Danny Torrance (redrumredrum) wrote in noexits, @ 2021-10-18 09:30:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !log/thread/narrative, ₴ inactive: dan torrance, ₴ inactive: richie tozier, → week 023 (release the ghosts) |
Ghosts | Day 1 (Late)
Richie and Dan try to have a late meal when they're attacked by two ghosts from Dan's past who try to steal their shine.
Great. Back on campus. Back to the Void. Back to supposedly ‘resting,’ when all you could do was listen to your thoughts chase each other - a circle of them, stars and planets and meteors just going ‘round and ‘round. Like vultures circling death. A pack of wolves honing in on dinner. It was always like that, and Richie idly wondered if he’d ever be able to fully relax. Probably not. Especially not when he heard the thoughts of others mixed in with his own hot mess - at the very least, he’d followed Dan’s advice, his tips and tricks, and was pretty good with blocking them out now. Plus, he’d been using the makeshift tarot cards everyday, a way to channel the energy, and that seemed to help too. He hadn’t gotten any more angry appearances from Bleeding Eye Ghost telling him to fix his brain, at least, so that was something. In Dexter Hall, which continued to remind him of ladies in hairnets serving up gloopy mashed potatoes and half-pints of cold milk, he sat at one of the tables on a long bench. Staring at a plate of mac and cheese from a box - wasn’t the same without Matt here, but Richie was hungry so he’d eat it. He’d gone to all the trouble to boil water and pasta and add powdered cheese and shit, so, why not. If someone joined him while he was here that’d be cool too - company was good, so he didn’t fall too far down the rabbit hole of trying to process ‘pirate week.’ Because what the fuck, seriously. Going limp and just letting the teeth of shit weeks drop you seemed to be the best course of action rather than actually dealing with it. Dan was still reeling from his aptly named Sleeping Beauty rest from the previous week. It had been an awkward and uncomfortable experience all thanks to — that’s right, folks! — the Shining. He’d spoken to Bucky, the only other person he knew who’d been through the process, and the outcome hadn’t been the same. Bucky had been out, unconscious, dreaming. For Dan it had been more like a ‘trapped in his own body’ experience. He’d been aware of Richie, Stevie, Yennefer, and others trying to reach him with their minds and magic. He could hear them. But it was like hearing something underwater. Or being on the opposite side of a mirror. He couldn't respond. He was yelling. Screaming in his mind. But nothing ever penetrated the barrier. It reminded him of that magical force field enchanting the second and third floors of Butler Hall. The wards that kept the ghosts out. Or in, as it were. Except this ward had been inside his own head. He hadn’t told anyone else yet, but that had been more frightening than the possibility that he might drown in his sleep when the Derleth ship went down. The idea that something had managed to weasel its way into his mind and blocked him from the waking world. He knew he looked like shit. Who didn’t these days? But his stomach growled and he had this nagging thought that if he ate something he would feel better. Marginally better, at least. Well, that’s what Tony suggested anyway. And Tony was usually right about these things. Damn right, Tony said from the back of his mouth. Damn right, indeed. Dan wasn’t much in the mood for cooking so he slapped together a quick sandwich. What he really wanted was grilled cheese and tomato soup, but peanut butter was the best he could do without turning on the stove. So crunchy peanut butter on two pieces of dry white bread would have to do. He grabbed an off brand Diet Coke. Then he made his way out into the dining hall. He didn’t know what time it was, but he expected there to be more people. Instead the room was quiet. Lots of empty tables and chairs. Something tickled the back of his neck. Icy. Cool. Like someone walking on his grave, as Wendy Torrance used to say. It made him shiver. Then he saw Richie and made a beeline to his table, sitting down across from him. He popped open the tab on the soda and took a swig. “Hey, Ri—” Dan blinked and turned to look behind him. He could have sworn he heard something. Richie glanced up when Dan settled across from him - and relief washed over him, the equivalent of cool hands on a feverish forehead; seeing that Dan was alive and well happened to be good medicine, anyway. Being asleep for a week and basically alert (because Richie had felt him, knew that he wasn’t like, dead or anything) but unable to speak to anyone even telepathically must have been rough - so maybe physically he was fine, but emotionally it was a whole other issue. Wasn’t it with them all though? Jesus. “Hey,” he grinned a bit, glasses pushed up on his nose. “Was worried about you. How’s it going?” ...then he blinked too. Shifted his gaze to where Dan looked. Nothing. Not yet. Just a chill that felt like a thousand tiny needles pricking into his skin - and he shivered. “What is that?” It was nothing. It had to be nothing. Derleth was cruel, but it wasn’t that cruel. Was it? Dan’s optimism had never exactly been a barrel of sunshine, but he felt it waning even more over the last few weeks. And now that Wynonna was gone— They hadn’t been really close, but Dan had liked her. He’d wanted to be her friend. He wanted to help her. Helping others helped himself. And she was a good reminder to stay away from the (BAD STUFF) booze. He worried about where she was now. Worried about whether she’d be able to stay sober when she went back to her world and her family. Back to her (Ehh, what’s up, Doc?) lover. But he couldn’t dwell too much on that now. Dan looked up at Richie and offered a crooked smile. Richie was a little different too, it seemed. Not in his features, but in his thoughts. Or better, his aura. Happier? Excited? In love? Dan didn’t mean to pry. Maybe he was still a little Sleeping Beauty dizzy. But he suspected there’d been a change recently. Good for him, he thought, careful to keep that thought completely to himself. This place needed a little more happiness. “Sorry I gave you a scare last week. Apparently Derleth thought I needed a nap. I appreciate you trying to reach out to me.” Dan looked as though he might say more, but instead his brows furrowed. His attention drew inward. Somewhere in the back of his mind Tony was singing the main theme song to Sharon, Lois, and Bram’s The Elephant Show. One elephant went out to play Upon a spider’s web one day They had such enormous fun (COME PLAY WITH US DANNNNNEEEEEE) That he called for another elephant to (WE’RE HERE DANNNNNNNEEEEEE) come… That wasn’t Tony singing. Another chill crept up Dan’s spine, but this time it wasn’t on top of his skin but beneath it. Like it was tiptoeing on his bones. “Did you feel that?” Dan set his can of cheap, fizzy soda on the table. “Something is different. Something has…” He didn’t finish his sentence. He knew they were there without looking. Delbert Grady’s girls. The ones he’d hacked up in the Overlook Hotel. Dan didn’t know how they could be there, but he knew they were standing behind him. Not quite arm’s length, but close enough for him to feel that cosmic aura of terror and death reaching out for him like cold fingers. Cute as buttons. That’s how Bill Watson had described them to Dan’s father. “You can play with us too, Richie,” the Grady girls said out loud in unison. “What - “ Richie’s eyes widened, feeling kind of sick in the heart and in the stomach - those twin girls looked like creepy dolls, maybe kind of innocuous at first glance despite the dead eyes and the monotone voices. But probably along the same lines as serial killers who clipped off ears to use for necklaces - that kind of creepy, file it under that. “The ghosts - they’re not behind the doors anymore?” Richie asked, panicking slightly, because how had that happened? It hadn’t been him, he knew that much. He’d been trying - he’d been doing the work? Even when Yennefer gave him a little bit of a boost with her own magic so they could try to reach Bleeding Eye Ghost, with the rock and sway of the Derleth ship beneath their feet, it hadn’t felt like this. Right now, this felt like his soul was leaving his body on an outbound train - he took a breath and steam escaped on the exhale, like it had been pulled from the recesses of his very being, the center of himself. It wasn’t the breath of winter, or from the chill, but - directly from him instead. “Shit, shit,” he gasped, and whatever he had - the twin ghosts must have been into it, all their senses warmed in a bath of lullabies. “Come play with us,” they repeated, sinking their talons into Dan - more fog, more steam, it unrolled like a carpet, like sorrow. The idea of the Grady girls had never really scared Dan as an adult. As a child, yes. They were terrifying. But that was back when Dan didn’t understand what he could do. When he didn’t know how powerful his shine was. There were ghosts, after all, and then there were ghosts. Some could move on. Some couldn’t. Some were annoying and others were downright dangerous. Dan had never thought of the Grady sisters as dangerous. Not until he saw the steam seep out of Richie’s mouth and feel those claw-like fingers dig into his back. The pain was difficult to explain. Steam was the psychic essence of a person. It was fueled by abilities like the Shining. It gave a lot of people that uncanny sixth sense that they usually ignored or forgot about later in life. But in people like Dan and Richie, products of traumatic childhoods involving (other worlds than these, old chap!) evil beyond the mortal veil, steam was fuel. It was food. It could give a person immortality. It could be used to continue darkness on earth. And it made those who had it vulnerable. Because stealing someone else’s steam killed them. Dan felt as though nails were digging into his soul, stripping it from his body not unlike the way Rose the Hat had devoured the Baseball Boy or tried to feed from him when he was protecting Abra. At first it was a rush. Like hitting the ground hard and having the wind knocked out of him. Then it was a tight pull, as though every fiber in his body was being snipped with tiny blades. Danny! Tony yelled from the back of his mind. But quickly after Tony began to fade. The Grady girls exhaled deeply. Euphoria blazed in their dead eyes. But they were small ghosts, unaccustomed to feeding. And though they were feral and starving, they’d never been very strong. Dan focused a sharp, pointed blast with his mind, just enough to force them backward, and the girls screeched. It was enough to get him out of his chair, but he stumbled to the floor. He was weak. Unprepared for this. How had they gotten out? And who else was in there with them? “Richie!” Dan gasped from the ground, but his strength needed a moment to recover. His energy was low. So he focused a telepathic thought to Richie instead. Put up a wall! Don’t let them get your shine! The mac and cheese was officially abandoned. It was stone cold now anyway, and Richie had other things to focus on - like the fact that these little ghost shits were about to kill Dan. And him. Probably him too. They were both set up to die here, and wouldn’t that be annoying? Because they’d just be brought back again, only to repeat the cycle once more. No rest for the wicked and weary. He pushed back from the table and knelt by Dan, hands gripping his shirt to try to help him up - but it was also for balance, somewhat, because Richie felt dizzy. His mind was mayhem - swirling, caught in the winds of a blizzard, nauseating. Maybe this was what Bleeding Eye Ghost meant when he said - Don’t let them get your shine! He tried to erect (someone make a dick joke here, because he was panicking too much, with the force of a hurricane gale, to even bother) a wall but it didn’t go all the way - he ended up syncing his mind with Dan’s, lassoing them together as he had a few times before. That gave Richie a jolt - fire and lightning in his bone marrow, the two of them linked. (lockboxes on a dusty shelf) Okay, just stay with me, he thought and - build a wall. He’d build a wall. Even as the ghosts took another bite out of them both, beautiful steam and beautiful wind chimes - the mental screaming of their victims was music to their ears. The Grady girls may have momentarily reeled from the mental blast Dan had given them, but they weren’t deterred from their task at hand. Perhaps because it was early days and they were low-level ghosts. Perhaps they knew their chances would be slim to none on the hierarchy of feeding once the others realized there were tasty shine morsels in the vicinity. Maybe that’s why they were worse than Dan remembered from childhood. Because they were desperate and determined. They had to be first in the dessert line because they didn’t stand a chance when the real evil broke free from Butler Hall. Both of the girls lunged at them. One went for Dan while the other went for Richie. Their mouths opened wide, wider than any normal little girl was capable of. Their open lips exposed thousands of razor sharp teeth, distracting from the matching ‘cute as a button’ blue dresses they wore. They wailed and then they sucked in the steam from both Dan and Richie, desperately trying to funnel that psychic fuel down their ghostly gullets. Dan’s body spasmed as the steam left his body. He struggled physically for almost a minute before he let his body go limp and put all of his remaining energy into his mind. When Richie reached out to him, Dan’s psyche latched onto him with a tight telepathic grip. Hiding in the back of his mind was Tony. Except Tony wasn’t exactly Tony, but more of a child version of Dan. Little Danny Torrance. He sat in a dark corner rocking back and forth, fingers digging into his hair, and muttering something about being ‘a dull boy.’ Dan didn’t want to ignore that part of his consciousness, but he had to. He had to give Richie all of his focus if he wanted to survive. All of his power. The lockboxes. Of course! He should have thought of that earlier. How could he have been so careless? Grab the one on the far left! A brand new box suddenly appeared on the cobweb-covered shelf. It was small but it had a shiny padlock on the front. Unlocked. Open. Empty. Ready for two child terrors. Assuming of course that they could keep it together long enough to capture them. We can trap them in there with our minds. We get them in the lockbox, close it up, and throw away the fucking key! You get what I’m saying, Richie?! I know this is Grade A Graduate Level Shining Shit that I haven’t had the chance to explain to you yet, but I know you can do it! Just look into my memories and see how I’ve done it in the past. Dan’s body jerked. His skin grew sallow, deep wrinkled trenches forming on his face where the life was sucked out of him. Take what you can from me, Richie. Whatever you need. We’ve gotta get these two so we can warn the others. Because there’s worse shit in those rooms! There’s— One of the Grady girls took a big damn bite and little Danny screamed. This really was Grade A Graduate Level Shining Shit. Richie felt like he’d just started swimming school and had barely mastered the doggie paddle - now he was being thrown into the deep end by his mother, smoking a cigarette and coughing out something like it’ll be fine, you won’t drown before she returned to the afternoon nip-or-several of sherry. But he had to. He had no choice. Because Dan had slumped to the ground like a love letter all crumpled - he was literally getting the life sucked from him, and Richie wouldn’t be far behind. He also jerked and writhed for a second there; it felt like trying to pull his arm free from a bear trap, just making everything worse. But then he buckled down and concentrated, sheer panic causing him to dive into Dan’s memory reel and flip through the images - he maybe wasn’t gentle with it, rifling through everything, but he was desperate and determined in equal parts of both. I’m sorry, he apologized frantically. It’s okay though, I’ve got you. The ghosts were coming closer, looming like a tiny pack of vultures - death and shadows and the clang of funeral bells, somewhere in the distance. “Jesus,” Richie slurred out loud - not because he was trying to pray or whatever, but because he was pissed the fuck off. He pushed. The lockbox rattled, it slid across the floor of his and Dan’s shared psychic landscape knocking into the ghosts. He pictured it as a push and a pull, a pull so intense that it dug past the bones of resistance and gripped ahold of the two twin terrors - he suffocated them, muffling their cries which resembled the shriek of a banshee, practically cleaving the air into pieces. They were stuffed into the box - he had Dan with him, Richie closed the box. It flew shut with a bang and then the padlock clicked into place. “Danno?” he hedged, carefully, sounding a bit broken because Danno his really good friend-o looked terrible-o. Whatever Richie needed to do in order to dig through the filing cabinet of Dan’s mind was like a pinprick compared to having the shine sucked out of him. Dan could feel his body weakening under the ghosts’ grip, his soul fading in and out. He tried to hold his breath — to hold in the shine — but that just caused the girls to sink their claws in deeper. Starving. They were ravenous. And Dan and Richie were like a seven course meal just waiting to be devoured. The ghosts were greedy. Salivating. Hungry enough that Dan imagined them licking his psychic bones clean. But he couldn’t think about that. He had to focus. He had to help Richie find the memories he needed. The memory of good ol’ Dick Hallorann teaching little Danny about the lockboxes down in Florida. The memory of Danny closing the bathroom door shut as he went after Mrs. Massey who left pieces of dead flesh on Wendy’s toilet seat. Dan reached deep in his thoughts to help Richie see how he locked her up in a box. And how he did the same for all of the other ghosts from the Overlook Hotel that followed him and his mother home. How he swallowed them whole and left them trapped in his mind until he needed them to battle the True Knot. He reached out to Richie in their shared psychic playground and gave him what shine he had left, leaving only what he needed to survive the next few seconds. And then he hoped it was enough. The Grady girls shrieked when Richie figured out how to work the mental lockbox. They let go of Dan and tried to escape, but it was too late. In those brief few seconds before they were sucked into their own telepathic hellscape, Dan thought he heard them weeping. “WE JUST WANTED TO PLAY WITH YOU!” they cried before their voices were snuffed out. Good goddamn riddance. Dan gasped. His heart started beating again. Or rather it began beating at a more regular pace and rhythm. He rolled his eyes towards Richie, seeing him in a new light. A new shine, as it were. It was like a glow, an almost holy aura around him. It reminded Dan of Abra, only not as bright. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Tony was struggling to his feet, embarrassed and ashamed for not being more prepared. But Dan wouldn’t beat himself up about that now. There wasn’t time. He caught Richie’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. His skin was still pale and sallow, but he wasn’t quite on his deathbed. Not yet anyway. “We have to warn the others.” Dan winced. His chest felt like it had been ripped open. “It’s only going to get worse. We need to be ready.” And they would need a hell of a lot more mind prisons. The idea of doing that again, just to another ghost, made Richie want to curl up into the fetal position and rock back and forth. Because fucking yikes. But he guessed that Dan was right - if this was going to be a problem, they’d need to deal with it, so he’d square his shoulders and get it done. And considering the ghosts were apparently no longer locked behind the wards of the second and third floors - well. Seemed like a problem to him. A big fuckin’ problem, them escaping somehow (being let out?), bringing along the sensation of a cold winter that was an endless void. “We’ll warn them,” he promised, returning the hand squeeze. “You probably shouldn’t overexert yourself though. Should I walk you back to your room or do you want me to call for someone to come here and help?” There weren't actual physical wounds. It just seemed like Dan needed something anyway. The idea of getting up and walking to his room made Dan want to vomit. Not physically, although he was physically drained, but mentally. He just wanted to spew his psychic guts out all over the place. Having the shining — the steam — sucked out of him didn’t leave any noticeable wounds, but it had done a number on his body. He didn’t look it, but he felt about twenty years older. And fatigue didn’t even begin to explain it. The worst part of it all? It never should have gotten that far. Dan had fought off ghosts who were far more powerful than the Grady sisters. Had he honestly been that unprepared? Or had there been something different about the ghosts? Had Derleth changed them in some way? Were they from another version of his history, like the various Derleths they’d been to? An Overlook where the ghosts were bigger, badder, stronger? A world where the ghosts won? The thought sent a shiver down his spine. One that reached all the way to his toes. “I don’t know if I can walk just yet. But we can’t stick around here much longer. If they could find us then others won’t be far behind.” And if Richie had to drag Dan’s ass around they’d be like a beacon to any more starving specters. “I think we need help. Maybe that marshmallow robot thing or…” Who could heal? “One of the magic people. They might be able to move me quicker or get me in fit shape to help everyone else.” And then a thought struck Dan. “Shit. The kids could be in real danger. A lot of them are unique. Not shining special but … who the hell knows what these ghosts could do with their powers?” On his end, Richie definitely wanted to vomit. Just - absolutely puking his fucking guts out. He felt like a dirty sock had been lodged in his throat and he just needed to expel it or something but it wasn’t moving - and no matter how many times he swallowed, it remained. The icky feeling remained too - granted, he wasn’t as bad as Dan but they had both been chewed up and then spit out again. “The marshmallow thing, right,” Richie nodded, shifting to reach for his phone - he wouldn’t go far from Dan though. Maybe he’d try to find at least a pillow for his head or something, in the meantime because fuck. Richie had signed up to take Wilderness Survival 101 class but this was more like ‘what do you do when you get your soul sucked out through your face?’ and he didn’t have immediate answers. Maybe the marshmallow-bot would though. Also potentially Magic Fingers or Yennefer - those were the magic people he was most familiar with. He checked the network and just fired off words; Yennefer was the first poster he saw who fit the bill, so Step-On-Me it was. “I’m on it, Danno. We’ll figure it out - no one here’s gonna let the kids be hurt.” Dan closed his eyes for a moment, but Tony gave him a mental shake. Stay awake! You have to stay awake! More of them are coming! There was a terror in Tony’s voice that Dan hadn’t heard for a very long time. And it instantly forced his eyes open again. But he was tired. Dead tired. Not literally, but very close to it. (Sleeeeep, Danny boy) (Close your eyesssss) (We’ll take care of you) (We’ll give you your medicine, you little pup!) An icy chill spread through the air. Now that his focus was stretched thin, Dan could hear them. He could hear them all. The ghosts. Some of their voices were familiar. He’d heard them through the walls in Butler Hall. Caught whispers of them begging to be let out. Others he didn’t know. But he could feel them everywhere. Spread out over the campus. Their combined psychic pain was almost unbearable. It spread through every sinew of his being, gnawing at him. They wanted his attention all at once. Dan grimaced, wishing he could speed up the return of his strength so he’d have better control. So he could block them out. “Don’t let me fall asleep, Richie. Keep me awake as long as you can. There’s—” Dan cut himself off. His gaze glossed over. Then the lights in the dining hall flickered. The main doors flew open off their hinges and a freezing wind rushed into the room, coating the tables and chairs in frost. But nothing appeared to enter the room. Nothing visible, at least. And Dan passed out. |