Chapter 3
"Oh Jack!" Maddie cried out in delight, throwing her arms around her husband's neck. "You saved me!"
"It was nothing Mads." Jack smiled as he grabbed the thin woman around her waist. In his other hand held the Fenton Blaster, cooling off from the use it had just endured. "I'm the best ghost hunter in the world."
"What about me, Jack Fenton?" an all too familiar voice said behind them, the only warning they had before being blasted forwards by an ecto-blast.
Jack instantly placed Maddie behind him as he pointed his weapon at the ghost boy of Amity Park. "Don't worry Maddie, I'll save enough of him for us to study." Jack said, a smile on his face as he shot at Phantom.
Phantom dodged the blasts before grabbing the weapon out of Jack's hand. He crushed it in his hand with an ecto-fire melting the metal and letting it drop to the ground before smiling a pointed tooth grin at the man. "What'chu going to do now, old man?"
Before Jack's horrified eyes, Phantom's ecto-plasm melted away to show a blue glowing skeleton. A different, almost unrecognizable voice called out, "You will pay for your past actions."
All around Jack the world changed. No longer did he stand in Amity Park's streets but on a dirt road with a gallows positioned in front of town hall. He found himself feeling proud as everyone gathered there were for him.
"People of Salem, listeneth to me anon!" Jack found himself projecting. A man was led up to the gallows next to Jack as he continued. "This maneth bef're thou hath practic'd witchcraft, following und'r Satan. Doth thou wisheth f'r Satan to hast passage into our town!?"
"Nay!" the crowd before Jack cried back.
"I am innocent! I am a God fearing maneth!" the man upon the gallows cried out, the noose already around his neck.
Cries of "Lynch him!" and "Killeth the witch!" came from the crowd. Jack raised his hand, asking for silence before continuing.
"Convict'd und'r the new laws, John Proct'r shall be hung f'r practicing witchcraft." Jack said, looking towards the hanging man as the floor was dropped out from under him.
"I will be avenged!"
Jack sat up in bed, sweat rolling down his face as he looked around the dark bedroom. A red glow from the alarm clock beside him was the only light in the room as he tried to check on Maddie.
"Jack?" Maddie asked, her voice muffled by sleep.
Jack froze before saying, "Sorry Mads, you go back to sleep."
Maddie quickly went back to sleep but Jack found himself unable to stop thinking about the hanging he'd dreamt. Mentally groaning, Jack carefully got out of bed and went down stairs. He got himself a glass of water and decided to check on the portal in the lab. Before going to bed, he and Maddie had rigged up a mini ghost shield, hoping to prevent ghosts from exiting the zone while the door was still broken.
Jack sat down his glass on the lab table and knelt down to check the backup generator they had connected to the small shield. Glad to see it was still running, he stood up and watched the green expanse of the Ghost Zone swirl by. Soon he and Maddie would be able to explore it, but more tests needed to be done to know more about the air quality and different pressures. It'd been half a year since the Spector Speeder had been finished and he still hadn't had the chance to test it properly.
"I will be avenged!"
Jack turned around at the voice from his dream only to find himself falling out of the way of a blue ecto-blast. He pushed himself up to see his attacked was the same skeleton from his dream, standing in Maddie's trench coat. The skeleton's eye sockets staring at him with a cold blue light.
"Get out of my house, you ghost!" Jack growled, pushing himself up to his feet as he prepared himself for a fight. His mind quickly went to where he might have left the Fenton Ghost Gauntlets only to dodge out of the way of another blast. He went to the right, wishing he'd left a weapon out in the lab for once as a burning blast of ecto-plasm hit him in the side.
Jack grabbed at the wound, feeling blood through his nightgown and jumpsuit. He stared in surprise as the skeleton teleported from his spot across the lab to right in front of Jack, punching the man in the gut. Jack fell backwards as an ecto-blast was hidden in the fist.
The skeleton reached down and grabbed Jack by his collar to pull him up so they were eye to eye socket. Jack squinted as the smell of rotting flesh filled his nose.
"My family suffered because of what you did." The skeleton growled. "I'll do the same to yours."
Jack took the chance, using the ghost solidity against him as he punched towards the skeleton's ribcage.
The skeleton let go, more out of surprise then pain, freeing Jack from his boney death grip.
Jack dropped to his feet and quickly opened the first drawer on his right. He grabbed the first thing he could and pointed the Fenton Peeler at the skeleton. "Stay away from my family." Jack ordered, hoping this weapon would work against this ghost. He quickly activated the Fenton Peeler, taking the armor it provided.
As the armor traveled up his arm, the skeleton round house kicked Jack in the side of his head. Jack stumbled to the side, holding his head with his free hand only to find the skeleton quickly breaking the Fenton Peeler away from the armor it was creating. The armor plating fell to the ground as Jack fell backwards from an ecto-blast to the chest.
Jack tried his best to push himself up, teeth grinding against the pain as his nightgown showed blood in spots.
"Don't even bother." The skeleton said, blasting Jack in the head.
Laughter from the skeleton filled Jack's head, the last Jack heard as his head hit the concrete floor of the lab.