Hey guys. Sorry about the lack if updates lately. I am now working a full time job and barely have time to sot down and write anymore, and then when I do...writers block. I guess the writers block can be blamed on not being completely sure where I'm going with this story.
Maddie left Vlad in favor of moving back up into the security of the upstairs, above ground portion of Jack's home. She entered into the kitchen where Jack was sitting at the small, hard wood table hard at work. Her eyebrows pushed together as she eyed the familiar piece of technology in front of him.
"What are you working on, Jack?" She inquired curiously.
"The Fenton Ghost Finder," he replied proudly. He unraveled his stubby fingers from around the screwdriver he had previously been using and allowed it to roll off his palm onto the table. He raised his arm to wipe off a few beads of sweat that had collected on his forehead.
Maddie couldn't help but to chuckle to herself lightly. "Our very first invention?" She was rather puzzled that he was even wasting his time on something that probably would never work, much like all the others.
"I just thought that maybe because we got our portal to work...even if it blew up, then maybe we could fix up all our ghost hunting gear," he continued.
Maddie just watched as Jack continued to work on the tracker. Got to admire that positive attitude, she thought to herself.
She sat down across from the man, crossed her slim legs beneath the table and folded her hands neatly in front of her. Her thoughts drifted back to her earlier conversation with Vlad. She gnawed at her bottom lip as she felt a pang of guilt for not being entirely honest with him. She had convinced him that the effects of the accident were more sever and puzzling than she had led on.
His breaths were short and ragged. His skin was like ice, cool to the touch. His heart did not beat with a normal consistency and did not beat as often as it should. He was like a living, breathing, walking corpse.
"What do you suppose actually happened to Vlad when the portal blew?" Jack's abrupt question startled Maddie out of her thoughts. "I don't think you're being completely honest with him."
Maddie shifted slightly in her seat, inhaling deeply. "I don't want to frighten him," she said sorrowfully. "But if you must know, I don't believe it was as simple as a few alterations in his DNA, maybe after, but not initially. Jack, he died."
The small device that Jack had previously been working on had slipped out from his grasp. It landed with a loud thud on the table causing Maddie to visibly flinch.
"What do you mean? How is that even possible?"
"I don't know. I don't even understand how he's alive now." Maddie's face was grim as she spoke. "His body just doesn't function normally, not anymore."
Jack sat idly in his place, his fingers fumbling with the head of the screwdriver. "So what does that mean for him?"
"It means he never fully recovered."
Before Jack could say anything more, the ghost tracker in front of him hummed to life, beeping and flashing frantically. His eyes leveled with Maddie's, mirroring her amazement. Without hesitation he lifted up the tracker, he tapped a few keys prompting the machine to show what all the beeping about.
"Large sums of ectoplasm detected. Ghost approximately fifteen feet away. Thank you for using the Fenton Ghost Finder."
"Fifteen feet away?" Maddie mimicked the automated message. "That would mean it's inside the house." Her voice wavered. She couldn't tell if it was from fear or the sheer shock of it all.
Her colleague jumped into action, toppling over the wooden chair in his roughness. "Ghosts DO exist," he yelled as he scuffled across the kitchen floor and down into the basement. Maddie was quick to follow.
Jack turned the corner fully entering the basement a millisecond before she did. Once he was out of her sight, the sudden silence that followed, the absence of footsteps scared her. She rounded the corner, her heart racing and breathing quick, only to run right smack into something big. She stumbled a few steps backwards, recovering enough to recognize what ,rather who, she had ran into. Jack.
She raised up the balls of her feet to position herself on her toes to angle herself to be able to see over the mans shoulder.
What she saw scared her to no end. A man, no ghost, stood in the middle of the basement with his back flush against the heart monitor, seemingly using it just to support his own weight.
The ghosts skin was a powder blue. His lips were pulled back into a grimace, exposing two sharp fangs, his jet black hair was styled to form two points almost like devils horns. He looked like a creature of evil. He wore a white suit, he looked like he was just barely holding himself up.
Her eyes immediately went to the her right where Vlad's bed would be, only to find the bed empty and the sheets disheveled. Her glare on the the ghost turned icy, accusatory. "What did you do with him?"
The ghost, for the first time, acknowledged her presence. He lifted his head to look in her direction. Recognition flashed in his eyes. The look on his face sent a chill down Maddie's spine. There was something oddly familiar about this ghost, but one look in his piercing, but confused, red eyes wiped away any remnants of familiarity.
Maddie lunged forward and kicked one of the lab tables so it slid across the floor, pinning the Ghost between it and the heart monitor. The ghost yelled, but phased right threw the heart monitor. Once he had uncovered his hands from his face, surprised had appeared on his face.
Then Jack jumped into action as if on que. He punched the ghost in the face, and as he stumbled back Jack grabbed him by the collar lifting him off the ground. "Where. Is. Vlad" he ground out between clenched teeth.
The ghost's mouth moved, but deemed unable to form words. His fists charged witha fiery green, pushed against Jack's chest. The force of the blast sent them both flying to the opposite sides of the room.
After the ghost's back slammed into the wall, he had stared at his own hands in wonder, before his gaze fell on the large man he had blasted in horror. Maddie ran across the room and slid on her knees coming to a halt beside her colleague. She pulled him into her embrace, her eyes returning to the ectoplasmic being across the room. The ghost pushed off the ground and disappeared. Gone from view never to be seen again.