Chapter 9
Get Creative
'So let me get this straight…' Darby said as he laid eyes upon the purchases Cora had made at the arts and crafts store mere moments ago, the purchases being a set of paint brushes with a variety of sizes in fine, thin tips and a few bottles of fabric paint, each bottle filled with a different color; black, blue, green, red and yellow, to be exact. 'You claim to be low on money and yet you thought it was a hot idea to spend whatever you've got left on… this?'
He knew it was actually none of his business, he shouldn't give that much of a damn about what Cora wanted to spend her money on, it was not up to him to decide, but the blonde ghost hunter couldn't help but wonder this out loud while his traveling companion was within earshot. He had seen the full bag of clothing she had carried through the main street of Wattson and he hadn't thought much of it, because after all, it was what they had agreed to while they were heading towards this town. He had been fine with that and wasn't planning on giving it any more thought, that was until he had spotted the smaller bag donning the logo of the arts and crafts shop. And it was the newly-sparked curiosity that got the better of him and made him take a small peek inside, because honestly, he found it highly unlikely to find any fashion in a store like that. And he did remember Cora mentioning at some point after they had left the laundromat about how glad she was that she was still able to buy some clothes for herself despite having such a limited budget. So yeah, of course it would totally make sense to spend whatever you got left on something so frivolous as freaking fabric paint and paintbrushes, he thought much to his chagrin, unable to understand something that was so illogical to him. He couldn't really blame Cora for being somewhat rusty when it came to the combat that was part of being a ghost hunter since she was still a rookie and all, so that didn't give him much right to be annoyed about this, but being impulsive with what you buy while claiming you're short on cash? Yeah, that was definitely one frustrating trait about her, if you'd ask him. He knew her spending habits should be none of his business, but still… this was too illogical to be ignored.
Darby chose not to openly comment about how at least he was a bit more responsible with spending money by purchasing plenty of bottled water to drink while they would be on the road, but he sure could use some since the sweltering summer heat barely let up in the shadow created by the tree he had parked the van underneath; sitting inside the vehicle didn't do a whole lot to cool him off either.
The tree was one of many that could be found near the edge of what had to be the biggest open field anyone could find near Wattson, and apparently the vast size of it was more than good enough for the local oil company to use it as one of their main oil-storage sites. Two massive oil tanks could be spotted in the far distance, connected together with a long, iron platform that lead to the stairs where countless workers had walked up and down on during their shifts, across the seemingly endless sea of dried, tall grass that gently rustled every now and then whenever Mother Nature decided to show a bit of mercy to the traveling duo by letting a brief but otherwise pleasantly cool gust of summer wind roll across the field, quite possibly filled to the brim with the black liquid that filled the pockets of whoever owned this company, perhaps even more so than the pockets of their employees.
Like a pair of towering, quiet, iron giants, they looked over the fields, their frames strongly blurred due to the heat that has kept this area in its suffocating grip since the start of this afternoon. The field turned out to also be home to what had to be countless of crickets, who despite the blazing heat, managed to perform some sort of private concert to the only two people who decided to stay near the oil site, although at a safe distance in order to no raise any suspicion to whoever happened to be working at this hour of the day.
As quiet and relatively peaceful as it appeared to be on the other side of the field, there was no doubt about that things would be entirely different by the time it was midnight, Darby knew.
In an attempt to fight off the heat and try to stay somewhat cool, the blonde ghost hunter had taken off his black t-shirt and switched it for a black tank top with the print of a roughly sketched, realistic skull with scratchy, white lines, hoping that at least this would help a bit. But even despite a small change of wardrobe and the fact that he was sitting in the back of the van that has acted as his main source of transportation/home for the past ten years, he found himself wiping off the sweat from his forehead every couple of minutes. Having seen enough of the spontaneous haul his temporary traveling companion had made at the local arts and crafts store, he turned his head to see Cora sitting on the back's edge, her toes only a few millimeters away from touching the ground and who had been noticeably quiet for quite some time now, as if she was either deeply lost in thoughts or simply enjoying the view in front of her.
The rookie ghost huntress looked over her shoulder, having felt her traveling companion's mildly confused gaze upon her and couldn't help but let out a soft, slightly amused chuckle, because really, if the paints and brushes had been way too expensive for her liking, she definitely would have never purchased them; after all, she did keep her tight budget in mind while she went into that store and was more than happy to find out that the total cost fit perfectly into said budget. She did appreciate Darby's concern, she wasn't going to lie about that.
'No need for you to worry about that, Darby.' she said, the small smile on her face having something reassuring towards him. 'But hey… check out what I just came up with!'
True, she hadn't said anything from the moment they arrived at the edge of the field, and it was indeed because she was thinking about something; about different ways she could make her powers useful during combat, to be exact. The ability to launch fireballs towards her target and being in control of their sizes was great and all, but… there had to be more ways than only these two abilities. And given how she was able to control the fire within her, she could come up with more possibilities and try to make them happen, right? And hell, when you have to wait until the sun would go down, you would have plenty of time to figure out how else you were going to put your fire-wielding powers to good use, Cora had figured.
Not only that, though; it did help her to somewhat forget about the uneasy feeling that pooled in the pits of her stomach when she witnessed Tim Young's ridiculously calm demeanor during the interview.
So while she sat there on the edge, staring into the distance, she let numerous ideas run through her mind, using her imagination to try and give her fire powers a bit more variation. It didn't have to be too flashy; what was more important was that it had to be useful. She thought about it for a little while, but then, after a bit of pondering, one specific idea stood out above all the rest, and she found it safe to say that it could be worth a shot to try it out. Cora noticed that she was eager, hell, even a little excited to show it to her traveling companion.
What she needed for this demonstration was a moving target. Lucky for her, there was something that she could use for this; an empty box that had contained the waffles they had for breakfast this morning was just within her reach. She had to turn around for a bit to grab it. Once she had the empty box in her hands, Cora proceeded to rip it into fairly large pieces, because for this idea to work, she needed a target that was big enough for her flames to detect. Once the box was reduced into a little pile of ripped carton, she began to focus as much as she could on the energy that was dwelling inside her body and channel it into brightly burning flames. Sure enough, when she reached out her hand, a fireball that was slightly bigger than a fully grown watermelon was shot into the air. But unlike all the other projectiles that she had created during the past days, this one didn't vanish into thin air; instead, it hovered into the sky, floating perfectly still. Cora curled her lips into a small, victorious smirk. Alright, that was one… now the others. Within just a few seconds, four other fireballs were launched into the air, all of them being just as big as the first one. Darby watched as they too remained perfectly in place and formed a straight, horizontal line, surprisingly curious about what his traveling companion had in mind. Now was the time to put these fiery babies to work, Cora figured, and she found herself to be pretty confident about this.
Cora then took one of the pieces of the ripped box and tossed this into the air as well, though not directly aiming at the fireballs, putting in a little extra strength when she flung it. The piece of carton rapidly twirled above the flames like a frisbee, before the fireball in the center of the line seemed to sense it and charge towards it, instantly turning the carton into nothingness, not even leaving as much as a small, whitened shred. As soon as the flames had hit their target, they instantly vanished into thin air, only leaving behind a small puff of black smoke.
As if she could hardly believe it herself that could have pulled this off, Cora blinked her eyes in surprise before the smirk that had been visible on her face earlier was replaced with a small, happy grin. Another carton piece was tossed away, this time into another direction, and just like she had hoped for, another fireball sensed its presence and proceeded to entirely burn it before vanishing. All the other remaining pieces met the same fate, all of them being successfully struck by the other fireballs; when she saw one last trail of black smoke trickle into the cloudless, bright blue sky until it eventually disappeared, Cora found it safe to conclude that this idea of her indeed turned out to be a success.
Was this enough to impress a ghost hunter veteran like Darby? Eager to find out about this, she turned her head to look at him, the grin still present on her face. 'So, what do you think?' Cora asked.
Now it was Darby's turn to be slightly amused. 'Not a bad idea.' he said. 'Not a bad idea at all.'
And it was true; he did consider this ability to be a strategy that could greatly benefit them if they had to face a rampaging Mindless during this trip. Hell… it was actually very likely that she could put this ability to use tonight, if things were bound to go south. And speaking of which… it did remind Darby that he should probably check out the forum again, just in case something new about this haunting had been posted. Hoping that this would have happened during the time between them leaving the laundromat and stationing at the border of this field, the blonde ghost hunter quickly grabbed his trusty laptop; anyone would be pretty surprised to find even a bit of Internet connection at a location like this, but if you had to ask Darby, there were even more surprising places where a single bar in the bottom right of the screen would pop up. And yeah, it wasn't surprising to him either that the speed to connect to the World Wide Web was slow as fuck, but hey, he was a patient man. Patience is and always would be a valuable trait for ghost hunters, especially since all they could do now was to wait for night to fall. It did take a little while, but finally the long list of entries about ghost sightings all over the nation did appear on his screen. And wouldn't you know it; a new update had indeed been released about the mysterious, disembodied sobbing at the oil site at Wattson. The new piece of evidence took form of a short video, with the additional description stating that this had been recorded last night. This was definitely worth checking out, Darby knew, so he pressed the play button and turned up the laptop's volume to the max. Since Cora had been facing away from the blonde ghost hunter at that moment, the first thing she heard was the crunching of dried grass underneath someone's feet, so naturally she turned around to face Darby once more and was about to ask him what he was watching; before she could even say anything else after uttering 'What is-', Darby glanced at her and pressed his index finger to his lips, which abruptly silenced her.
It became clear that two people had been visiting the oil site that night, since the blonde ghost hunter could swear that he heard two pairs of footsteps, and this was confirmed when he saw someone off-screen pointing their bright flashlight to the ground while their companion filmed the path in front of them. Pebbles were crushed underneath the explorer's feet as they continued to slowly walk around, while the crickets in the nearby fields let their presence be known by performing their little hearts out in the background. When the light glided over a massive construction that was made of iron not too far away from them, Darby realized that they were indeed at the supposedly haunted oil site. Aside from the footsteps and the crickets, it was dead quiet, and because of this, whoever was holding the flashlight was mumbling about how there was nothing here. But just as he was about to complete the sentence about how they should probably get back to their car, the cameraman abruptly shushed him.
'Do you hear that?' he whispered with an audible tremble in his voice.
Looks like the claims of people hearing strange, seemingly disembodied sobbing near the oil tanks had been true, after all. Darby could hear them too; they were everything but loud and they barely overlapped the chirping of the crickets, but he could hear them nonetheless. The sobbing was clearly emitted by a woman, who sounded like she was experiencing the worst emotional pain imaginable. Stunned to the core, the person who was holding the flashlight could only emit a soft 'Holy shit…' before the duo decided to get closer to the oil tanks. The closer they got, the louder the sobbing grew. The bright light of the flashlight darted over the giant metal structures, the platform, the stairs and the ground around it, but no matter how hard they looked during this clip, there was no woman in distress to be found anywhere… much to the exploring duo's increasing horror. And that's when the air turned much colder than it should be on a summer evening, because Darby could see tiny clouds of hot air drift into the camera's view before vanishing, emitted by the cameraman who told his companion that they should get the hell out of here; right after this, the clip ended.
That was all the proof Darby needed that it was going to be worth checking out Wattson's local oil site at nightfall. These two chickenshits hadn't been any help to whatever unfortunate Wanderer happens to be stuck and roaming near the oil tanks, so he hoped there would still be some time to help said Wanderer move on, one way or another. But he found it safe to assume that there most likely some time left, since the ghost hadn't attacked these ghost hunter wannabes during the recording. If this Wanderer was still capable of listening to reason, chances were there wasn't going to be a fight. But hey, you never know… after all, he had several jobs throughout those ten years where it seemed to be all smooth sailing at the start but ended with him blasting a full-blown, rampaging Mindless to thy kingdom come.
Rustling coming from the shopping bags made him snap out of his thoughts and look up. Apparently, Cora had decided to start working on that one denim jacket that was a little bit too basic for her liking, because she went on to neatly placed the jacket on a spot on the van's floor which she had emptied to make some more space for her projects, taking the tubes filled with paint and the brush out of the bag afterwards. She then proceeded to rip off a part of that same shopping back, pouring small blobs of paint on them, using every single color that she had purchased. Darby was this close to telling her to better not get any paint smeared onto his belongings, because he wouldn't hesitate to make her clean up the mess, but decided to stay quiet for now, unable to help but wonder what she had in mind to make this jacket stand out some more. His traveling companion started off with the red paint, using a fine-tipped brush to paint on some cartoony but otherwise stylish flames, switching for yellow paint to make the fire appear brighter. Using that same red paint, she painted some tiny stars, sporadically placed all over the jacket, throwing in some blue and yellow ones in the mix as well. It had been a long time ago for her since she had drawn or painted something, but thankfully Cora could still remember how to make the yellow heart she painted on the right sleeve to appear as if it had been sprayed on with the world's smallest spray can, adding some convincing dripping effect to it with the brush. As he continued to quietly look at the designs, a wave of nostalgia suddenly hit Darby, but this time it was for a good reason. He had to admit; he was absolutely digging Cora's style, since it brought him back to (quite literally) a place during his teen years that he would still treasure to this day. It was that one place in the sleepy town he was forced to grow up where he could truly be himself and hone his skills, and that place was none other than the local skate park. As small as it was since it had only two ramps (whoever happened to be in charge at the township back then must have thought this would be enough to entertain the local kids who owned skateboards), there wasn't a whole lot of variation of structures to slide across on his skateboard, but hell, teenager Darby didn't care, since he was already happy that there were at least two ramps to use. He couldn't remember how many hours he had spend rolling, jumping, flipping and sliding his skateboards on those concrete structures, having lost count a long time ago. Most kids would hang out at the library, fast food restaurant or other kid's homes when they would get out of school, but now him. Not Darby Allin. Only when the sun would eventually go down when he would decide to head home. All the times he had spend there honing his skateboarding skill hadn't been the only memory he had of the skate park; the main reason why laying eyes upon the designs on the jacket's fabric made him remember that place was because sometimes during the night, teens armed with permanent markers and spray cans would leave their mark on the ramps. Some of the 'art work' were nothing more but unintelligible scribbles, while others looked actually pretty impressive. And yeah, well… Darby happened to be one of those kids as well, except he had the guts to decorate the ramps during daylight, all by himself.
'You're just full of surprises, aren't you?' the blonde ghost hunter suddenly said, causing Cora to look up. 'That trick you pulled off with your powers was already pretty impressive, but this… I gotta give it to you, Cora, you got a pretty creative soul.'
The rookie ghost huntress softly chuckled in response. 'Why thank you!' she replied. 'I was afraid I had gone a little bit rusty with this. I mean, I can't remember the last time I have ever customized a piece of clothing like this. I actually did that all the time when I was a teen. None of the clothes I had were not my style at all, so one day I just thought to myself: well, maybe I can do something about that! And I found I was pretty good at it too. For once I was actually happy to wear those clothes, but my mom wasn't happy with it at all. 'Cora, for God's sake, stop drawing ugly doodles on your clothes and dress like a normal girl for once!', she would sa-'
In an instant, Cora fell silent and slightly widened her eyes before glancing away in minor shame. Oh God, it had slipped out of her mouth before she could have even stopped it. Why did she have to say that? What would Darby care about some shitty comment her mom once made towards her when she was fourteen? It wasn't only the embarrassment about being this loose-lipped for a second, though… Even though many years had passed, Cora could still feel that same sting that shot through her chest when her mother told her this, and it was after this comment when she had decided to entirely forego ever painting designs on her clothing for many years to come. Because they were ugly, right? She had no talent, she was only ruining them, she was only wasting paint in the end…
Cora hadn't noticed it herself, but while she was slowly losing herself in these thoughts, the grip on her paintbrush had slightly loosened to the point where it was slipping out of her hand. Hearing the wooden handle hitting the metal floor of the van helped her to snap out of it. Darby only stared at her, not saying anything, as if this little flashback hadn't gone unnoticed by him. Then, Cora got an idea that could help lift the mood for a bit. She picked up the paintbrush and held it in front of the blonde ghost hunter.
'Do you feel like drawing something on it?' she asked, curling her lips into a smile. 'It's fine by me, really! But I'm going to warn you… if you're going to draw a giant dong on my jacket, I swear I will leave you here on the field and drive off.'
As a response, Darby let out an amused hum while the corner of his mouth into a smirk. 'Sure, why the hell not?' he said, feeling like there was nothing wrong with reliving what had to be one of the very few good parts of his teenage years. 'Scoot over and let the maestro do his work.'
And so, Darby and Cora sat down together side by side, letting their imagination flow and paint whatever crossed their mind onto the fabric. It surprised the both of them how they both seemed to be in the same aesthetic, painting symbols and designs that you could easily find back in the punk/skater culture, like skulls, stars, flames, thick crosses and short texts expressing freedom and rebellion. Cora was happy to realize that she hadn't gone too rusty after all, but she had to admit that Darby was a much more talented artist than she was, finding his designs way better than hers. It was him who had painted on the majority of the skulls, flames, dots with dripping effects and even a huge eye with a blue iris and scratchy outlines on the left sleeve. For a good half hour, they worked together to make this an absolute masterpiece. By the time there was barely any space left to cram in one more design, Darby decided to finish it all off with a big, black anarchy logo.
That was so much fun… and she absolutely loved what he did to her jacket.
'Dude, this looks awesome!' Cora happily exclaimed while looking at the piece of clothing that she would be more than glad to wear from this day on after everything had fully dried up. And honestly, Darby seemed to be pretty content with it as well, judging by a small, but genuinely pleased small smile was visible on his face. The rookie ghost huntress turned her head, grinning from ear to ear when she looked at him. 'I absolutely love it! Thanks!'
Darby didn't say anything, but the little silent nod he gave her was good enough of a reply.
