A/N: Ok, some may have noticed that deviantART got this about 24 hours before FFN. Sorry, guys, but they deserved an apology after I neglected to upload the last 3 chapters of Out to Lunch and the 4 previous chapters of this. Aaaaaand I just remembered I forgot to upload I Just Wanna Dance to my dA page during the fic dump, so I should go do that I guess. Here is the continuation of Janet's torture, er, I mean story.
Jack. Her beloved Jack. The day he left—
"Disappeared," she muttered, weakly defiant.
The day he̝͖̻ ̛̭͉l͈e͍̙̫͈̘f̻̱̩̩̜̣̣t̬͢ ̡̻̣her started a chain reaction. If anyone had asked Janet, when they were together, how she would handle Jack leaving her, she would have told them she'd get by. Janet had always been so independent—she didn't need anybody, let alone a man, to make her feel like a whole person. She was a free spirit, and she had left Jack herself once, only coming home when he begged her to. They loved each other, and they were happy, but Janet had seen what "staying together for the children's sake" had done to her parents. If trouble arose between her and Jack, she would rather have divorced and stayed friends than stay trapped with someone she slowly grew to despise for being unable to live up to her expectations. Their marriage falling apart should have been something she could handle. She thought she was prepared.
And really, if she took an honest look back, all the signs were there. They were trying for another child, so late in the game, and things weren't going as expected. The garage was hemorrhaging money, so soon after Jack's brother had a similar financial failure, and he was under a lot of pressure to fix things before they lost the house. Trouble was on the horizon, they were fighting all the time. So why had it been such a shock when he never came home? She didn't need him. She didn't need anybody. She should have been fine.
He was gone without a trace. Jack drove into that desert, no note, no witnesses. After a week without a phone call, Jack's brother Chris admitted he'd pulled Jack into some cockamamie scheme to get some quick cash through illegal street racing, but Jack never showed. That was when Janet started to worry. Of course, the wife of Jack's best friend had skipped town around the same time, and almost everyone believed they ran off together. After a while, Janet started to hope it was true—if Jack was the kind of scumbag who'd run off with his best friend's wife, then at least he was alive. Facing a rocky marriage and the likelihood of bankruptcy, and with the history of suicides in his family… Janet would have given everything she had and cried tears of joy, just to see his face again, even if it meant he was with someone else. She just wanted to know Jack was okay. Hearing that Angela Castelucci turned up in Atlantic City, New Jersey, with a sixty-five year old multimillionaire broke her heart, and not just because Frankie was one of her friends. Even if Jack wasn't with her, the accepted truth in town, at least then, was that he ran off with some whore. When people talked, they told a story of sex and betrayal.
And Janet wanted to believe that so bad, even when the evidence in front of her said otherwise. She wanted to believe it. After the fear, and the nightmares, and the drugs, and shock therapy, by the Gods, that was what she needed to be true. At least if he ran off and left her, Jack was still alive.
But he's gone, the voices menaced. D҉e̢ad͝.̶ Because of yo̴u.
"No," she whined.
"Assassin. Murderer. Monster." He leaned down to glare at her, his smile sharper than any knife. "J͟a̶͈͙̝͎̗n̛̯̞e̟̹͘t̛̲̖̬.̪̮..̛"
The shadows rippled around her, fanning out from where she sat, a spiral of invisible tentacles moving across the floor. Janet put her hands over her ears so she wouldn't have to listen to the creature's vicious lies. The walls shook. Even with her ears covered, she could still hear the wooden beams straining and expending, as if the house itself was trying to get up and run away from her.
After Janet's breakdown, the rumors changed. The new accepted truth was that Janet had killed him. The story they told…was now a ghost story. A harrowing tale of love gone mad spread through the town, children teasing each other with the newly created legend of crazy old Mrs. Wheeler. They gathered around bonfires and frightened each other silly, telling of how the madwoman with the axe had chopped her husband to pieces. Whether chunks of the body were hidden in the walls of the house or thrown to the coyotes changed with every telling, but they all agreed Jack's voice could be heard on the wind at night. That Janet's poor murdered husband howled his grief to the sky, begging for forgiveness, begging for his life.
Was this Janet's life now? Was she in a ghost story?
She was gasping, holding back the tears that she refused to show anyone, even the specter of her husband who lurked in the room. The shadows rippled around her, fanning out from where she sat in a spiral of foggy tentacles. Janet put her hands over her ears as the walls shook again. She could hear the rafters straining and expanding, as if the house itself was trying to get away from her.
The trouble with madness, in some cases, is that not even the sole witness, the one who was there, the actual living subject of a rumor, can set the record straight. If someone is suffering from such misfiring synapses that wreak havoc with their senses and their memory, how can they even know what really happened? Janet was there and had witnessed it all, and it did not matter. She could tell everyone that she didn't kill Jack, but she could never know until he came home alive.
So when Jack's ghost—or something that very strongly presented itself to be Jack's ghost, and indeed presented itself as such—appeared and told her that she had killed him and that all of this was her fault, she had no rebuttal. She had no facts to counter, no absolutes, no defense, because she did not know.
And so, though she wanted to run, she stayed. She was simply not in the right frame of mind to come up with a better plan.
His laughter echoed around her, and she whined, pushing her hands harder against her ears so she wouldn't have to hear. A trickle of red started at the ceiling and slowly dripped down the wall, then faster, then more from all along the edge, until it looked as if the wall was bleeding. Maybe it was, who could tell? The lights were no longer merely flickering, but blowing out completely from the power surges. The sockets sparked with electricity, and the television exploded, spraying glass and sparks all over the floor. The bleeding wall cracked and tore open like a wound and rats began running out. They stormed the living room floor in a never ending horde, right towards Janet.
She shrieked and kicked out, her aim striking true. One rat was thrown back and away from its comrades, its spine bent at an unnatural angle. It choked on its own blood and convulsed until it died. Janet backpedaled until she hit a wall, scrabbling onto her feet and getting out of the way as the vicious rodents passed her and faded from sight. Finally, she tore her eyes away from the dead rat and looked at the man she loved.
He laughed again. "I gotta hand it to ya, darlin'," he told her with a sneer. "the way you destroy everything you touch is actually kind of impressive."
She let her gaze drift back to the dead rat. It was less painful than seeing such hate distilled in Jack's eyes.
"It's like you've got this stink, this…rot, that just infects anyone and everything stupid enough to come near you. Your friends—divorced drunks, overdosed metalheads. Your parents, your brothers—all dead. Your career—over. Your own son hates you. And can you really blame him, after the way you ruined his life?"
She refused to look at him, focusing on the rat, wondering if she would die the same way. Enraged at being ignored, he stomped over and picked it up, throwing it against the wall. It hit with a wet crunch, and he turned on Janet. He grabbed her chin and forced her to look him in the eye.
"Don't!" he roared. "Don't you dare look away! Not after what you did!" The wound that dominated his face festered and oozed and she squirmed in his grip. "After everything you put me through, you bitch!"
She whined and struggling, trying to fight him off. He confusion showed on her face and Jack lessened his grip. He was still angry, even angrier than before, but he had moved past mere petty rage and into oceans of tranquil fury.
"You don't even remember, do you?" His one eye glowed a dull cherry, though his voice had lowered and his demeanor calmed.
The house shook. Plaster fell from cracks in the ceiling, a layer of fine dust covering everything in the room—everything but the small knick knacks that began floating from their proper spots on the shelves and walls. That stupid staticky noise filled her ears as picture frames, fine china, and old books started orbiting around her, and oh gods, the pain! Janet pulled at her hair, trying not to pass out from the throbbing agony in her skull.
Jack's eyes burned crimson, boring into her soul. "You don't even remember killing your own husband?!"
"There's a lot of things I don't remember!" she shot back. "And a lot of things I do that never happened!"
"Oh, what, like the portal? He snidely demanded. "When are you going to learn to trust your eyes?"
"My eyes are showing me the ghost of a man who still lives!"
He snarled. "What, because Vert told you? You can't trust that lying little wretch! You may have shamed him, but he abandoned you! I simply cannot believe you would take his word over mine, after he left you to languish in—"
"You're accent's slipping," she suddenly told him.
Jack stopped, watching her.
It was Janet's turn to sneer. "You had me going for a while there," she admitted. "I almost believed you… But ya done goofed."
Under her harsh glare he faltered, and finally sighed in defeat. The thing with Jack's face chuckled ruefully. "wHaT gAvE mE͟ ̀aW͜aY?"
"Jack never talked that fancy in his life," Janet plainly stated. "You've obviously had more schooling than he ever bothered with."
"ẁH̛y,͢ J͡a̢Ne͏T̵,́ ̧dArL̷iN̢g͘,̧ Y̨o̴U ͢f̢L͝at̨T͘eR͜ mE."
"And you can't seem to keep that creepy not out of your voice."
He laughed cruelly, his red eye mocking her.
"But that doesn't mean that what I'm telling you is a lie. I merely took a form you'd be more likely to listen to. Janet, darling, do you know why our master sent me? Because you were chosen. When he saw you come through that portal—"
"No," she whispered. "No, that wasn't real."
"He knew you were the perfect candidate. The doctors have convinced you the voices you hear are in your imagination—"
"Shut up!"
"You understood in the beginning you could hear the thoughts of others, why deny what you already know? Our master did not give you this power so you could waste it pretending to be a helpless, pathetic mortal!"
"I'm not psychic, I'm crazy!"
She screamed in frustration, in anguish. The shriek reverberated through the house, shattering the windows. The knickknacks that had been floating around her flew outward and slammed into walls. Nearby furniture scraped across the floor, pushing away from her. Janet sobbed in pain.
The phony Jack's face softened. The wound faded and his face became whole. His gentle smile scared her more than anything. "My dear," he said. "Already you have come into your power. Humans usually require decades of incubation, but you… Oh, the master will be so pleased. Janet, darling, let me take you away from all this…"
He changed before her eyes. The details of his face blurred into something nondescript until there were no details left. The glaring eyes melted back into flesh, his cruel mouth closed until the line disappeared, his nose receded and was gone. She let loose with a bloodcurdling shriek as the thing's cheap imitation of Jack's face melted into a complete blank and the familiar leather jacket became a crisp suit and tie.
It was him, her panicked mind screamed. It was him the whole time. "Stay away! No!"
"Mom?!" a voice called from outside. The doorknob shook. "Mom! What's going on?!"
"It's not safe!" she screamed, but before she could tell him to run, Vert had already broken down the door.
The slender man contorted to peer back at Vert with his eyeless mask, and Janet took the opportunity to grab a dining chair and smash it over his back. The blow merely annoyed him, but he turned back to her and picked her up with two of the many tentacles sprouting from his spine. They wraped themselves around her waist and neck and brought her closer to him so she could look him in the space where his eyes should have been. Despite his lack of a face, Janet got the distinct impression she was being glared at.
tHaT wAs VeRy RuDe.
She screamed in agony, not so much hearing the words as feeling them burned white hot onto the interior of her skull. Vaguely she perceived that something warm and wet was trickling from her ears, but she barely noticed anything besides the pain. Everything went dark.
When Janet opened her eyes again, she was on the floor. She couldn't hear anything but this high pitched ringing. She couldn't remember where she was or how she had gotten there and everything hurt. She made a feeble attempt to push herself up but her hand slipped on something crunchy. She examined the appendage and found there was broken glass imbedded in it, which sounded like it should be familiar somehow. Carefully, she tucked the bleeding hand against her and gripped the dining room table with her off hand, pulling herself up. She shakily got to her feet and looked around.
Her son's face was contorted with rage, tears in his eyes. He swung his—where the heck did he get a sword? He hacked at the dark tentacles that reached for him, mindless, angry. He looked like he was screaming, though Janet could not imagine why. Her gaze shifted to the tentacles again and she leaned up against the table, gasping in fear. Vert's fevered eyes hit her and he broke into a run.
"Stay behind me!" he ordered, turning back to parry a tentaculous thrust. He was no match for the faceless, slender beast, but he would not go quietly into the night.
"Why didn't you run?!" she demanded. "Now you're going to die here with me, like an idiot!"
"It's gonna be okay!" he insisted. "We just need to get to the basement!"
Janet's eyes went wide and she dashed for the basement door, clearing a path for her son. Of course, the basement! That was where Vert had moved the guns after she started having issues. The first time she heard the voices was in the basement. She had become terrified and avoided it at all costs, and Vert had moved the cabinet into the darkest corner in the hopes that her fear would keep her away from the guns. She ripped open the door so hard the knob nearly came off and took the steps three at a time. The basement didn't scare her like it used to, and the thing upstairs was far more frightening besides. All she had to do was get to the gun cabinet and—
And remember that she didn't have the new combination. Vert had put in a biometric scanner, and only his palm print would open the cabinet. She danced impatiently from foot to foot, whining in fear. The crashing and yelling above her head got louder as the ringing in her ears finally started to fade.
"Vert?!"
He flew down the stairs, knocked backwards by too long arm, tumbling ass over elbows. He hit the concrete floor hard, all of the wind knocked out of him.
There at the top of the stairs, his silhouette dominating the dimly lit doorframe, was the slender man. Slowly, languidly, he glided down one step, and then two. In one tentacle he held a strange sword with a red blade, and he tossed it to the ground as if daring the boy to pick it up. Vert huffed as he pushed himself up on his hands and knees, glaring fiercely at his foe.
"Vert! The cabinet!"
Vert's eyes snapped back to his mother and he scrambled to his feet, running for the dark corner where the gun cabinet stood. He reached out his hand—
A tentacle snapped around his ankle. Vert's feet went out from under him and he hit the floor again. Vert clawed forward, pulling with all his might, stretching out for that last inch…
Vert's hand found the pad and he pecked in a six digit code before slapping down his palm. Janet laughed when the scanner beeped and flashed green. The doors of the cabinet slid open.
"You're in for it now, Slendy!" she cried, triumphant, glaring in defiance. She reached back for her favorite shotgun.
Janet was shocked to find nothing but empty air. Where there should have been shelves loaded with steel and chrome and ammunition there was a winding corridor. She was still unarmed.
She whimpered, unsure. She had an escape route, but she saw no way to close it off. Vert had guided her here, Vert would know where it led. As frightened as she was, Janet could never leave behind her son.
Janet grabbed the crowbar from a nearby workbench and chucked it at the slender man's head. He stumbled, but soon righted himself and turned to face her. The basement got even darker as his looming form straightened to its full height.
"That was very rude," she said sarcastically. "You wanna come over here and teach me some manners, punk?"
He surged forward, slithering and circling, raised his clawed hands. That was all the opportunity Vert needed. He grabbed his sword from the floor and hacked away the tentacle that held his ankle, freeing himself, and ran at the beast. He roared in anger, slicing at the slender man's back. The thing drew back and away, and Vert moved to get between it and his mother. He jabbed forward, driving it back towards the steps.
"Go, go!" he yelled, shoving Janet down the path. After own last slash he followed her and shut the door from the other side before the slender man could trail after.
"Where are we?" she asked, gasping for breath.
"I'll explain later, just run!" he ordered. They heard something heavy thumping against the doors. "I don't know if that's going to hold him. We have to keep moving." As they ran through the tunnels towards the main part of the base, Vert opened a comm channel and started barking orders.
"Battle Force 5, containment protocol! Seal airlocks 42 A, B, and C and prep the med bay! This is not a drill!"
Doors composed of a hadron crystal coated titanium-steel alloy slammed into place behind them, one, two, three. The knocking on the first set of doors faded with each clank of metal but their feet never slowed. Vert urged his mother forward, sword still in hand. He didn't want to think about what he had just fought. He had no words, as if the thing had ripped them out of his mind. Just looking at the total blank where its face should have been chilled him to the bone. He felt like he was drowning, hearing and seeing everything from underwater and sinking fast. His thoughts had gotten muddy and slow during the fight. If he had fallen, that thing would have gone after his mother next, and that thought was the only thing that allowed him to push through. The more distance they put between them and it, the better he felt. Color returned to the world, sound rushed back to him, and the cotton in his head started to burn away.
His mother was running ahead of him, her army surplus combat boots clomping swiftly across the floor. Vert looked back at the airlock doors behind him. They were holding; good. "I think we're okay," he called to her.
She was stumbling now, and it got harder and harder to keep going until, finally, Janet stumbled and fell. Everything went black.