AN: My thanks goes out to Krayla Pipher and Starfire 201. Your confidence building reviews helped me to write this fic so quickly. Thank you. Now drum roll please! All the peices are now in place. So without any ado I present the action packed final chapters! Enjoy!
Disclaimer:While the TMNT are on my Christmas list I doubt Santa will bring me them. Oh well, I'll be happy just to get the new movie.
FYI: If anyone who's reading this doesn't watch tmnt: back to the sewers just know that the hauler is the guys' garbage truck looking vehicle.
Chapter 6
Raph, ignoring Don, hoped into the driver's seat of the hauler and revved the engine.
"Raph!" Don shouted. He managed to grab the driver's side door forcing Raph to keep it open.
"Raphael!" Don insisted, "What's wrong with you?! You just had your shell handed to you and you want to go gallivanting around the city!? Are you insane?"
"Donnie let go of da door." Raph growled.
"Not until you tell me what's going on!" Don wouldn't give in.
"…"
"Raph." Don sighed, "… Fine. We'll go where ever you want, but I'm driving."
…………………………………………………………
"You can't be serious."
"And yer da one that complains that I don't talk to you guys enough." Raph huffed, "Jeez hypocrite much."
Don shut up after that. I mean, it's not like he didn't want to believe his brother, but… It was just too unreal…. Admittedly, they had seen unbelievable stuff before: aliens, androids, time travel, evil clones, parallel dimensions and so on, but Don just couldn't wrap his head around the idea that a ghost from 1913 was haunting Raph's dreams.
"Are you sure about this?" He asked.
"Look Don. I don't know wha ta tell ya? I ain't even sure I believe it myself," Raph replied, "but dat house is where this whole mess started and dat's where it's gunna end."
…………………………………………………………
That particular neighborhood didn't have any alleys or back streets, so Don had to park the hauler right in front of the house. Not very ninja like, but it couldn't be helped.
Raph stood on the stoop for a moment, just like he had in his dream, and looked up. The house wasn't nearly as looming as it had been, and if Raph could have take a few steps to the right he could've seen the broken window he had smashed into.
A slight breezed brushed by them, playing with their mask tails a little before it disappeared.
"Let's go." Raph said and walked through the front door.
The parlor was empty. Well, except for a ton of cobwebs and chair or two, skeletons of what they once were, and, like in Raph's first dream, lit only by the light from the streetlamps outside.
Don shivered. His photographic memory matching the newspaper photo's to the layout of the house.
"Upstairs." Raph muttered, just to break the silence.
Don nodded and followed him. The wood squeaked with every step.
At the top of the stairs Raph walked towards the second door on the right, Peggy's room.
Opening the door wide Don couldn't stiffen the gasp that escaped him. For sitting in the middle of the floor, was Peggy.
"How?" Don breathed stepping forward, but as soon as he stepped into the room her image wavered, became transparent, and then disappeared all together.
"What…?" Don began, but Raph shushed him.
He stepped gingerly into the room. The dust swirled with each footstep.
"Ok… Um. Peg?" Raph asked the empty room. Jeez he felt like an idiot.
There was a sudden drop in temperature, and the cobwebs to the side of the room began to swing. Don would've said that it was just the broken window that let the breeze inside except… there wasn't any wind outside.
"Look Peg. Ya gotta tell me what ya want, or I can't help you." Raph shrugged.
…………………………………………………………………………
The room was new. Any sign of decay is gone, and Peggy's furniture is back. However the light coming through the windows is too bright, way too bright. It cast everything in the room into either glistening white light or pitch-black shadow.
Peggy was standing in the middle of the room, but neither the light nor the shadow seemed to touch her. She looked up at him with scared eyes, and whispered,
"I want to go home."
"Home?" He asked, "But isn't this house…?"
"No." She interrupted, "Not anymore."
He didn't know what to say. What could you say to a dead kid?
"I'm so scared." Peggy whimpered, "Everyone else has moved on."
"Moved on? Ya mean… ta the other side?… Heaven?" He asked.
She nodded. "Mother stayed with me the longest. Begged me to come with her, because if I go they have to go. Go to the bad place where they belong, but… I can't leave him. I can't."
"They. Him. Ya got ta give me more information here kid." He asked.
Peggy hugged her arms to her chest, and sniffled like she was holding back tears.
"Hey. Hey, come on now." He tried to sooth her. He kneeled don't next to Peggy, and tried rubbing her back. While this seemed to calm her down he realized that she had no texture. This seems impossible but the only thing his touch could relay was that she was solid. However, even that didn't seem to be true.
"I can't go without him." She cried, "I just can't"
"Who are ya talkin' about kiddo?" He asked.
"Robby." Peggy whimpered.
Before he could ask who Robby was she started to change. Her body rippled, like a pond when a rock is thrown into it. Cuts started opening up on her skin, dripping rivers of blood.
"Peggy!" He shouted, concerned and alarmed.
She looked down at her blood covered self, and with fear in her eyes looked over his shoulder.
He turned to follow her gaze.
Standing in the doorway were two men. Bleached rubbery flesh hung loosely from their decaying muscle. Blackened bones jutted out were no flesh remained. Eye balls dangled from sockets and tattered gray jumpsuits draped unevenly over them.
"Hello Peggy." Rasped the voice of the first one. Most of the skin around the left side of his mouth had rotted away, revealing brown animal like teeth frozen in a twisted smile.
He stood up, blocking their view of Peggy. His sai were gone, no surprise, but he set himself into a defensive stance anyway.
"I think its time for you ta go ta hell." He growled.
"Not if we can help it." The other hissed, and lunged at him.
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"Raph get down!"
Donnie tackled Raph just in time to avoid the board. It slammed into the wall shattering into splinters.
"Wha…?" Raph grumbled. Does everyone have to hit him when he's coming outta these dreams, visions, whatever?
In the hallway floorboards ripped away from nails and rocketed into the room. They tried to dodge, but one managed to nail Donnie on the head.
"Don!" Raph shouted. He hugged the floor as another volley flew his way, and then bolted towards the door. Grabbing the edge he slammed it shut, and leaned on it with all his weight.
"You OK?" Raph asked, struggling to keep the door shut.
"Just a flesh wound." Don hissed whipping away a dribble of blood, and then adding his own weight to the door. "A better question is what the shell is that?" He added.
"That article say anythin' about those bastards diein' in prison?" Raph replied.
"No. But they're here too! Great." Don moaned.
Another volley hit the door, all together this time, and the resulting shock pushed Raph and Don off the door for a second. It wouldn't hold much longer.
"Yeah. Turns out that if Peggy still here they don' have ta go ta hell." Raph said, bracing for the next round.
"Sound's like one of Mikey's monster movies, but Ok. Why is she still here? I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to hang around with the bastards who killed me." Don asked. He grabbed his Bo staff and angled it between the floor and the door. It helped a little, but not much.
"I donno." Raph shrugged, "It's about some guy named…"
Raph faintly heard his brother ranting about how any guy Peggy would've know during her life-time would be long dead now, but Raph's mind blanked out on him.
Then he saw the picture again. The one where she was on the swing… holding the turtle doll.
The doll.
"Robby was always my best friend." Peggy's voice whispered in Raph's ear, "He would play with me forever. Let me talk to him about anything, and protect me from the monsters under the bed."
"The doll."
"What?" Don asked.
"The doll." Raph repeated, "Her turtle doll named Robby is still in da house!"
"Alright, but where is it. And how are we supposed to get to it?" Don asked.
"The night the bad men came I didn't want him to get hurt. So I hid him somewhere safe."
"Wait. Where did they find her? Quick Don where did they find her body?" Raph asked
"Uh… Let me think." Don mumbled mentally flipping over the article.
Another round hit, a huge crack appeared in the door.
"Hurry up brainiac!" Raph shouted.
"The staircase!" Don realized, "There's a crawlspace under the staircase, and that's where they found her!"
"Alright then! Ready or not!" Raph jumped away from the door and drew his sai. Don managed to grab his Bo before the door smashed open.
Raph screamed a battle cry and leaped into the hall. Spinning and slicing his sai so fast that any board that came close to him was broken into pieces.
Don just shook his head and followed his brother into the hall covering him.
As they made their way down the stairs the phantom murderers started getting desperate. The boards continued to fly at them, but now they were accompanied by nails, spider webs and even what remained of the furniture.
"Dat all ya got?!" Raph taunted. While Donnie hoped that his brother wasn't seriously enjoying this.
At the bottom of the stairs Raph pulled open the door to the crawlspace.
"HAAUUUSSSS!!!!"The ghost of Dick Swaysi loomed out of the opening. The transparent phantom appeared to be dangling as much flesh as he could. His eye's glowed a devilish red and his tongue leaped out like a twisting snake.
"Outta my way ugly!" Raph snarled, marching straight through the ghost. Which made the image waver and disappear like cloud of frail mist.
"Jeez." Don mumbled still recovering from the sight. Sometimes he wondered if Raph had any fear in him at all, and faced the flying objects still hurling at them.
Inside the crawlspace Raph managed to turn on a light.
"Come on Peg. Where'd ya put him?" He mumbled.
He shuffled around the area. Looking behind boxes, uncovering mountains of dust yielded nothing. A dark red spot still stained the floor but Raph tried not to look at it much.
"Have you found it yet?" Don asked outside.
"Keep 'em busy!" Raph shouted back, but from the sound of it Donnie would tire pretty soon.
"Come on!" Raph mumbled.
His head it the hanging light bulb, and it swayed from side to side. A shimmer caught Raph eye, next to the wall. There was a broken broad in the wall all the way in the back.
Raph plunged his hand into the dark space....
There! His hand grabbed something soft. Pulling it out of the hole the light from the bulb gleamed off the black marbles of the turtle doll's eyes.
"Robby" Peggy's voice whispered.
"KKYYAAAHHHHH!!!"
The deep screech seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The whole house began to shake. Throwing dust all over the place.
"Raph!" Don yelled.
"I got 'im!" Raph shouted grinning. He got out of the crawlspace, and they raced to the door.
The parlor seemed to stretch, making the distance to the door longer than it should be, but they kept running.
"NNNOOOooooo!!!" Screamed the phantoms.
"Hurry this way!" Peggy appeared out of nowhere.
She ran towards the door with them laughing and smiling, just like in the photo. The door glowed with a strange but comforting light. While the shadows moved to gather behind them, gathering heat as they went.
The front door swung open so easily. Five figures were silhouetted against the light, and at the sight of them Peggy smile grew bigger and here joyous laugh louder.
"I'm coming! I'm coming!" She giggled.
Raphael and Donatello never remembered running as fast as they did, but with each step the light strengthened them ever further.
"NNNNooooooo!!!!" The murderers screamed behind them.
The heat was almost unbearable on their shells.
A final leap and Raph, Don, and Peggy were through the doorway. As time stood still for a moment the terrapin brothers stole a glance behind them.
The rotting spirits of Norman Curr and Dick Swaysi were being swallowed by the darkness. The tentacles of a monstrous demon wrapped around their twisted forms and plunged them into the roaring flames.
"Thank you."
The sound of Peggy's voice helped them yank their eyes away from the sight. She stood with her family, unharmed and happy. She held up a newer and spirit version of Robby, and giggled,
"And Robby says thank you too."
"No problem kid." Raph grinned and in an instant they were gone.