Chapter 24
Phantoms of the Heart:
Wendigo, Part 3 of 3
Sixth Act: Caged Heat.
Now inside the cave…
"And that guys is how we met your cave," Danny said mockingly.
"How did you guys get here anyway?" Sam asked. "Or more like where is here?!"
"The same as you. We heard about the missing hunters and campers,, so we came here looking for them," Sullivan explains.
"But we got distracted doing extreme stuff with ourselves," she giggles.
"And you know the rest."
"And as for where is here, we're in a series of underground caves. It's like a lab in here, the perfect hideout for murderous creatures." Brenner explains them.
"We've been here for almost a week, eating nothing but our chocolate bars we keep for extreme emergencies."
"Chocolate bars for emergencies? That's a great idea, how comes I never thought about that?" Danny says. "All I got with me is a hand-size bubble-luggage with a hammock in it."
"Wait, so you got a hammock in your cage?!" Sam sounded enraged.
"Aaahh… maybe…?" he answers, as he sways in his hammock.
"So I've been sitting in God knows whose urine while you are comfortable in a hammock?! You kakafta, miserable son of a-"
"Sam, that's not the problem here. We're trapped in a cage, don't blame me for trying to make the best out of a bad situation," said lowering the temperature of his cage to refresh himself.
"You're right, then I'll blame you for not trying to get us out of here," Sam suggests.
"Gee Sam, why I am not surprised you thought about running away from problems. You truly are a genius," Danny replies sarcastically.
"Why don't you just shut up and phase us out of here?"
"Don't you think I already try that? I can't get out of here," Danny argues.
"Why not?"
"Touch your fence and you'll see."
Touching the fence of her cage, Sam gets a painful electric discharge.
"Ouch… What was that?"
"A ghost shield. It also extends beneath the walls and the floor."
"You could've said that."
"Would have you listened to me?"
"…I'm starting to hate you already. Wait, why does it hurt me? I'm a human being."
"Barely. The cages seem to have an advanced ghost shield, an Omni-Shield that won't even let me go ghost."
"A what now?"
"It works on ghosts and humans," he explains. "Vlad had one of those, maybe if I make it out I could go back to his place and steal one for me. That could come in handy"
"You serious?"
"Well, he is dead, so is not much of stealing."
"So we're trapped here with the Extreme Knuckleheads until Skulker decides to show up? Great, just wonderful," she says angrily. "What do we do now?"
"We wait for it," Brenner said.
"Wait for what?" She asked.
"We wait till she comes."
"She?" Danny asked. "I'm still not getting it."
"There is a door out there…" Sullivan explains. "There used to be more of us, but one by one, they start taking them away through that door. Sometimes even a whole group will be taken by the Wendigos. Once you go through that door, all you can hear is screaming… until you don't. And then again there is the other yelling, the one of the very angry woman who controls them. Or at least I think it's a woman, I mean no man can yell that much."
"It usually happens at night though." Brenner adds.
"Wait what time is it?" Danny asked.
"…it's twelve past eleven in the morning," says Brenner looking at her digital watch. "The Wendigos won't be up until another twelve hours at the most. So seeing none of us might get out of here alive or human, and we may die tonight… we can either solve your issues now or you guys can try avoid them all day until we're forced to eat some else or be eaten, it's your choice. Literally, they make us choice sometimes"
"Either way if you don't work things out now, you might not live to do that later and you'd die mad at each other. Do you guys really want that?" Sullivan sounded. "I know couldn't bear to die mad Brenner."
Danny and Sam remain quiet and thinking for almost a minute, not uttering the faintest sound. All they could think of. was how would they feel if they lose the other still mad at each other.
Finally they decide to solve their problems now, afraid they might not do it any other time.
"So are you gonna talk or what?" He sounded.
"Damn it Danny! Why do you got to be such a jerk about it?!"
"I'm the jerk now?! All I want is to know why you ran like that. How does that make me a jerk? Because I care about you? Because I wanna know what's wrong with us?"
"I ran because I realized I'm not ready, ok?! That's why I ran twice," Sam yells, almost crying. "I finally said it, are you happy?'
"Well, was that so hard? All you had to do was say so. What did you think was gonna happen?"
Sam sighs and then says looking prone "You don't get it. Is not just that I'm not ready, I can't help it if I'm not ready. I can't change the way I feel, is that… Look, the reason I did what I did is because we both agreed that sleeping together would bring us closer, but the idea of that much physical intimacy, is just too overwhelming to me, that's why I couldn't do it. And since I can't do it… I can't be that close to you… I guess I thought that must drive us apart… I thought you might dump me and I don't want that."
"So you said we should have sex because you wanted us to be closer, but then you run because you're afraid of being that close, and then you avoid for an entire day because you don't wanna lose me? Sam that's retarded. If you're not ready and wanted to back off, you could have just said that instead of running away from me. I wasn't gonna get mad at you and I was not gonna dump you for that. If you had explained to me first… all you had to do was say you changed your mind an-"
"It's not just that I'm not ready," she cuts him off. "It's that I'm scared, I'm terrified of losing you. After that fight you had, I just keep thinking you might not be with me tomorrow. That's why I said we should do it in the first place. And I know you know things between us haven't been so great lately, well, not ever. It's always been on-and-off and… I wanted to make things better."
"But we always get back together. I… guess that must mean something."
"Except… next time we might not. What if next time you can't? Or what if next time you dump me for good? Sometimes I don't feel like you're happy with me, so I thought that way you'd love me even more and you wouldn't leave me… Danny, I don't know what I'd do if I lost you."
"Same thing. If I lost myself, I don't know what I'd do," he jokes.
"Hehe…" Sam laughs softly and then sighs.
Danny pauses for a few seconds. "You know I would never do something like that, or anything to make you feel uncomfortable or any more miserable than you already are, don't you? I mean I never asked for that, so I don't know why you would think I'd dump you for not sleeping with me."
"I guess sometimes I do get some stupid ideas in my head," she admits.
[Danny sighs] "Sometimes… I am not happy with you." He admits morosely.
When hearing those words a non-subtle heartache takes her, as she heard the thing she wanted to hear the less, but she knew she shouldn't be surprised for she wasn't always the perfect girlfriend for him.
"I see… I guess I was right on that one… eh?"
"I'm sorry. I love-I love you more than anyone, don't think for a second I don't, but… sometimes you make me feel like I'm just your personal project. A flawed prototype of the perfect boyfriend, a tool you can use to wipe away those things you don't like."
"Danny, that is not true. Why would you… right that's why." She stops herself thinking of all the times she has asked him to do something for her he doesn't want to do, and for the first time thinking on how he feels about it. "But even if I could handle it, what if you were disappointed of me? That-that's what scares me the most, I heard all those stories about first times that just weren't so… special, you know? Why do you think I'm an only child?" Danny wipes his head confused. "And if ours is not, then our whole relationship could be ruined."
"Think again. Sam I knew you weren't so committed that night. In all honesty, I was planning to phase my hand into your brain disrupting your neural pathway functions just enough to knock you out."
"What?!" Sam asks confused.
"Sorry, I've been studying."
"So, in the event of Sam actually being able to sleep with you, you just would've stopped that by knocking her out?" Brenner asked.
"Well, I thought it was better than knocking her up."
"Wooow," Brenner adds with a tone of shock and sarcasm in her voice, writing it down in her clipboard.
"Now, are we done here?" Danny asks.
"Ha! Sadly… no." Sullivan sighs.
"Unless something happens in the next five minutes, this is a twelve hour session. We got an extreme load of things to talk about," Brenner points out.
"Like what?" Sam asks.
"Well, for once there is your boyfriend's fear to commitment," Sullivan retorts. "There is also your intimacy issues, the conflict with your parents…"
"And let's not forget your fear to your latent homosexuality," Brenner said to Sam.
"What?!" She asks flabbergasted whereas Danny laughs softly covering his mouth with his fist.
"C'mon, you know it's in there somewhere," Brenner says.
"How did you come up with that?-Ok, you know what? I'm not having this conversation anymore," she says sharply. "I appreciate the help so far, but this session is over."
"Why? Is it because you are hiding something from yourself? 'Cause let me tell you, since the moment they dragged you into the cave, you gave off those gay vibes," Brenner comments.
"There is nothing-I'm not a lesbian or a bi! Why does everyone want me to be a lesbian?!"
"The world is a better place when you know and accept what you truly are, Sam." Brenner says.
"What? No-I'm gonna-"
"Bring me that skinny albino girl with skimpy clothes, NOW OR I'LL COOK YOU ALL!" A loud and high pitched voice coming from a distant room sounded, cutting Sam's speech before she could mutter whatever profanity was coming through her mind. "For years she refused to taste-even insulted my gifts, but now she will learn the pleasure of eating meat one way or another…!"
The yelling came through the door at the bottom of the cave, connecting with a room they could not see from where they stand, and even though it sounded awfully familiar they still could not identify who this ghost was but they could tell now for sure that it was certainly not Skulker for only a woman can yell this loud. And this is as far as his Wendigo Pack theory goes.
Walking through the steel door, a group of three Wendigos comes out looking for Sam, dimly illuminating the cave with the room's light leaking from behind them. Opening her cage and ghost shield, they take her out as she kicks and fights to break their grasp.
"Sam!" Danny yells floating on his fence trying to see what was happening.
"Danny, help me!" She yells as she is hauled across the cave into the room.
In seconds her screaming quickly fades away.
Sam strives to break the clutch of her captors but rather soon she finds it was pointless to keep fighting, they were simply stronger than her.
In through the door, she finds herself inside a blood stained kitchen, with nail marks and bloody handprints left by the victims when hauled all over the floor. Once inside, the stench of death hanging heavy in the air hits her nose, an odor so strong that forced her to hold her breathe but a second smell so fetid, coming from a set of pots and skillets with a sour and reeking gravy oozing and boiling on green fire gets to her.
On a table next to the oven she could see a pair of human arms and legs butchered with flies buzzing all around them and a large meat knife stuck in an open torso. Then something she rarely feels came to her: fear.
What kind of monster could think of cooking and eating human meat and even worst forcing men to eat each other?
[Sam gasps.]
Now she knew it, she should have known because of the kitchen she was in. No, not just the kitchen, she should have known because it was there all along, blatant and obvious, it was all about the meat!
"Of course…" she whispers. "It was you all along! …You are behind all this. Why?!" She utters in shock, demanding an explanation from her captor the moment she shows her fat green body floating before her wearing a bloody apron holding a large, bloodstained kitchen knife in her face in a threatening manner. All this time the ghost they had been looking for was the only ghost who loved meat enough to kill for it: the Lunch Lady, and they didn't even think of her.
"This isn't like you, I mean, the insane love for meat, yeah, but this? Hunting, killing and eating humans? Eating their flesh?! This is insanity, this is-You know what? I take it back, this is totally like you. I just can't believe I didn't see this coming."
Her frown red eyes meeting Sam's sent a cold shiver down her spine reaching her legs, fear like she's never felt before has taken over her. Sam has never been the kind of girl who gets scared with ease, especially not by the Lunch Lady and yet, here she was afraid of her! She never thought of her as a real threat since all she ever did was throwing food at them. She never thought she was capable of doing such thing as killing a person, then cooking and eating their meat.
But how could this be? For as long as they knew her she has always been all about sudden outbreaks of rage when people didn't eat meat, always yelling eating meat was essential, and glossing out on the goodness of it, and how people is made out of meat and… again, it was so obvious she can't help but hating herself-and Danny-for not seeing this coming.
"You remind me! How cute, dearie! Do you want some cherry pie?" She offers in her usual sweet voice, apporting a plate with cherry pie in her right hand. "I feel like giving some dessert first today."
"That depends, is there any human meat in it? Because if that's the case then no. And most important, if I say yes (not saying I will), will you give it to me? 'Cause every time I've said yes, you say no."
"You question my peace offering?! Children who do that do not deserve any of my kindness?!" She shouts with her nasal voice as loud as she can, another one of her usual rage outbreaks coming through, with her body suddenly burning in green fire, and her hair blazing as white flames.
"Ok… next time you yell at me, try not to spit on my face," Sam says hiding the fear in her voice.
"Don't you disrespect me little girl! Don't you derogate or deride! You're in my world now, not your world," said slowly waving her blood stained and reeking knife in her face, making the flames of her kitchen grow, "and I got some nasty little friends here," added with a shit-eating grin flashing her ragged sharp teeth, shaped almost like the fangs of the Wendigos prowling behind her.
"Now, I remember you quite well, the vegan girlfriend of the pale ghost-boy. Always with that vegetarian crap."
"Actually I prefer the term ultra-recyclo vegetarian. Vegans are just too arrogant for me. And we're not exactly in talking terms right now," Sam explains.
"Release her." The Lunch Lady orders the Wendigos holding her arms.
"I assume this is the part where you explain me your plan, isn't it?" Sam says rubbing her wrists.
"You want me to explain my actions? I. Don't. Explain myself. To ANYBODY!" She yells making her body and the kitchen to blaze even more, causing the flames to reach the roof, burning the repulsive stew she was working on. "Now, this is how things are going to be, you are going to eat from my grill, or you will be eaten from my grill! Just that simple! Say, would you prefer pepper or salt?" Added apporting a salt and a pepper shaker.
"That's it? You're not gonna tell me some crazy backstory to explain the how or why of this? Just… throw me into the oven like some pig? I don't have to be a vegetarian to feel offended by that. I wanna hear your crazy story first."
"No!"
"Oh come on! If I'm gonna die, at least I would like to know how did you come to this?"
"Fine, since you insist…" agrees the Lunch Lady shutting down her flames and her anger. "But I warn you, it is a long story."
"It's ok."
"It was a cold winter night, almost fifty years ago," says turning her back on Sam. "When I was fired from that stupid Casper High for being way too… enthusiast with my food, I came here to work on a new school, but the headmaster was the same as you: an imbecile who can't appreciate the delicious flavor of meat, let alone how essential it is to consume meat for a good development! [The Wendigos share a confused look] He fired me when I insisted on adding steak Mondays, so I did the only reasonable thing to do."
"I'm guessing you didn't look for another job, right?"
"I struck back and one by one I started taking his family away from him, first his daughter, then his wife and his brother, then I told him: if you want to know where your family is then you must eat my food, and so he did. He ate every meal I put in front of him. At first he wanted to throw up, but when he came to the third plate, he wouldn't stop. It wasn't until that fool was over with enjoying my food I told him where his family was, in his table! His family was the turkey all along! The delicious meat he had enjoyed!" She claims elated, with great pride on her voice.
"You feed that poor man with his own family simply because he fired you?!" Sam asks in shock and awe, unable to believe what she just heard.
"Yes. Yes I did, and then when he stopped crying, he started vomiting. I thought he was too disgusted but as it turns out he was becoming this… He was being possessed by the Wendigo spirit, the most beautiful creature in the world. Once he transformed, all he cared about was eating more and more human meat, so I feed him more in secret. One by one his students became his lunch and dinner until I passed away. I spent years wandering in the Ghost Zone alone. I thought I'd never see him again, but then he told me how to find him, and imagine my surprise when I discovered he had grown a new family, something very weird for a Wendigo."
"Wait, you mean… that guy, the original Wendigo… it's still alive?"
"Alive? As in breathing and with a working heart? Well that would be an interesting choice of words. You would like to see him, wouldn't you?" She asks leaning her face only inches away from Sam's.
"Yeah… if that's not too much to ask," she says with her arms folded in her back.
"Well, you won't!"
With a smile she insists "Pretty please."
"Fine! But only because I want you to see what awaits for you."
Excellent, once I find the source of this evil I can burn it down… she thinks holding the Ghost Gun Flares in her back hidden inside her skirt.
Sam follows the Lunch Lady across the kitchen through a passage filled with human left-overs, leading to another cave. The Wendigos follow them from behind keeping a very close distance, enough for Sam to notice how the face of some of them flickers, like a fritz screen.
"So these Wendigos…"
"They're hostless spirits, waiting for a human to eat his own kind so they can possess him and have a stable body of their own. One they can eat other humans with," she explains to Sam.
"Care to explain a little bit."
"Explain? Oh, I see where you're going here sweetie," she says with the sweetest voice. "You sly dog girl, you try to get me to monologue so you can attack me the moment I leave my guard down, don't you?"
"…No."
"Good! Because that would never work!" She yells furious and smoldering. "All you need to know is that the Wendigo is like your boyfriend made of two parts: the human half, and the Wendigo spirit that possesses him. I would've never figure it out if he hadn't told me this himself. Once a human eats another, the wandering spirit of a Wendigo can possess him, or in this case her, fusing into a real Wendigo. And the more human meat they eat the stronger the bond, until they become inseparable, they become one."
"And those you sent after us?"
"They were just spirits, ghost like me-no, less than that!" She says blazing again. "They're just echoes, shadows of a conscience, of the being they could be should they have a meatsuit to live and eat more… well, meat. Poor bastards striving keep their form from fading away by the lack of meat like a homeless child!" Says emphatically with her body burning even hotter than before and her neck veins popping out.
For a second there, Sam was convinced her neck veins were about to explode, that would have made her roar in laughter no matter the dire of her situation.
"The ones with a body, they're still here waiting to get more food so they can complete the possession process." Explains as they get to the inside of a darker cave. "Once the transition is over there will be no way back," she says turning on the lights by snapping her fingers. "Now, let me introduce you the love of my life, The Alpha Wendigo!" says revealing one of the largest monsters Sam has ever seen… just this month.
Seventh act: Hell's Kitchen
Sam drops her jaw as she stares aghast at the Alpha Wendigo, a horned, green-grey skinned ghost monster just like the ones behind her, only but this one was almost thirty times their size.
She couldn't tell its height exactly since it was curled up into a ball like a napping dog, but she guessed it could easily be about a hundred feet tall.
"So… this was your first, eh?" She asks with a half-nervous, half-mocking smirk trying to get past the fear and impression of the Alpha Wendigo.
She couldn't do it.
Its presence alone was far more powerful, terrifying and imponent than anything she has seen before since she could see his victims around him in the form of a green aura with the appearance of wailing souls. Waves of fear shake through her body making her unable to breathe. By simply looking at it in its sleep she was already drowning in terror, she could feel its greed tapping into her heart trying to take her soul, she could feel its endless hunger reaching into her flesh, tasting her, the consuming pain of its craving… and then over all the fear, she felt something else: she felt pity for him, for it was not a monster but a victim. She understood this now, that all he did was not his fault, he had no control over his actions. This monster was no different than an addict, cursed with a sickness that called for a cure that will only make him sicker. No, it was more than an addiction, it was like a cancer that would eat him should he not eat someone else.
"So this is where all the Wendigos come from?" She asks.
"My Wendigos, yes."
"Great. That's all I need to know."
Elbowing the unsuspicious Wendigo on her left in its fragile jaw with all her strength, she manages to pull out her Ghost Gun Flare and set the two around her on fire.
The two Wendigos holding fall on the floor consumed by the almost never-ending ghost flames of Danny's flares. The creatures shriek like dying pigs as they whirl in pain until their bodies are finally consumed by the flames and all that remains is nothing but green steaming ashes.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! My babies! What have you done to them?!" The Lunch Lady asks with her body blazing, burning in rage as it has never done before.
"Trust me I've seen you future kid, and she's prettier than them."
"You will pay fo-" before she could finish her sentence, Sam fires another flare right inside her mouth.
"Just… shut up, stop ranting. You wouldn't like to wake him up."
Quickly Sam opens fire on the Alpha Wendigo emptying both gun flares. The fur soon is consumed by the green flames and the creature wakes from its hibernation sleep somehow undisturbed by it, as if it could feel no more pain.
"Nonononononono!" She shouts trying to shut down the flames.
"You know what they say, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen," Sam says running away from her as fast as she can, but the Lunch Lady outruns her with her flight, now hovering before her as a green flaming fat body with red smoldering eyes.
"Hey, getting some menopause heats lately?" she points out stepping away from the flaming furious undead woman in front of her. "Come on Danny, this is the moment when you show up grinning like an idiot to save me from the crazy monster."
"Sorry to disappoint kid but nobody is saving you today," says rising her kitchen knife bursting into flames, to butcher Sam. Paralyzed by fear she stares at it as it swings down into her face convinced she was going to die that moment.
Except this is not her moment to die.
Firing a cold energy ray, Danny freezes the Lunch Lady's arm and her kitchen knife before she could harm Sam.
"Hey, Lunch Lady, it's been a long time! 'Ice' to see you again."
"'Ice' to see you? That is your great joke?" Sam rants.
"Hey, if you got another snappy one liner I'm all ears, or even better, how about a thank you for saving your life… again. I'm thinking of something among the lines of: oh Danny thank you for saving me, you're the greatest guy in the world and I couldn't live without you, let alone keep my head, literally," he says sarcastically.
"How about I tell you to shut up and you tell me what took you so long," she replies running at him while the Lunch Lady struggles to break the ice in her arm.
"I stopped for gas," said with a smug, getting a glare from his girlfriend. "You think it's easy to fill a cage with enough ice and snow to escape from it? I'm not Houdini"
"Did you bring something for me?"
"I brought some backups," said pointing at the Extreme Ghost-Breakers running behind him. "Don't worry, they're in full extreme ghost-hunter mode now."
"Good, because they were so capable against a fourteen years old ghost, that I can't imagine how can we win this without them."
"Hey, we got feelings too, dude," Brenner said.
"I'm a giiiirl!" Sam replies the way Brenner does every time Sullivan calls her dude.
"Now I know why you do it all the time," she says to her partner, "it's really fun."
"I also brought you this," says apporting his Phantom Anti-Creep Stick. "You left this on your cage."
"Great, a wood bat with nails against a flaming ghost woman with a large butcher knife and an army of human eating monsters."
"Well if you don't want it…"
"I never said that."
Shouting and bursting in ghost flames, the Lunch Lady breaks the ice in her arm and summons all the Wendigo spirits she had at her disposition.
"Danny, those are-"
"I know, I heard your conversation with her through the Phantom Headphones," says going ghost and blasting every Wendigo he could see. "Good job getting her to talk to buy yourself some time by the way."
"Thanks, I learned from the best."
"Dude, that suit is cool to the extreme, where did you get it?" Sullivan asks impressed by Danny's new suit while striking a Wendigo with an anti-ghost yo-yo with ectoplasm laced blades, gashing its chest.
"Let's just say I know a guy and… that's all you need to know."
"Oh, I see, you got super spy stuff going on, eh? Extremely secret stuff. Ok, don't worry. I'll drop it."
"Kill them all and put them in the freezer room with the others! NOW!" She orders to her Wendigos spitting fire and with her head blazing even more.
"The others? Ok, new plan," says Danny holding the Wendigos back with a ghost shield.
"There was a plan?" Brenner asked.
"You guys go back to the kitchen and see if there is any living meat in there, while I take care of the wannabe Iron Chef over here."
"Why do you get all the fun?" Sam inquires.
"Just go!"
"Is he always that bossy?" Brenner asks Sam.
"He got worse in the last month," says as they run back into the kitchen.
"You will not escape!" The Lunch Lady yells.
"Hey, Gordon Ramsay either you chill out, or go back to Hell's Kitchen," he yells firing a powerful cold energy blast trapping her in an ice block, "but either way SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!"
"You think you can stop me with this feeble ice of yours?" She ask melting it down with her flames.
"I think someone is going through menopause here."
"Sam used that joke already," Gas points out.
"Shut up Gas."
"It takes more than that, much more!" She yells wrapping herself in a torrent of ghostly fire and causing a strong wind to blow inside the cave, with all the power of a small tornado.
"Did you know she can do that?"
"Never to that extent." Danny replies. "That is a new trick, using fire and not meat to wrap herself. So not good for me." Said a second before the cave had a sudden and drastic temperature drop to the point where he could see his breathe. "But luckily… I heard a harsh winter is on the way," said harnessing all his cold energy, then realizing it in a powerful blue energy wave in all directions, freezing the entire cave and killing the fire on the Alpha Wendigo.
The Wendigo spirits that stood around him were now trapped inside the thick ice covering the walls.
"Like an awful modern art paint," he says looking at the image of the hideous creatures deformed by the ice.
"Aren't all modern art paints awful?"
"Fair enough. Where is the Lunch Lady?" He wonders looking around the ice cave with his suit's ghost scanner getting no sing of her.
"Sir, I got some bad news. It appears that the lower temperatures help the Wendigo spirits to stabilize their forms as if they had a host," Gas explains as they begin to break the ice.
"What? What does it mean?"
"It means the cold makes them stronger and now they're breaking out of the ice."
"Why couldn't you tell me this before?!"
"Because I wanted us to fail. Obviously I didn't know until now!"
Once inside the kitchen, Sam and the Extreme Ghost-Breakers try to open the freezer room hoping to find the victims of the Lunch Lady, an effort they take to the extreme placing a ghost grenade on each corner of the steel doors to blow them up.
"Why do you have those things again?" Brenner asks.
"We brought them for the Wendigos. Danny insisted on coming heavily armed, you know just in case."
"And you had those inside your skirt all this time?"
"What is your point here?"
Oh, one thing I forgot to mention, Sam sewed a few pockets inside her skirt so she can carry things around like if she had pants and put a few grenades inside on the road here, just in case.
"Now, I set the timer for ten seconds, when I press this button we go and find somewhere to hide. You got it?"
"We're almost thirty, what, you think we're idiots?" Sullivan says.
"Yeah, eh… just go hide." Sam said activating her grenades.
Hiding behind the refrigerator, they wait for the explosion to happen and even though it was only ten seconds, for them it seemed like an etern-
The roar of the explosion breaks through the kitchen as abrupt as it could be, startling the hunters, followed by the sound of the steel doors dropping flat onto the floor.
"Hey it worked," Sullivan said surprised.
"Of course it worked. It was just a locked freezer room, not the Fort Knox."
"Hehe, it almost sounds like fart-knocker."
Sam moans with her hand flat across her face asking "Is he always like this?"
"He got worse in the last month."
"Ok, let's see if there is someone we can save here."
Hastily, they run into the larder halted by the sight of the victims' bodies hanging from the roof hooked in chains like beef, some of them mangled to the point where they were nothing but a torso with a head, others weren't so lucky. Their hearts stop as soon as they see this, overwhelmed by horror.
Slowly, they walk into the cold room. "This can't be real," Sam says, but it is really real.
Wandering inside the cold room they find several bodies still intact except for the hooks piercing their chest, one of them was Dick, Sandy's fiancé.
With any luck they might be alive, thinks Sam as she gets closer to them and alas! When touching Dick's face this one open his eyes startling her. It was a living victim, just what they were looking for, and he wasn't the only survivor. The bodies around him also showed signs of life.
Gasping and breathing with troubles the man begins to shake in pain and panic.
"Soon, help me get them out of here!" She yells to the Extreme Ghostbreakers.
Using a laser Ghost Cutter they cut the chains the man was hanging from.
"Wait a minute, you had a laser cuter with you all this time? Why wouldn't you use it to open the door?" Sam asks angry at Sullivan.
"Because… I wanted the explosion?"
Sam moans distraughtly. "Just get them out of here."
Using the cutter they manage to get down all the living hostages and try to get as many of them as they can out of the larder, and how funny it was for Sullivan and Brenner to see Sam having troubles carrying one guy whereas they carried two bodies on their shoulders with ease.
"You feeble child! Look at you! You cannot even hold a man on your shoulders! If you ate some meat then maybe you would have some muscle and you wouldn't have to put so much effort to take just one man out of the freezer!" Yells the Lunch Lady standing where the doors used to be. "Now, put the man down so he can finish the transition!"
"What? You mean that-?"
"They ate my food, yes. The cold helps to speed up the process. Why do you think I have them inside the cold room with all the other death meat?"
Taking a look at the man's face she sees his eyes are glowing red and his teeth shaped like fangs. Frightened, Sam drops the man on the floor.
"Ok, I'm putting an end to all this!" She states taking the nail bat "holstered" in her belt.
"You think you can beat me with your hippie food?"
"No, I'm gonna beat you with a spiked bat."
"Ha! You and what army?!"
"Don't worry sister, we got your back." Brenner said popping out an anti-ghost energy bow compressed within her belt. The bowstrings and arrows of the weapon were made of pure ectoplasm, and emitted a bright pink glow. A grip in the middle of the bowstring would allow it to be fired without harming her hand.
"You heard the boss." Sullivan states pointing at her with his suit's wrist-mounted flamethrower.
In a quick movement Brenner fires several plasma arrows right in the Lunch Lady's face. The energy arrows explode pushing her back into the kitchen's floor. Sam rushes in waving her nail bat slamming her face with it before she gets back on her feet.
The ghost blood spreads all over the kitchen.
Using a fast moving wave to easily propel himself through the snow inside the cave, Danny fights the Wendigo spirits shooting them with ice bullets fired from his hands, which seem to do little to stop them despite how many of them pierce through them.
"Why sir? Why do you keep using ice when you know it doesn't work on them? Why? Why do you persist?!"
"Because I chose to."
"What?"
"I don't know, I thought that's how the line goes," said slowing down his snow wave in the entry of the cave. "Anyway, I think there is a way I can use the snow to kill those suckers."
"Humor me."
Waving his hands in a fluid motion, he begins to swirl his snow twirling it around the Wendigos, first clutching their feet in ice and then shaping it into something with all the seeming of an open ice-coffin.
"Now watch this," with a hand gesture that resembled a rising wave, he erected what could only be the lid of the coffins also made of ice, only the lid came with spikes in the inside.
Pushing the lid into the ice coffins, the spikes skewer the Wendigo spirits in the same fashion as an iron maiden only that they could see the dire fate of the Wendigos through the crystal-clear ice.
Jets of ectoplasm stream out of their ghostly bodies as they whirl in pain, fading away into oblivion.
"So… your solution was to… waterbend an iron maiden made of ice to kill them? How did you even know it was gonna work?"
"I didn't. I just wanted to see if I could. You know my dad has one, why can't I? And why would you say I "waterbended" it?"
"You know with those hand movements, you kind of bended the snow there like a waterbender, well more like a snowbender."
"Well, that is a way to put it."
"That is the only way to put it, sir."
"…Well, since you insist."
Performing a series of rapid arm movements with unique hand gestures he gathers enough ecto-energy before placing his palms forward, forming a diamond shape with the thumbs and index fingers touching each other and shaping a concentrated ghost energy sphere in his hands he then thrusts toward the Alpha Wendigo causing a powerful explosion that not only blows a whole in the Alpha Wendigo but also shakes the cave causing it to fall asunder crushing the monster.
"There. Now you can say I'm an energy bender."
"Actually I was going to say you just used a DBZ type attack, but, whatever sir."
Danny moans distraughtly claiming "When did you become so pop cult stubby? That is my job."
"You use the nearly unlimited memory of the suit to download all the series you can't watch on TV, and you use me as your personal download manager. I can only but learn from you."
"So I'm teaching you something? Great!"
"Teaching is a farfetched term, but we can put it that way."
"It's the only way to put it. Now let's go to the kitchen. I bet that she's in there with Sam."
Eight Act: The Last Meal
With all the might of his legs, Danny runs into the kitchen to fight the Lunch Lady, delivering a powerful superman punch in her face.
Is after she falls on her behind that he notices how beat up her face is: her lips broken, her nose riven almost separated from her face, teeth shattered and even one of her eyes nearly detached from its socket.
"Man, you look like crap and I'm sure as hell I can't do that with a single punch. Did you do this?" Asked to his girlfriend.
"With some help." Sam states
"Girl, I'm running out of arrows here," Brenner announces firing her last energy arrow.
Blinded by rage, the Lunch Lady pounces over Danny apporting a large kitchen knife and a cleaver in her hands to butcher him.
Quickly he crosses his arms in X shape to block the kitchen knife with his arm blades, with her cleaver she tries to sever his midriff to no avail, not even scratching the TDA fabric of his suit.
"Ha! Good luck trying to cut a man wearing a fullbody jumpsuit made of indestructible fabric!" Danny gloats.
"You might have an indestructible suit covering all your body, but I know somebody who doesn't!" Claims looking at Sam over her shoulder running at her with the nail bat.
Swaying her right hand with her kitchen knife, she aims to slice her head off, but Sam swiftly-if not luckily-blocks the attack with the Phantom Anti-Creep Stick. Pulling her knife to retrieve it she realizes it was stuck and decides to kick Sam in the stomach sending her into her table with all the butchered meet.
"Sam!" Yells Danny lashing upon the Lunch Lady with his push blades, using all the strength he can put on his fists, but her big fat body refuses to fall to his mighty blows. Instead, she ignores her fatal wounds and strikes back with more than enough strength to fling Danny into her refrigerator.
With her body on green fire cauterizing her wounds, she walks at him enlarging her cleaver, making it look almost like an axe with a 10 feet long handle and a ridiculously large blade, rising her hand ready to kill him.
"Always knew my COD would be a hysterical woman… in the kitchen… with a knife, just always thought it'd Sam or Jazz finally having a breakdown."
"At least you're already in the freezer." Gasper says.
"Not helping, Gas."
"My babies will feast on your flesh. The flesh of a hybrid, how delicious it must be your meat, how powerful they will beEEEEEEEEEE!" She shrieks falling on her knees, with a stabbing pain in her back so great even her fire goes off. Getting out of the refrigerator Danny sees his girlfriend standing behind the Lunch Lady, stabbing her with the kitchen knife she left in the table.
Nobody cared to notice this before, but the floor was now a bloody mess mixed with ectoplasm, a pool of human and ghost gore and the more Sam stabbed her in the back, the more green rained down on the floor and the more the Lunch Lady shrieked.
"You stupid child! You think you can attack me with my own knife?"
"I can and I do, just watch me!" Sam answered stabbing her again, and again, and again and then one more time stopping only by an invisible force holding the knife over her head, with a green ghostly aura on it.
It was the Lunch Lady using her kitchen powers "I got control over food, meat and kitchen INSTRUMENTS!" Shouts flinging the kitchen knife over the room with Sam holding it. "Now I'll be clear about this once [all knives and forks in the kitchen begin to float with the same green ghostly aura onto them.] I am the one who holds the knives here and I'M the one who cuts people here!" Yells throwing them at Sam but with lightning fast thinking Danny uses his own telekinesis and manages to stop them only inches away from her face.
"Sorry to break it up to you hon, but the only one getting cut off here is you!" States Danny pinning her against another wall with her own knives.
Her ghost blood pouring through death-dealing wounds that no human could survive, painting the wall green, flooding the floor.
"Congratulations, you got me. And now what? You trap me in a thermos like soup and then free me into the ghost zone? We will only come back stronger."
"She is right." Danny admits.
"But… what else can we do?" Sam asks.
"Is clear that the old trap-and-release system doesn't work. So there's only one thing we can do about her." Danny says leaning towards her. The lacerations on her arms, thighs and stomach aggravate the more she struggles to break free.
"The thing is I've had it up to here with you ghosts!" says pointing to his head. "At first you all were nothing but a nuisance always coming to our world, screwing things up, and I was always willing to play along, putting an end to all your craziness, to put up with you because you were always so damn stupid I couldn't see you doing any real harm. But now you come here to kill people, to eat us?! Well guess what?" He asked pulling out the knife in her stomach so-violently, opening her stomach and spreading her green guts on the floor, to which she did not flinch. "I'm not letting you do that again."
"And what are you gonna do about it?" She asked mockingly. "You can't keep me looked forever."
"You're right." Said slowly placing her kitchen knife in her neck holding it by both ends. "Look at me. Look at me, bitch!" ordered retracting his mask. "Look at my eyes and tell me, what does it look like I'm gonna do?" Said pointing his eyes at hers.
His eyes were not as she remembered from all their prior fights, they had more than just that senseless bravery that defined him always pushing him into battle, and there was not a trace of the joyful, noble and caring hero soul she had sought in him in the past. Instead all she could see was this blunt, gruff and rage-filled character she didn't recognize. For all she could tell his eyes were not those of a human but those of a real ghost! She couldn't stare at the hate in his eyes, all she could do was look away.
"Look at my eyes bitch. I said looking my eyes!" Slowly she begins to look into Danny's eyes.
"A-are yo-you sure don't want to talk?" She asked scared.
"There is nothing to talk here. You fiends come to my world looking for war?! Well guess what? You got it! And the one thing I learned in history class, is that when there is war, heads roll. 'Cause you see, a ghost, that's bad. A body-chipping ghost - that's worse enough, but ghosts that kidnap people to eat them and force them to eat each other… Well, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do, I'm going to put you down and I'm going to enjoy putting you down."
"Is he going to do what I think he is about to do?" Asked Brenner.
Slowly Danny pushes the blade on her neck cutting her head off as she smiles with her tattered lips flashing the teeth she had left.
The blade touches the wall as the head slowly falls from the body onto the floor, bouncing and then rolling on the pool of human and ghost blood around them.
"I always wondered since you're ghost… can you die again?" Danny asked rising his left foot, concentrating his ghost energy on it. "We're about to find out." Said stomping on her terrified head, blowing it up.
Rising his hand at her squirming body, he fires a blue ghost ray to disintegrate her body molecule by molecule, leaving behind nothing but a blue steaming hole in the wall.
"Now, is there anything else we're forgetting?"
Nervously Sullivan replied "That would be the soon-to-be-Wendigos in the freezer room."
"Right. Leave them to me." Danny says pulling out his claws and apporting his Ghost Killing Knife.
"Danny… what are you gonna do?" Sam asked afraid of even guessing what would happen next.
Entering the freezer room with hands smoldering he responds "What must be done."
Once inside, he locks the entrance with the doors, using his telekinesis, and for the next ten minutes all they could hear was roaring, screaming and shrieks like no other. From behind the doors all they could see was jets of ectoplasm hitting the broken windows and even more running down the doors.
Sam, Sullivan and Brenner were aghast by what they just saw, and after that they couldn't and didn't want to imagine what was happening behind these doors.
September 12
05:16 PM
Northern Minnesota, East Mercy Hospital.
Or… later that day.
With the Lunch Lady and her Wendigos' death, Danny was able to bring some peace to the families of her victims, and even more, he was able to save those who were in transition by tearing the Wendigo Spirits out of them, then killing them with his Ghost Killing Knife which proved to be a success slicing the Wendigos' necks, arms and even heads off.
Dick, Sandy and her family were forever grateful for this, and could not find words to show their gratitude.
"It was nothing, really. I've separated possessive ghosts from humans before, I thought this was no different. I'm glad I was right as always."
"Still… thank you so much. I owe you my life." Dick says.
"Just stay away from hunting, and this goes for her brother too. Eh, I gotta go check on my girlfriend now… while I still have one."
Giving his farewell, Danny goes to check on Sam on the next room.
"So… are you ok?"
"Yeah, a little bruised but the doctor says I can leave."
"Great."
"Look Danny, about what happened this week… I'm sorry. You were right, I should have been more honest with you."
"Hey, no need to apologize, we're both the same. So, ready to go?"
"Yeah, just… one more thing, what happened back in the cave?"
"What thing?"
"'Look at my eyes bitch?' A real charmer's line there. What the hell was all that about?"
"Hey, it was the best line I could come up with."
"Yep, I noticed that, but Danny you decapitated her with her own knife, and… is it just me, or don't you think you enjoyed that a little too much?"
"So? You stabbed her in the back with it, and I could tell by the look in your eyes you had he time of your life there."
"Yeah, but Danny that was… that was so out of character. Killing off your enemies. That is so not like you. What happened?"
"What happened is that they changed, they started to kill people. And I think it was about time for me to have a change too, maybe it is time we get a more effective solution to our ghost problems. Sam I've had it up to her with them. Besides after all she've done, she deserved more."
"…I guess you're right. But Danny, I can't help but worry about you."
"Hey, don't worry about me," said fondling her shoulders. "I'm a hero, remember?"
"I guess you're right."
"Besides, they're ghosts. They're already death, all I did was destroy an odd manifestation of post-human consciousness and ectoplasmic energy."
"Ok, how much time do you spend in your parents' lab again?"
Epilogue 1: Love Bites.
Ready to head back to Amity Park, Danny and Sam say good-bye to Brenner and Sullivan, and thank them for helping them with the Lunch Lady, the Wendigos and their issues.
Inside the RV, Danny throws his weapon bag, which he retrieved from the woods, right where he and Sam were taken and even packs a few souvenirs from their trip that Sam wanted to take home with her, the Lunch Lady's kitchen knife and cleaver, which returned to its large but not-so-large size after her demise. But the way home was not as Danny thought it would be, as he would soon realize that night, not all their troubles were solved.
"Are you hungry? We haven't bitten anything all day," asked with Sam sitting in the passenger seat. "I already got food. Salad for the pretty lady in the passenger seat and the best burgers I've ever tasted. I know after this I shouldn't be eating meat, but I just love this place."
"Aha." Sounds barely paying attention to him.
Not knowing what was wrong, he asks Sam "Are you ok, sweetie?"
"Yeah, I just can't keep thinking of something."
"Whatever it is, I'm sure it's nothing." Said steering the car.
"Is just that, is… what you said."
"What did I say?"
"Nothing! Danny, when they asked us why do we want this relationship to go on, I said is because I want a life with you, I want a future together, but then… then you said you didn't even know why on earth you are with me in the first place."
Danny remains silent for almost a minute with his head down, not knowing what to say to his girlfriend.
"That's it? You're not gonna answer me?"
"Sam… I-I don't know what to say, I-"
"Typical!" She moans angrily, moving to her bed. "You big - You know what? I'm not even gonna get mad at you… If you got nothing to say about it, then you don't dare talking to me for the rest of the road!"
"Sir, not sure if it's right for me to point this out now, but… you should do something about the knives she brought with her before we get a second tragedy."
"It probably will be for the best." He thinks.
After hours of driving late, they finally make it home about 3 A.M. Stopping the RV in front of Sam's house, she gets out with her bags, nail-bat, knives and a grudge against Danny and his behavior that she wouldn't hide.
"I don't know what's going on in that head of yours, what the hell is you problem now, but… I hope you're happy with yourself." Said standing on the door, looking at him over the shoulder.
In his house Danny is received by his always loving mother and sister.
"So… how did it go? Did you and Sam got what you were looking for?" Jazz asks.
"…Yeah, kind off."
"And did you…?"
"We didn't do anything mom," he cuts her off, "we just got into more trouble… as always. Isn't a little late for you to be out of bed?"
"Sweetie, we were waiting for you, we're always worried when you leave to this hunting trips of yours," Maddie said.
"Yeah well… thanks, but there is no need for that. Look, I'm tired and I just wanna rest in my bed," says sorrowful as he walks upstairs.
It was clear for Jazz and Maddie that something happened in that trip, but they would never have an idea of what happened.
The following day Sam would avoid Danny at all cost, not like that required any effort from her part as he didn't try to call her, or text her for an entire day thinking how to answer that question, and with the coming of a starless night comes the answer he was looking for.
September 13
11:42 PM
Casa Manson
Floating outside his girlfriend's window, in his human form, Danny knocks the glass to call her out.
[Drake Bell, Shades of Gray starts playing]
He waits for several minutes, the sound of Sam groaning as she gets out of bed and comes through the glass until he finally opens the window wearing only an Iron Maiden black top and her crossbones panties, saying unexcited "Oh, it's you. What are you doing here?"
"I… think we need to talk."
"Do we now? Haven't we talked enough already? 'Cuz I think you've said enough."
"No. Sam, I got something to say and it can't wait… Can I come in?"
Glaring at him, she mulls for a few seconds. "Sure."
[Find love or will it find you
When you've made your mistake?]
Once inside her room, he can't help but to take a good look at her beautiful body, unable to deviant his eyes from her long well-shaped legs. Very few times in the past he gets such a good look of her leggy figure as he does now, and the way the moonlight streamed through the window she was standing next to, bathing her fair skin made her even lovelier than ever before, which made what he was about to do even harder.
"Ah, could you… you know, cover it?" Said waving his hands around her legs.
[You live once, so look behind you]
"Cover what?"
"You know, just… your whole self. It's gonna be hard to do what I came to do if can't stop looking at your legs."
[And give more than you take]
"Fine." Agrees putting on a diaphanous purple nightgown that didn't really cover that much of… anything. "There, better?"
"No, not really."
[You save the sun
I need to run]
"Just tell me, what is it you want?"
"Is about what we talked, or more like what we didn't talk."
"Ah, that…"
"…Sam, you know I love you, and I love being with you. You are the best girlfriend I've ever had."
"I'm the only girlfriend you've ever had!" She points out emphatically.
[From your shades of gray, washing my world away]
"Exactly. And I love being with you, I can't think of being with somebody else. But as much as I can't imagine myself being with another girl… I can't imagine that life together you said you want."
[Into the future, will I never lose her?]
In shock Sam utters a faint "What?!"
"Sam, you said you wanted a life with me, you pictured a future together, but I don't. I can't do it. I realize that now."
"Wow, go back. What do you mean with that?"
[Same for the shades of gray, washing my world away]
"Sam, that night you said you wanted to have sex, I was scared too because I didn't know how to tell you this. You were thinking - talking of spending the rest of our lives together while I don't even know if we will… What I mean to say is, I can't love you the way you want me to. You wanna know if I'll love you forever? I don't know, I don't know. Maybe if you stick around, I'll never stop loving you or maybe I will, but in all honest I can't know for real."
[In the confusion, it's only illusion]
"Danny are you…? Are you breaking up with me?"
"No, no. I'm not saying any of that. What I'm saying is… You'd want me to promise you that I'll love you for the rest of our lives, but I don't wanna make a promise I can't keep because I don't know what will happen next. If I knew what our lives would be, it would be perfect. But I don't know how it will end."
[Same for the shades of gray]
"Danny, when you gave me this ring, you said no matter what the future holds for us, you wanted me there with you," she saying showing him the graduation ring he gave her two years ago after he saved the planet, thinking he could spend the rest of their lives together.
[Shades of Gray stops playing]
Of course, she has
"But that is the thing, I didn't know I would change how I feel, and if-"
Sam quickly cuts him off with a hand gesture. With her face down, her eyes shut down tight and biting her lower lip, Danny could see how much hearing the truth hurt her by just looking at her.
"Do you love me?"
"I do. I love you."
"Good. Then maybe we should take a break."
"What?"
"You heard me."
"Are you breaking up with me?"
"No. I just think… maybe we need some time away from each other. Is clear we're in different pages in this relationship and we could use some time alone to… clear our minds."
"I see…"
Slowly he approaches to the window thinking this was the last of their relationship, but just before he flies out of the window, Sam turns on him and kisses him the same way she did in the RV, wrapping her arms around his neck. She holds their lips together for a long time breaking them apart only for a second to say "I love you," while holding her tears.
"I love you too." Danny said kissing her back, grabbing her small waist. "But I gotta go."
Resting her head over his shoulder she whisper to his ear "You're right on one thing… Our lives, our future together, they would be perfect."
"But that is the thing, we don't know." Danny whispers as he vanishes away, leaving a heartbroken Sam behind, to cry in silence.