Chapter 7 Jailbirds
The eerie, pained howl shook Ari instantly awake. It wasn't one of those times where you gradually woke up from a dream. It was that rare moment that your eyes just snap open and everything hits you hard ten seconds after waking up, leaving you confused, disheveled, and off balance. In that ten seconds, she found her sweet, lovely wonderland slipping away, like raindrops falling down a car window, and was replaced with chaos. She had woken up from a dream and ended up in a nightmare. All hell had broken loose in the prison. The sound of alarms were in the area, dozens of guards rushed by in anxiety.
"Contain the prisoner!" a guard ordered as dozens of men flew past him towards the sounds of fighting. Screams from the guards chorused against loud emissions of blasts fired.
"How did he get out?!" one asked, urgently reaching for his weapon.
"Bet it was because of the new inmate. I wish I knew what Walker was thinking when he thought of keeping a human prisoner here..." This made Ari looked outside her cell with interest. What did they mean by that? Why did it matter that she was here?
Suddenly, a dark denizen appeared in the hallway before her. The ghost had dark violet ram-like horns, bright red eyes, and a curling, shadow form body that donned the appearance of the night sky. To add to his fearsome appearance, he had sharp fangs, a long scar over his left eye, and a small goatee. Clearly, he was bad news.
"You're a fool if you think you can keep me here, Walker. I am eons older than you and your men," the ghost said coolly before sending spiraling blue ecto-blasts towards his foes. The white ghost appeared behind his men, his cold stare holding no fear as he stepped towards the escaped ghost. She had learned that the warden who had saved her, escorted her to prison, and was now fighting the ghost was named Walker, and that he was a bit by-the-book of his own rules according to Johnny 13, who was incoherently grumbling "crooked cop" along with some other choice, inflammatory words on the car ride over to the penitentiary.
"Take him down, Wulf," Walker ordered, looking over his shoulder. An intense howl bayed again, this time closer and much, much louder. To her horror, it belonged to large black creature that resembled an eight foot werewolf. Shaggy, black coarse hair covered his entire body, save for the few parts where a ragged, neon green jumpsuit covered the creature. Its long, white fangs gleamed under his scarred snout with what appeared to be some sort of greenish liquid, which Ari assumed was blood in this world. It snarled ferociously at the escaped ghost, who was turning a bit paler shade of grey when faced against the creature. He quickly shook this off before firing large streams of energy at the creature. Stunned, Wulf whimpered at being struck in the eye and rubbed his face with the back of his large paw as the other ghost saw it as an opportunity to flee.
"He's getting away! Do as I say, you stupid mutt!" Walker shouted irritably, uttering the short command 'punish' that activated the large canine's shock collar. Wulf screamed in agony, his wails sounding almost eerily human. It terrified Ari to her very core, and she had a two inch wall of glass shielding her from the incident. She didn't enjoy seeing animals suffer, the torture being almost... inhumane. But it was a ghost, and a werewolf ghost at that. There wasn't anything human about that thing, especially when its eyes turned into a demonic blood red as it snarled and attacked the renegade ghost in a blind fury, unsheathing its long green claws.
The shadow ghost appeared to be able to regenerate, but not quickly enough to heal against the animal's slashing claws and sharp fangs as he bit into his shoulder and drug him screaming down the hall. Suddenly, the snarling stopped as Walker did a short whistle. The dog drug his prey towards the warden and dropped him at his feet, pinning his shoulder down with fangs still sunk into the being's shoulder as Wulf shifted around so that he had his body on top of him. His large right paw forced down on the ghost's head as Walker smirked down at the escapee.
"Didn't take much to take ya down, did it, Nocturne? Now that you don't have the aid of humans and your sleepwalkers to do your dirty work, you're nothin' but an old man living in a fantasy world."
"Says the ghost who's deepest desire is for old world totalitarian control over everyone, based on what he calls 'order.' Don't you know that the Ghost Zone's true order is chaos?" the ghost known as Nocturne smirked weakly, even after being mauled by the wolf beast. With a short nod towards the were-beast, Wulf crawled off of Nocturne as the guards hauled him towards his cell. "You cannot keep me here forever... Thanks to the human child, I will be strong enough to break free of your restraints," the dream ghost grinned as he pulled hard against the shackles, pulling the ghosts who held onto him like a dog dragging his owner.
"Not if I have anything to say about it, you don't. As far as I'm concerned, there will be no chaos in my prison. Not unless I say so," Walker stated before turning towards the prison wall. "Auto-lock 134, on." He spoke into the microphone, the steel door forcefully shutting its large cables as its tumblers fastened and clicked together, solidifying the lock. His gaze then turned towards Ari's.
"Human, you're with me." He uttered the command 'auto-lock 138 off' before her glass prison door pulled apart like automatic sliding doors. Ari backed further into her corner. A corner she was very reluctant to leave even when one of the guards came in to get her.
"Walker's requested your presence. Move, now," he ordered, jabbing her arm with the butt of his weapon for emphasis, trying to get her to move. She only curled up into her corner more, like a hermit crab retracting into its shell after trying to avoid a prying child's fingers.
"Wulf, fetch," Walker ordered, causing Ari to cringe in absolute terror as the wolf lumbered over towards her, leaning down to pick her up with his teeth.
"NO!" she cried out an ear-splitting shriek, quickly unraveling into a blubbering mess. "P-Please don't bite me! Please don't bite me! I-I'll be good! I swear, I'll be good! I'll go w-with you!" She wasn't sure if she was bit if she would turn into a werewolf or not, but she didn't want to find out. The warden seemed to be very pleased with her reaction. That's how he wanted all his prisoners to act. To fear and obey. That was the warden's ultimate rule. He gestured for Wulf to back off before Ari slowly got up from her corner and walked cautiously towards the warden.
"Isn't he beautiful? He used to be an escaped prisoner, just like him," Walker observed proudly as they passed the prison door that held Nocturne, who was bleeding profusely from his shoulder. "Now look at him. Devolved into a beast that only understands pain and to follows orders. With him, I have control over the entire world. No prisoner will be able to escape from here."
She looked over at the bipedal beast. He did have a bit of a rabid look about him, his eyes appearing soulless and dead, though she could have sworn they held a note of sadness, but she must have imagined it because with a short whistle between Walker's fingers, the canine snapped into attention and followed after them, snuffling a bit at the air.
Meanwhile, Nocturne was currently nursing his wounds inside his new prison. It was true he grew powerful from dreams, but only when they were being dreamt. He didn't have his devices to keep the human under an artificial coma like he wanted, but he managed to syphon a quite a bit of energy from her, and so easily. She had a very vivid imagination.
"No fair, Nocturne. I wanted a taste of her," said a loquacious voice belonging to a pouting Spectra, who was irritated that Nocturne had been stealing some of her meal.
"You would, Penelope," Nocturne scoffed at the therapist. "It's so rare to come across a psychic vampire such as myself. Why do you continue to feed off of such negative emotions?"
"Because misery enjoys company and a lot of it. I find it an easier resource, unlike you and your powers. You could be so much more if you spent less time on giving people happy dreams, and more time on creating visual hells for them, you would be busted out of here instead of licking your wounds."
"You see, my dear, that is where your problem lies," Nocturne tutted. "If you want to keep your prey from escaping, you have to lure it into a false sense of security. You have to make it want to stay and help you. Only then do you snap the trap. By then, it is already too late to escape. I have seen that girl's dreams. She has a very... vivid imagination. A lot of wistful memories of the home she's longing for. She will be within my grasp very soon. By the end of the night, she will be an easy pawn to prey upon. I guarantee it."
"That can only get you so far, Nocturne. Luring prey like that is like trying to build trust: hard to build, easy to destroy. I'm never that patient with my food plus, what if someone wakes the girl up again? Walker won't let you get away a second time, especially if he has Wulf with him."
"Well then, what do you suggest?"
"I recommend a trade. A temporary partnership," Spectra suggested. "I'll help you break out of here if, in exchange, you leave me the girl when we're done. I've seen her misery as well. All that pain, all those delicious secrets. She's not as innocent as everyone makes her out to be. I believe we can manipulate her into doing what we want. She's very vulnerable right now and, given the right push, we could send her in a huge downward spiral that would keep me young forever and you powerful beyond your wildest dreams."
"Hmmm," Nocturne contemplated Spectra's suggestion. "You say I can become more powerful if I feed off of nightmares? Very well. I'll try it your way this time. However, if you want desired results like that, we best make it look like an accident. That way, when all of this is over, she will receive all the blame, and we'll get off scott-free. Then you can feed on the rest of her misery and do away with her as you see fit."
"I like the way you think, Nocturne," Spectra purred before the two ghosts began to put their plan into action.