Chapter 25

In Every Corner

'Damn… my head…' Darby Allin groaned while pressing his hand against his forehead in an attempt to ease the aftershocks that plagued his head, making him feel like they were still crashing down the hill despite the van having come to a standstill at the very bottom.

Clenching his eyes shut and gritting his teeth, he had to try his hardest to not let the sickening feeling that had formed in his stomach not to spill over to his head, having been shaken around more than his body could possibly take. He granted himself a short moment to focus on his breathing, slowly breathing in and out through his nose to drive away the lingering sensation of being tossed around like a ragdoll all the way down; as he did this, he smelled the unmistaken odor of gasoline. It did threaten to break him out of his focus, but he managed to pull himself together, at least enough to try slowly opening his eyes. As his eyelids parted for only a few millimeters, it still seemed like everything around was still shaking and trembling like they were caught in the middle of an earthquake, but thankfully it wasn't bad enough for him to close his eyes again and let that sickening sensation creep up again. Somewhere behind him, pieces of glass fell out of a frame and rained down on a metal surface. The sun may have gone down, but the sky hadn't grown dark enough yet to reveal the small numbers of tiny glass shards that had ended up in Darby's short platinum short hair, glistening in whatever natural light was still available in their new surroundings; when he turned his head, some of them fell out, landing on the ceiling of the van which had been above his head moments ago.

'Cora… Cora! Wake up!'

As soon as the dim world around him had stopped trembling, Darby saw that his traveling companion was still in the van with him; it should be considered a goddamn miracle that she hadn't been flung out of the open window when they came crashing down the hill. But that didn't mean that she hadn't been roughed up, most likely having hit her head hard enough against something to knock herself out cold, seeing how she wasn't waking up when Darby called out her name. Squinting his eyes, Darby tried to see if there was any blood trickling down her face, but he couldn't see any due to the fact that her face had angled down to the ceiling, and he couldn't spot a trickle of red in her hair either. Just then, another feeling crept up inside his head, which he immediately recognized as the sensation of his own head filling up with blood, which made perfect sense since the only reason of why the top of his head wasn't touched the ceiling below was because he had strapped himself in before they had sped off. Cora, however, hadn't had the opportunity to do so after she had done whatever she could to keep the wave of Infected away. Had she been able to hold onto something when they literally came crashing down? Maybe so, or else her mangled, bloodied, motionless body would have come rolling down the hill by now, or she would have been launched into the back of the van. Instead, she was now lying face down on the ceiling that had been above their heads back when they were on the road, and due to the dimness of their new surroundings, it was quite hard to see if she was still breathing. As his fingers searched for the seatbelt's safety buckle, Darby felt that he needed to call out his traveling companion's name once again with the hopes of gaining a response of her, because if not, he would crawl over to her as fast as he could to see if the worst outcome imaginable had indeed happened, and if so, it would be pretty fucking hard to track Malakai down when he was completely blinded by the color red.

'Cora! Can you hear me? Say something before I will flip the fuck out, Cora!'

Luckily it didn't have to come to this, because Darby's heart cringed with relief when he heard a soft groan emitted from Cora's slightly parted lips. It was barely audible, but hey, it was a sign of life nonetheless. It appeared that Cora needed a little less time to shake off the feeling of being trapped in the midst of an earthquake's aftershocks that could easily to be just as devastating as the first impact, quickly darting her eyes from left to right to see what kind of mess they had gotten themselves into. She carefully lifted her head to look up at Darby, softly groaning pain while she did this, but she managed to lift it a few centimeters from the metal nonetheless; thankfully no panicked exclamations about not feeling anything below her neck or waist weren't emitted by her. Small cuts had been made on her cheeks after being sprayed by some of the tiny glass shards, some of them deep enough to draw little trickles of blood.

'H-Holy…' she said, her voice barely above a whisper. Her eyes had been widened with a mix of shock and surprise, the latter obviously due to the realization that someway, somehow, they hadn't died by the end of this, and just then, heavy creaking could be heard all around them, causing her eyes to grow even larger. Knowing damn well the danger they were in right now, she wasn't planning on wasting any time. 'Darby… We… We need to get the hell out of here. You haven't broken anything, right? We will be like sitting ducks if we stay in here. If those ghosts won't get in and kill us, whatever's left of the van sure will.' As if it were a confirming answer to this statement, another loud, heavy creak could be heard throughout the wreckage; the increased smell of gasoline definitely helped to support this.

'Yeah, I can't disagree with you on that.' the blonde ghost hunter replied while fumbling on the safety buckle. 'Do you think you can move?'

'I think so… Front window's not going to be an option, though.' As she pointed at the crunched, misshapen mess framed with sharp, serrated chunks of glass that had once been the vehicle's front window, Darby could see that the glass had also formed one single cut on Cora's index finger, though this one didn't seem to be bleeding. Cora slowly shifted her body to get a better look to her right, as if she were afraid that the remains of the goth edition of the Mystery Van would collapse on top of them if she made the wrong move… which she was most likely correct about, because even while she moved as slowly as she possibly could, the wreckage that made their world look a whole lot smaller let out yet another dangerously loud creak. Looking to her right, she saw that there was thankfully no need for her to use her powers to carve themselves a way out of here; the impact had caused the door of the passenger's side to be pushed out of its hinges, being nothing short of a relieving sight.

'Look, we can get out through here… come on, follow me. And move slowly.'

'Right behind you.'

Yet another creak, this time accompanied by a soft thump could be heard when Darby managed to slip out of his seatbelt and supported himself with his arms while lowering down to minimize the impact of the landing. As soon as his body touched the roof, the blonde ghost hunter moved as slowly as he possibly could, facing the direction of the sole exit of the wreck that he had been driving around with and sleeping in for as long as he could remember; this realization hadn't sunk into him just yet, but it was bound to do so later. For now, he was way too focused on getting the hell out of here while they still could. Both he and Cora practically held their breaths as they made their way towards the passenger's side, using their arms to move forward, and for a split second they came to understand that this is how a soldier crawling through the trenches of a bloody battlefield must feel like. Darby saw how Cora came this close to freezing up for a moment when they heard their surroundings ominously creak, but all she needed was for him to tell her to keep going with a hushed tone in his voice to keep on moving. Sure enough, Cora would crawl far enough for her hand to touch a layer of earth and dried pine needles, and a few seconds after this, she had managed to crawl her way out of the wreck. Darby was only twelve inches behind her and saw how she got up on her feet, her legs a little wobbly but steady enough. Then she turned around, bent her knees and reached out to Darby with her hand; the van let out another heavy creak as if it was trying to tell him to hurry the hell up and accept this gesture of help, so Darby didn't think twice about it and held onto it. Careful but with a clear hint of hurry, Cora let out a soft grunt as she pulled her traveling companion through the doorway, and that's when he was struck with a cold summer breeze and the smell of pine. Earth stained the fabric on his knees when he was dragged out into their new, dimly lit surroundings. The blonde ghost hunter took a little moment to mumble a quick 'thanks' to his companion and to brush said earth from his knees, hearing the tiniest pieces of glass mixed with some pine needles crunching underneath his feet when he got up.

It was only then when he got a got a good look at the collateral damage that had been caused at the hands of Malakai Black, and it sure as hell was enough for the realization of what happened to his home for the past decade to finally sink in. He almost couldn't believe it, he was this close to refusing to acknowledge the sight he was seeing… but it was there, right in front of him, and it was all because of that bastard's doing.

Crashing down the hill into the woods had resulted in the van to flip upside down by the time it had reached the bottom by hitting one of the trees or a large rock, having ripped out large chunks out of the pine trees that just so happened to be on their path. Deep, lengthy tracks of something heavy and big plowing through the layer of pine needles had been dug into the earth, all the way from the shattered guardrail at the very top to the bottom, littered with broken twigs off variable thicknesses and shards of glass; somewhere up there, the van's driver license had been left behind, bend, scratched and most likely bound to provide shade to the ants roaming the woods on the hottest of summer days until the day it would be picked up by someone. The van's wheels pointed up at the sky, never to spin around with high speeds ever again, having come to a permanent standstill seconds after the van slid across the ground; one of them had been shredded into a useless, large chunk of rubber. Wide, massive, unsightly markings had been permanently carved into the van's sides, undoubtedly caused by the metal scraping against countless rows of thick bark. The faint smell of gasoline lingered in the air, and since there was this almost inaudible sound of trickling liquid, it wasn't exactly rocket science to figure out the source of it. Every single window on the wreckage that had once been Darby's home and one of his main tools to do his job had been smashed out as a result from the crash, scattering pieces of glass everywhere, many of them glistening in the semi-darkness. It was almost like a seriously pissed off snake had found refuge below the hood and didn't want anyone near it, because the low hissing that came from underneath that large, wrinkled piece of metal heavily indicated that the engine could not be fixed this time, no matter how many times Darby would try. One could think of a crushed, empty soda can lying in a gutter when seeing this crumpled heap of metal that had once been the van, having pretty much collapsed under its own weight when it had been flipped upside down.

Unlike many other vans and other vehicles in the world who eventually ended up at junkyards upon permanently breaking down, Darby Allin's van had found its eternal resting place here in the woods, many miles outside of Oakheart.

'God fucking damn it…' Darby angrily hissed out through his teeth, unable to look away from the wreckage. 'I'm going to rip Malakai's head off for this! My van, goddamn it, look at the fucking state of it!'

Cora really didn't mean to be rude about it or anything, but when another breeze passed them by, it felt much, much colder than the one that brushed past their bodies earlier… and she didn't like it one bit since she exactly knew what it indicated, quickly darting her eyes from left to right as she looked around in unease. She gently laid her hand on her companion's arm.

'Darby, I suggest you curse up a storm about the van later, because we gotta move. Now. Those ghosts and Malakai could be close, we have to find the road or at least a path, and if we don't hurry up, it's going to be too dark for us to see anything.'

The blonde ghost hunter promptly fell silent, though his gaze was set upon the crumbled, useless wreck that had been his home for so long. During the few seconds where he quietly stared upon what was left of it was almost like he was silently saying his final goodbyes to a loved one, and perhaps this could have very well been the case. Or maybe he was pulling himself together, trying to calm himself down; the possibility of this being a combination of all these reasons were there. Cora didn't blame him one bit for it, although she couldn't help but hope that he would snap the hell out of it as soon as possible. Eventually, he loudly breathed out through his nose, briefly nodded, turning his head to shift his attention to his traveling companion.

'Let's get going.' he said, walking away from the van. Cora quickly followed him, making sure to stay close to him.


Walking in a straight line as fast as they could, keep their eyes and ears open in the meanwhile and try to spot a road or path in the distance in the semi-darkness that grew darker with each passing minute; that was the solution they came to agree on if they wanted to get out of here. Although both their legs were still slightly shaking at first as a side-effect of being violently tossed around after what felt like a giant wielding a sledgehammer striking the van with full force, Darby and Cora were able to shake the aftershocks off and quickly walk through the woods, passing countless of trees and crushing dried pine needles and thin twigs under their feet, eventually even picking up the pace enough to sprint. Now that the sun had gone down, the trees around them almost appeared as if they were entirely made of shadows, they were that dark. It was almost kind of interesting if this was thought about later, but naturally, this was the last thought that should have been crossing their minds right now; as beautiful as lively as these woods were to visit for a simple walk, set up a camp or hike through while the sun was out, it would turn into a dark, seemingly endless maze that served perfectly as a playground for creatures Cora had once believed could only exist in the worst kinds of nightmares as soon as the night came peeking around the corner. Such a difference, really. Such a huge, terrifying difference.

Not once had they stopped looking around to see if something was lurking in the growing darkness in their close proximity, not once did they dismiss any sound coming from somewhere deep in the thickets that came close to resembling a distorted howl or snarl as irrelevant. Neither Darby and Cora even thought of making the suggestion of veering off to the left or right, both knowing that their best chance of finding the road or at the very least a used hiking trail was to stick with one direction only, which of course, was going straight as an arrow. It was only when they began running when Cora could feel her heart beating in her chest like a jackhammer, her mouth becoming so dry that her tongue was sticking to the roof, though this wasn't because she had grown exhausted already. No. It was because there were twelve different directions in which they could get attacked, in every corner the Infected could be getting closer, reaching out for them with fingers that ended in claws, ready to either tear them into bloody pieces or drag them all the way back to Malakai to leave the delivery of the killing blow in the hands of their master. But what if he would have something else in mind for them? Cora didn't want to think of it, not now. What she should be focusing on was staying close to Darby and keep an eye out for something that could resemble a road or path in the darkening distance. For one moment, she had mentally slapped herself on the forehead for not having thought of bringing along the flashlight with them, but then again, since she was absolutely certain that it had been in the van moments before they had been sent crashing down the hill, chances were more than likely that it had been reduced into a useless pile of broken glass during the violent tumble. Briefly glancing at Darby, it came to no surprise that he remained stoic as ever, not saying a word as he stared straight ahead, completely fixated on finding a way out of here. But Cora was absolutely convinced that his rapidly beating heart was still aching over not only the loss of his van, but also the decision to leave it behind, as if they had just left behind the lifeless body of a loved one. Who could blame him? After all, it had been hi-

They had run away from the crunched remains of the van for exactly one kilometer when they both felt it, causing their eyes to go wide and Cora to softly gasp. Tiny clouds were formed in front of their mouth when their breath escaped from their lips before disappearing in thin air. An intense cold crept up on them with such intensity that it made the shivers that ran through their bodies a painful experience. Should this freezing air linger for a while longer, layers of ice would surely be formed on the bark of the surrounding trees. Immediately after the gentle summer evening heat became a distant memory, they could hear it; the screams and howls, all of them distorted into the most sinister and unnatural of pitches, ringing through the sky and forming an orchestra that would haunt anyone's nightmares for many days to come. They came from every direction imaginable, making it impossible for them to point where exactly they were coming from. Every corner of these woods had now become haunted, filled to the brim with ghosts that had been corrupted to the core. It had become their hunting ground. And they were coming straight to their prey.

'Shit, they are here!' Cora exclaimed, looking around to see Infected getting closer all around them, manically clawing and stumbling their way towards the ghost hunting duo. She really had to force herself to not look over her shoulder, fearing that the sight of the countless antlers, emaciated bodies and elongated hands aiming right at them would slow her down. Despite the ravenous horrors that were closing in on them, they still kept running as fast as they could, because hell, right now it seemed like one of the best options since the number of Infected didn't seem to have gone down since their first encounter on the road. And to make matters worse… it appeared that some of them had already come close enough to them, definitely having used the treetops to reach them, because when both Cora and Darby looked up, the darkness in these woods hadn't grown thick enough to conceal the deformed, oozing bodies of a few Infected crawling down the trees in a spiderlike manner; some of them pointing the antlers that had replaced their eyes upon infection right at the ghost hunting duo while emitting a shrill screech and continuing to crawl. The choir of distorted, unholy screams and howls filled up the entire area and grew louder with each second, to the point where both Darby and Cora were this close to cover their ears to protect them from the volume.

'Darby…' Cora said, barely able to hear herself. 'We're not going to make it like this. There are too many, they are getting too close… they are everywhere! We won't make it to the road if we don't do something!'

'Then let's give them some hell, shall we?' was the blonde ghost hunter's calm response. 'But keep moving, though. No matter what happens, keep moving.'

'You got it!'

Now, how was she going to burn these bastards to a crisp without turning the woods into one giant inferno? As long as these flames wouldn't miss their targets and hit the bark… this could work. While still forcing her legs to hold on a little longer, Cora decided to go for the ones that she thought were a little too close for her liking and aimed her open palm at the Infected that were still making their way down the nearby trees ahead of them. And before they had any chance to catapult themselves at their pray, each Infected was greeted with a large ball of flames to their faces, causing them to claw at them whilst yelping in pain… which in turn caused them to drop to the ground with a loud thud, where they writhed like they were in the worst agony imaginable. Without a second to waste and getting close to them, Cora literally opened fire again to some of the incapacitated Infected, briefly showering them with a massive cloud of fire that burst from her open palm which turned out to be more than enough to turn them into a layer of mist, having made sure to not let the flames touch any of the trees. Darby took quick notice of the few Infected that had been left twitching and squirming on the ground and made sure to take care of them as fast as he could; his foot glowed with such a bright, purple light that it cast a shade of lavender onto the earth and bark near him, which was promptly dimmed when he drove his foot through the face of each Infected, right between the antlers. All of them turned into a thin layer of black mist as soon as the blonde ghost hunter's foot exited through the back of their skulls.

All of the Infected that came close in their proximity were treated with a fresh flamethrower, making the black ooze and the skin that tightly wrapped their emaciated bodies bubble with heat before they were entirely scorched. Not one flame missed its target, not one of them were bound to be the cause of the entire woods being set alight. But then again, what if there would be no choice in the end? What if the best option was to indeed set everything ablaze, trapping every single Infected within the flames and burning them out of existence? But she would also risk burning herself and Darby into a pile of ashes if they couldn't get out… The ghost huntress quickly shook off that thought and continued to channel her ability to create fire and use it against the corrupted ghosts, all while keeping on running and occasionally glancing ahead of here, dearly hoping that the road would soon be within their reach.

It almost embarrassed him to say this, but it turned out that Cora's powers were way more useful when it came to long-range combat, leaving him with hardly any options to effectively fight back like this. This however did not mean that Darby didn't do anything he could to lessen the numbers of Infected. Every now and then, one of these ghosts would slip past his companion's flames and lunge at him, be it from the left or behind, the blonde ghost hunter would be there to catch it with his forearms brightly glowing with lavender before either pumping their bodies with so much energy in the blink of an eye that they would pop into nothingness like overflowing water balloons, break off their antlers like they were brittle twigs and stab them through their chest or head with so much force that they came bursting through the back, or to simply throw them down to the ground and stomp their head into a mush of black liquid and bone chips before the increasing darkness would absorb their misty remains.

At this point, it felt to Cora like they had been running for an eternity, having done everything they could to fight back against their attackers or at the very least keep them at bay. Despite her heart having traveled all the way up to her head and kept on pounding there with all of its might and swearing she could see dark spots creeping into her sight, she forced herself to keep moving, promising herself to get a short break as soon as they would find what they had been looking for from the moment they had crawled out of the wreck. Just then, she saw it. It was hard to see it between the spots that clouded her sight and she found it difficult to believe it at first, but it was there nonetheless, right ahead of her. Peeking between the trees and standing out in the heavily increased darkness was a gentle light that she could easily recognize as that from a lamppost. And she could think of a damn good reason of why there was a lamppost roughly fifteen meters away from her and Darby.

'Darby, I can see it!' she said, chuckling in relief. 'There's a light over there, it must be the road! We're almost there, we're gonna ma-'

What the light of the lamppost failed to reveal, however, were the several incredibly long chains composed of dripping, pitch-black liquid that seemingly sprouted from the distant shadows, coming straight at the ghost huntress. Even if she had seen them, she wouldn't have had any chance to fight back with her flames. Cora could feel something hard, long and wet tightly ensnaring her ankles, causing her to fall to the ground with a painful thud, landing on her back. As soon as the chains had found their target, they were pulled back towards their handler, which didn't give a visibly stunned Cora the opportunity to roll onto her stomach as the first step in attempting to get back up on her feet. In the blink of an eye, she was dragged off into the darkness by her feet, her body digging her trail into the earth as she let out a terrified, high-pitched scream. Twigs and tiny rocks snuck their way underneath her jacket as she was dragged between the trees, some of them sharp enough to carve small cuts in the skin of her back. Shadowy shapes flew her by as she heard Darby call out her name far behind her, along with the sounds of rapid footsteps, unnaturally distorted screaming, shattering bones, loud grunting and the impact of a fist driving through something hard. Cora tried her hardest to sit up to grab at the chains that continued to drag away like she weighed nothing, but the rapid speeds made this next to impossible. Her hands desperately tried to find something to hold onto, anything that could give her an opportunity to fight back and break free, anything to prevent her from getting pulled closer to whoever controlled these chains, whoever was reeling her in like she was a helpless fish that got stuck on a hook. But all her hands touched were rough bark that slipped right past her, and all she could do at this very moment was to let out a scream as her eyes feverishly darted from left to right.

As sudden as she had been dragged off, it all came to an end just like that as well when her body touched the edge of what indeed turned out to be the road, illuminated by the lamppost she had seen earlier; the next one would be many meters away. At that very moment, the chains were promptly loosened around her ankles and painlessly retreated back in the palm of Malakai Black's hand, having delivered the ghost huntress right at his feet. He silently stared down at her, his blue-grey eyes colder than the ice in the harshest of winters. Cora loudly gasped for air when she had finally come to a standstill, barely able to move a muscle within her severely aching body. But when she glanced up, she could clearly see the tattooed man entirely dressed in black; it would have made him perfectly blend into the darkness if he hadn't been standing in the lamppost's light. Cora had no idea about this… but he was just about to set the second part of his plan in motion.

'You…!' she angrily exclaimed, the mere sight of him having snapped her out of her daze. The ghost huntress raised her trembling hand, aiming it straight at the half ghost. 'I will burn you again if I have to, you motherfu-'

Not one single muscle moved in Malakai's face when he lifted his foot and brought it down onto Cora's wounded hand with full force. A flash of red obscured her sight as a loud, strangled scream escaped from her lips, causing Cora to fall onto her side in a fetal position, with her eyes widened so much that they could fall out of their sockets, barely able to withstand the worst physical pain she had ever endured in her entire life; it was so intense that she could feel a wave of vomit traveling up her throat, but some way, somehow, it didn't spill over the asphalt. Her body twitched uncontrollably as she cradled her pulsating hand, feeling the bandage soaking with red since the impact had been strong enough to partially open up the sealed wound. Oh God, her head was feeling so light, she was going to pass out, this was too much, oh God…

'That's enough out of you.'

The only reason of why she didn't indeed pass out cold was because Malakai roughly grabbed her by her shoulders to make her sit upright, made another ungodly jolt of pain run through her hand as he forced both of them behind her back, all while not saying anything else to her. New chains emerged from the palm of his own hand, binding the ghost huntress's wrists together. Just as he pulled her back up on her weakened feet by holding onto her arms so tightly that it caused even more hurt, she could see a figure emerging from the thicket in front of her, along with a familiar voice calling out her name.

Darby Allin may have been out of breath, but that didn't stop his face from forming into a mask of absolute rage when he saw the sight in front of him. His breath trembled with fury as his fists glowed with such an intense purple light that it almost hurt Cora's eyes to look at them, still being able to feel that despite feeling like a mist was clouding her mind.

'Let go of her, I fucking swear to God!' the blonde ghost hunter shouted at him. Ready for the kill, he was this close to rushing towards him, but before he could even make a second step, he was mowed down to the asphalt by a massive blur of black energy, controlled by a sole, quick sweeping gesture of Malakai's hand. After this, he firmly held onto Cora's arms again, who was barely able to keep her head lifted up and whose legs were this close on completely giving up on her.

The half ghost's stare remained just as cold as it was earlier when Darby raised his head to glare at him.

'Unless you wish for her to become the newest addition to my growing army, I suggest you come to Blackthrone Asylum. This road shall lead you there.'

As soon as he had spoken these words and despite the fact that they were standing in a faint light, a dark mist fell over Malakai and his captive, swallowing them up and making them vanish in thin air.

Darby's footsteps echoed through the night as he ran down the road, driven by the disembodied, fearful pleas for help emitted by Cora that came from every direction, desperately calling out his name a few times.