when they recognized me. I was honestly not happy to see them and they were surprised that I recovered better than they expected. One more advantage of ghost-powers. Without them I would had propably still look like fresh out of the fire. And than there was you..." Vlad continued. When he got closer suddenly a something that looked like blue fog came out of Danny's mouth. "...the only ghostly-power you kept. A ghost-breath that gets activated when a ghost is close..."
"Kept? What do you mean... I don't... I don't have any 'powers' or what ever..."
"I felt it... I could feel it from the very first moment when I met you back that day. Your father really, did it again..."
Sam thought about Vlad and his possible connection to this. Is he maybe responsible for this, too? It can't be a coincidence that her first encounter with the dead A-listeners was in his mansion. That she saw Danny floating in his 'basement' or whatever and the next day both are kidnapped. And the guys in white have a photo of that 'vampire', too? Angrilly Sam honked while she passed some cars waiting at a red light before turning into a familiar street.
The buildings that once stood at the other side were never rebuild. Big open fields with some trees surrounded the school, today. The new-build High-School, were once the Casper High stood, was a modern style building, bigger and much safer than the old school. It wasn't named Casper High (that name was a pseudonym for education failure, bullying and forgeting students in a burning building). This place changed to much, but Sam and Danny would recognize it always. Sam wanted to see this place, too. See what the city did to make up for it after the fire. She had no time... she continued racing and catched the attention of another police-car...
Danny was still scared about what he had to hear, especially about him beeing something like Vlad, too...
"...A year before you and your family poped up in my life again, you had this accident. Right here in your parents lab. You don't remember it. You were to young! So you don't remember that you accidentally turned on thier ghost-portal and got electrocuted with the same kind of power that affected me an turned me into a half-ghost..." Vlad told. Danny was shocked. Early memories of his life shoot back into his head. The day, he looked for his parents, he couldn't find. How he looked for them down in the lab. And found this huge 'ring' instead... "...compared to the dose I got, yours was far weaker. Barely enough to affect you. But according to your parent's notes you've got ghost-powers, too."
"No, you lie! If I had ghost-powers..."
"Had! Yeah... Past tense! After you made a flight across the city, your parents realized what they did. And you always thought that it was a dream, didn't you..."
Danny became pale... did he really fly over the city?
Sam mentioned that a police-car was chasing her. She drove faster around the corners. Everything was different. She did not recognize any house or any crossroad. She feared that she was wrong. The Casper-district, where the Casper High once stood was completely destroyed back than. In Danny's old neigbourhood Fairview only the area around Danny's house got destroyed. So there were some older houses, she recognized and than she finally saw a big fence in the distance. Signs warning about 'danger' just confirmed that that had to be Danny's old neighbourhood. Sam drove faster. Ready to break with the combi threw the fence. But suddenly, several police-cars drove with howling sirens into her way, forcing her to break violently...
Danny's dream... the dream he loved so much when he was a little boy... in which he was flying like Superman... was it really a memory? A memory and not just a dream? Vlad's smile became scarier with every second.
"Hmm... your parents... they felt so bad. Turning thier beloved son into a ghostly-creature. But... well they sucessfully were able to reverse the effect at the cost of your health. But than your father had to learn how to put two and two together and realized that if you recieved ghost powers that day, so maybe I did, too."
"You... what did you did with my parents?" Danny had a horrible thought.
"Me... Nothing! At first... I didn't know they somehow learned that I was affected. Your ectoplasmic mutation was far weaker than mine. They needed years to decrypt my structure. They tried to find samples of me from the time before I was turned into a half-ghost. Collect evidence about me. And on August 30, 1982... I've got your father's letter... asking for a meeting. For old time's sake! Pah... your parents really dared that they can lure me into a trap..."
That's why his parents spend thier last days in the basement nearly around the clock: They prepared to heal thier 'friend'.
"...they really thought that I want to be cured?" Vlad asked and start to laugh like a maniac. "They thought that they I need a cure. Just because they let thier three years son fly across the city they thought that they had to cure him. Look who you are today..."
Sam meanwhile saw police-officers leaving their cars, surrounding the car she was sitting in and pointing guns on her.
"HANDS UP! AND LEAVE THE CAR SLOWLY!" a police-man screamed loudly.
Sam was on the verge. That was her only chance to get to Danny to help him. The police was definetly on the 'guys-in-white's-side' and there was no chance to convince them that she was actually the good one. She had to try it at least while she left the car and got handcuffed again...
"Officers, please... I didn't blow up the other police-car... It was one of that flying monsters that kidnapped my husband..." Sam tried to tell, but only recieved confused or shocked glares.
"Yeah... who believes..." an officer said before suddenly the two boys, who witnessed Danny's arrival with the other 'ghosts', arrived to show another police man the video they made...
"What did you did with my parents?" Danny asked again. This time more angry and more forceful. "The fire...! Our house was far away from the main-explosion..."
"Oh, you mentioned it... Well your parents didn't make it easy. Especially your mother. You should have seen them, how they tried to fight me with thier self build ghost-weapons. And they almost overpowered me. Me! Than they opened thier portal to the ghost-zone... yeah, they had a working portal to the ghost-zone, right here. They tried to start the process to reverse my transformation... They let me no other choise..."
"You killed, them?" Danny was convinced now. "MURDERER! YOU KILLED MY PARENTS!"
Angrilly Danny tried to free himself from his handcuffs. He only hurt himself and could feel the blood dropping out of his hands.
"I just pushed them into the ghost-zone after zapping both of them with thier own gun. They might be still over there... maybe!" Vlad told with an indifference that turned Danny much angrier. "You think you have a reason to be mad... I was forced to fight against the love of my life."
"SHUT UP! And stop calling my mom the love of your life." Danny yelled now much angrier. "You... you..."
"What? Monster? Freak? Devil?" Vlad was unimpressed by Danny's anger.
"And now? Are you going to kill me?"
"Oh, no Daniel! I can't kill you... I need you..." Vlad told before another dust of blue breath came out of Danny's mouth and suddenly a whole crowd of ghosts appeared all around him. "Hey, a class reunion!"
"What the..." Danny cursed when he recognized the ghosts...
Outside, Sam was just about to get arrested again when there was a huge noise comming out of the ground. The street start to vibrate and suddenly two other 'ghosts' appeared in the middle of the crowd. Douzens of onlookers and pedestrians around them got paniced and start to run. The policemen raised thier guns but before one of them was able to shoot, they already grabbled Sam. Sam screamed again when she was raised into the air and was flown to the fenced in area.
The policemen and the civilians screamed. They knew that this area was 'poisioned'. That's what the authorities (in truth the 'guys-in-white') told everyone. But they witnessed now helplessly how the woman in the dirty white dress, was literrally vanishing in the ground...
"Fenton's house..." an elder woman jelled after she recognized the place...
Danny was surrounded by scary, evil looking ghosts... Laughing about him beeing naked and spellbound. Danny had no clue what was more embarrassing. Never ever in his life he got so humilliated. The only thing that was louder than thier laughing was Sam's screaming when she suddenly 'phrased' threw the ceiling...
Everyone looked up to see Sam slowly floating down from the ceiling in her mud soaked white night-dress...
"You dare to force my wife to wear white?" Danny suddenly forgot that he was humiliated. Sam was more important to him.
"YOU!" Sam screamed when she saw Vlad in his ghost-form. "DANNY... IT WAS IN VLAD'S CASTLE, TOO!"
"It?!" now Vlad was offended and turned back into his human-form to reveal himself to Sam, too. "I'm still a person."
"AGHHH... I knew you are not normal..." that sentence of Sam didn't make it better.
While Vlad start to explain everything again just for Sam, the people outside start to demonstrate for her. They insisted that the police helps her. The video of Danny and 'the floating vampire' was already on the way to a local TV-channel...
"You have to help her... Call the army... Aliens attack... She is dead... She is doomed... what kind of monsters were that... were that ghosts..." and a lot of other stuff was screamed in the crowd. But the police force feared to enter the area.
"Please, calm down. We do what we can..." a police man said. Honestly he had no clue what to do because the police had no clue how to handle flying monsters.
A van of a local TV-channel arrived. But before they were able to get on air, several van's of the guys-in-white appeared, too.
Seeing the 'infamous' guys-in-white, the people were suddenly more afraid than before. The guy's-in-white were the ones who fenced the area in. They were the once who told the public that this area was too dangerous to enter. They definetely not told the public what was really going on there. And now douzens of witnesses saw a woman vanishing there. The camerateam hid in thier van and prepared to flee before thier stuff gets confiscated.
The guys-in-white knew very, well why 'thier suspect' went to this place. They knew what was beyond the thick layer of concrete, thier organisation filled over the hole, that was once the fenton's home's basement...
In the sealed off basement-lab, Vlad repeated his story for Sam once again. And he mentioned his clones again...
"You cloned me?" Danny asked shocked.
"Your half-ghost-yourself!" Vlad said. "All seven dissolved into ectoplasm and than I had to stop because I ran out of samples. Your parents destroyed almost everything that proved that they turned you into a half-ghost. But luckily not everything..."
Outside meanwhile, the scared people watched the guys-in-white entering the supposedly poisionous area without any visible protection and armed with jack-hammers to dig into the concrete. The people across the fence talked wildly...
"...I smelled smoke back then." a woman, who lived next door to the Fentons in 1982 told to others. "Long before the big explosion down in the center I saw smoke comming out of a window. But before I was able to reach the phone the explosion occured..."
The guys-in-white had a terrible suspicion. After the attack on thier headquarter, they knew where to find the 'ghost' they were looking for. But they also had thier results about Danny...
Latter had another horrible thought...
"The explosion..." Danny began.
"LEAVE US ALONE FOR A MINUTE!" Vlad screamed imperative. "Take care of the guys-in-white up there as long as I talk to our guests."
All present ghosts start to float up and threw the ceilling. They followed Vlad's order willingless. Like they were controlled by him in every way.
"…I didn't want to tell it while they are listening. They always freak out when they hear or see fire. But… I admit that I had to do something. You would had mentioned that your parents and thier work were gone. A fire was just perfect to destroy every evidence…"
"You had to kill 1000 other people, really?" Sam yelled shocked.
"Well, the crash in the city center was really an accident. I just opened the valves to drain everything into the sewers. And the rest was really just like everyone knows: Corruption and bad disaster respond…"
"BURN IN HELL!" Danny screamed as loud as possible. "You killed so many innocent people, only to remain a living-dead…"
"Rather a living-dead than just an average human. Everything was just fine. Until your 'doppelganger' had to pop up in your living-room. I have no clue how your stupid father in the other dimension was able to create that portal. But they didn't 'healed' your other yourself so they neighter see it as a experiment or your doppelganger didn't tell them…"
Living with ghost-hunting parents and beeing a half-ghost at the same time sound like pure Horror. But Danny was still full of fury. He felt the urgent need to jump on Vlad and break his neck… All that while over them the ghosts of the dead A-listeners attacked the guys-in-white and scared the onlookers away.
"You know that these 'guys-in-white' as you call them, are watching you and your family since the 60s? Do you know how difficult it was to stay out of thier radar? And now they found the bug they developed and that I hid inside your TV. What did you tell them?"
"I told them nothing. I was unconscious…" Danny told. And it was the truth. Sam feared that the truth that she saw his 'ghost-self' in his house would turn him mad. So she remained silent. "What do you want from us…"
"Oh… there is nothing you have that I want. I want you!"
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