The Witch Doctor Incident

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Chapter Four

January 14th, 2007
Saturday Evening

“Phantom…Danny…You have to keep your eyes open. Come on… That’s my boy. Focus on my face…”

It took every ounce of will power to follow Thor’s directions. Tired green eyes watched the human sweat and worry above him.

“The bleeding isn’t stopping. I’ve been holding pressure for an hour and it isn’t stopping. I’m going to have to stitch up your abdomen. Open your eyes! Danny…now!”

Again the green eyes blinked open to watch a panicking Thor.

“I need you to hold the towel while I get things ready. Press harder!” he ordered.

“Are you ok Thor?” he asked

“Oh god. How can you ask that?” hysteria coming through. “She won, the Witch Doctor beat us. I’m hurt, you could be bleeding to a second death and Anderson and Towns…”

“Are dead,” Danny finished, guilt pressing heavily.

“No, they are not dead,” the hunter said sharply. “They are breathing and both have pulses.”

“But they’re gone. I felt it. Whatever she did, they’re gone.”

“Danny…Lets just concentrate on patching you up. We will worry about everything else after.” He pulled at the rips in Danny’s outfit, trying to look at the various cuts and scrapes. “I can’t see a bloody thing. We need to get that jumpsuit off so I can see the damage.”

Danny nodded and, with Thorton’s help, he found the zipper and pulled it down. Thor’s eyes widened as the halfa pulled off his gloves and (with considerable help) peeled off the top half of the suit. Underneath tattered Nomex a normal black T-shirt appeared, perfect, undamaged and unstained by his ectoplasmic blood.

Only when the hunter pushed up the shirt could they see the stab wound oozing pseudo blood. Pulling off the rest of the ruined jumpsuit revealed dark jeans and black socks. The jumpsuit landed in a tattered, bloody heap on the floor as Thorton began to work.

“I want you to stay awake,” he said even as he prepped his stomach, still frantic and worried.

“I’m so tired,” he mumbled.

“I know, kid. Would you like to learn something new?” Thorton asked, knowing from past experience that Phantom was very inquisitive.

Curiosity forced his eyes open, giving him a small burst of energy. “What are you going to teach me?”

“I’m going to teach you the proper way to stitch up a wound. You need to pay close attention and listen to everything I say…and watch. I’ll explain as I go.” Carefully the hunter worked, improvising glowing Fenton Fishing Line for thread, wiping away the green blood that trickled out from the steadily closing cut. He finished without fanfare, Danny’s eyes following every movement. By some small miracle, the knife wound turned out to be the only cut needing stitching. All the scrapes and marks caused by the gremlins scabbed over and purplish-green bruising tattooed his torso.

It was about this time that Smithy left the cockpit to check on them. The engines wound down as she entered the hold, stopping short when she saw Danny lying on the bunk, stunned for some unvoiced reason.

“Did we stop?” Thor asked. “Janet?” The woman shook her head, breaking out of her daze.

“What?”

“The engines are off, is there a problem?” he asked in concern.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “We finally found a door. It led to a forested area but there is plenty of room between the trees so we decided to stop here.”

“Janet, I need you to dig in the farthest right refrigerated compartment. We have a couple bags of pure ectoplasm in there and I don’t really want to stand if I don’t need to.”

“What for?” she asked even as she made her way to the back.

“I want to try a ‘blood’ transfusion. The kid here lost a lot of ectoplasm.”

She pulled open the door in the back corner. “Thor, we’ve got a slight problem,” she said while her head was stuck into the fridge. The hunter hobbled over and looked over her shoulder.

“Thor, what is it?” Danny asked, a little too weak to make the trip across the cargo area.

“The rocks that crushed this corner of the speeder also ruptured the compartment.” He reached inside before turning and showing Danny his ecto-covered fingers. “There is nothing left we can use.”

“Maybe there’s something stashed in one of the other compartments,” Janet said optimistically. She pulled open the next refrigerated space. “Human blood… human blood…wait. This might work.” She pulled out a bag, the contents a swirling mix of dark red and ecto green. She red the handwritten label out loud. “The mix?” she asked Thor.

“A Fenton brainchild,” he explained. “It’s human blood, O neg, infused with ectoplasm. This is the experimental stuff for humans testing with abnormally high ecto levels, like their children.”

“Use it,” Danny ordered from his bed.

“Not a chance!” Thor told him. “We have no idea what human blood will do to a ghost. It may work or your ‘body’ may reject all of it. That’s not counting the side effects we can only begin to speculate about.”

Danny stared at the curved ceiling, the green light of the ghost zone filtering through the skylight windows. He knew the mix would work, perfect for his half-human half-ghost body. As he lay there he knew he was a half a step from fainting, possibly turning back human.

“If I don’t get this transfusion, what will happen?” he asked, looking Thor straight in the eye.

Thor looked away from both Phantom and Smith, his eyes trained towards the front of the speeder and his voice impossibly soft but still loud enough for it to fill the area. “You still may disintegrate from the loss of the ectoplasm… a ghost’s death.”

He couldn’t help it. His eyes teared up and he turned his face to the wall, body half curling on its side so he wouldn’t have to look at the others. The thin mattress dipped as someone sat behind him, even as he contemplated telling them his secret so he wouldn’t die.

“Danny,” Janet’s voice came from behind him. “It’s your choice in the end. We can wait and see what happens or you can take the chance and go with the transfusion.” She stayed beside him, a hand rubbing his shoulder in an act of comfort.

He rolled onto his back, a jerky nod confirming his decision, to receive the blood. Janet smiled and ruffled his hair gently. Thor looked grim but conceded, pulling out all the things he needed out of one of the cabinets.

“How are you going to do the transfusion?” Janet asked while Thor limped around.

“He has a venous structure similar to a human’s,” he said absentmindedly as he set everything out that he needed. “Janet, I need you to move.” The huntress moved and disappeared into the cockpit as Thorton took a seat on the stool that he used when he stitched up Danny’s stomach bare minutes before. “Now Danny, after I start the IV you won’t be able to use your abilities. I don’t want the catheter to phase out of your arm.”

“I can do that,” he nodded. “I just have one question first. Are you certified to do this? Actually, how do you know how to do any of this?”

“Curious little thing, aren’t you,” he commented with a small smile, the first positive emotion since this morning. “Before I became a ghost hunter, I worked as a nurse for years. That’s how I know how to do ‘all this’. That’s also how I met Al.”

“Who’s Al?” Danny asked.

“Townsend,” he said without looking up. He tied the tourniquet and started searching Danny’s skin. “Albert is his first name.”

“So how did you exactly meet?”

“I’ll tell you in a second,” Thor told him as he reached for the needle. “Here comes a sharp poke.” Danny hissed a little as the needle went into the back of his left hand.

“Just relax you’re hand. It’s in. As to how I met Towns, he was hired to clear out a couple of pesky ghosts in an old wing of the hospital I was working in at the time. One of the bloody things slipped past him and went into a public area of the hospital. Townsend fell right in front of me. I just picked up his gun and stunned the bugger right between the eyes.

“Work was terrible at that point and when Al asked me to join in a couple of hunts I accepted. The rest is history.” As he talked, Thor hooked up tubing to the IV and started a slow drip of the ecto/blood, the bag’s contents still swirling hypnotically. The slim tubing leading from the bag to Danny’s arm glowed green with red occasionally striping the ecto. Minutes slipped by as he laid there, Thor disappearing to the next bunk hidden by a metal cabinet. Though he couldn’t see, Danny knew Anderson and Townsend lay in the beds he couldn’t see, both comatose since hit with the Witch Doctor’s ‘Soul Shredder’.

Janet finally returned, face troubled. “Thor, get yourself cleaned up in the cockpit,” she ordered. “Eric has one of the kits up there and can help.”

“I have everything I need back here,” he told her, slightly confused why she wanted him out of the cargo area.

“It’s an excuse actually,” the huntress admitted. “I really want you up there to check on Jacobs. He said he wanted to be alone for a while but I’d feel better if you went up there with him.” Thor nodded at the logic and limped towards the front, the door closing behind him. Alone with the half ghost, the huntress wilted and collapsed on the stool by Danny’s bed.

“Smith?” Danny asked.

“Janet,” she interrupted. “We’re long past formalities, kid. You can my first name if I can use yours. ”

“Ok, Janet. What’s the plan?”

“Right now we are going to hunker down here, rest up for a day or so, and then we’ll go from there. But I don’t want you worrying about that right now. I need you to rest and heal up, ok?”

“How is Jacobs doing?”

“Eric? He’s still in shock… both of them in there, actually,” she admitted. “Thor and Towns worked together for years and were close. Anderson,” she shook her head at the name, “he’s Eric’s cousin. They spent a lot of time together growing up and since Eric returned to the states.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?” Smithy asked, confused. “Did you cast the attack. Danny, it’s not your fault.”

“It is,” he whispered, the pain both physical and emotional. “I knew we shouldn’t have stayed in the castle. I knew something wasn’t right. What if I…”

“No ‘what ifs’ kid,” she said fiercely, squeezing his shoulders gently. “Just concentrate on the now, not what could have happened.” Tears of pain and frustration welled up in his eyes.

She gathered him in her arms, the tears falling faster. She rocked him back and forth, comforting him even as tears formed in her own eyes. She couldn’t hide the flinch when they heard a fist strike a metal wall…Jacobs finding out that Anders wasn’t waking up.

Danny cried harder at the heated voices from the cockpit and Janet’s arms tightening around him. The Witch Doctor shredded more than souls in her attack. They were falling apart.

oOo

“God, he’s just a kid!”

“We know that. His physical stature...”

“No, I mean if you got rid of the glow and the Vulcan blood, he’s a normal kid. What are we doing? We have fifteen children missing and we brought another one along to fight.”

“I know physically he’s only fourteen or fifteen but mentally I don’t think he’s been one for a long time.”

She paced back and forth in between the bunks, turning outside the tiny bathroom and stalking back to the cockpit door. Thor sat on an empty bunk looking worn out. Jacobs leaned against the doorframe of the cockpit entrance, dark emotions transforming his face to something a little more sinister.

“When I walked through the door after you patched him up, it hit me,” she continued. “I wondered what his parents thought of him. He tries so hard to do things right and he doesn’t give trust easily. It’s like he’s standing outside wanting to come in but he’s afraid. Like he doesn’t want to get too close…to get his heart broken again.”

Thor sighed and responded, “the kid’s more curious than a bag of kittens in spite of all that. You offer him to teach something, not for any nefarious purposes but just to learn and you’ve hooked him. He also makes up his own mind. You know there is no way he would head back towards Amity and leave us to face that woman, and I use that term loosely. He is going to stay and fight, just like the rest of us.”

“Phantom’s staying, Janet,” Jacobs finally piped in. “Just give it a rest because ranting about it will not change anything.”

“Oh, and slamming your fist into a metal wall can make all the difference?” She leaned in, almost nose to nose with Jacobs, anger clear on both sides.

“Stop it!” Thorton finally yelled to stop them. “Both of you are legal adults, act it. This is exactly what Nuodov wants. We’re tearing ourselves apart and if that happens we won’t be a threat to her. Why disable a couple members and leave the rest of us for any other reason?”

“Phantom’s attack may have helped in that respect,” Eric said, forcing his angry gaze away from Smith. “I don’t know exactly what he did but it sent feedback and disrupted the live headset feeds I was monitoring in the speeder, trapped under those rocks. When the static cleared the witch was up against the wall and after the second time she retreated.”

Janet picked up her pacing again. “We have to stick together. She probably expects us to limp back to the real world and lick our wounds before trying again. We can’t give her the chance to set up another trap.”

“Let’s start back at Dark’s castle. I may not be able to track the ghost, she hides her trail to well but I may be able to trace those little gray monsters. They showed up on the RWI detector, they may show again.” Eric looked confident with his idea and Janet and Thor both nodded in agreement.

“Danny and I can rest up on the trip,” Thor added. “Hopefully we will be up to fighting strength when we find her.”

“What about Townsend and Anders?” Janet had to ask. “Is there a chance they’ll wake up soon?”

Thor looked at the unmoving figures, shoulders drooping. “Their heart’s beat, their lungs pull in O2 but I’m not getting any reactions to stimuli. Danny says they’re ‘gone’. They could be brain dead but I can’t tell with the equipment we have onboard. That will have to wait until we get to a real hospital. The only way to tell is with a battery of tests...labwork, EEGs and even a Nuc Med scan.”

“How can you be sure that they are ‘gone’ right now?” Jacobs demanded.

“Danny insists he felt it during her attack,” Smithy said, pausing her pacing long enough to stroke the boy’s hair. “Ghosts are more sensitive and have a better developed sixth sense. He’s able to tell when a ghost is nearby, it is entirely possible he could sense their ‘spirits’ leaving.”

“The kid ain’t normal, even by ghost standards,” Eric contemplated out loud. “You guys worked with him more than me or Anders. Do you get the feeling that there is more to him than most ghosts?”

“He’s a ‘layered’ ghost, if you want to start there,” Thor admitted. “Layered Ghosts are more complex than your normal toaster-possessing variety. Pulling at his suit I could see skin but when you pull off the suit a shirt formed in almost new condition, a new layer. He has to be the most complex, the most human-like ghost I’ve ever dealt with.”

“And he knows so much of the human world,” Janet stated. “Either he retained his human memories when he became a ghost or there is something else going on that he will not breathe a word about.” They were surprised to see the British hunter flinch at the choice of words.

“Something else you want to add Willard?” Jacobs drawled out. Thor grimaced.

“He has a pulse.” Janet stopped pacing and Eric straightened up.

“Come again?” she asked, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“The night before we left, Anders had me try to get a full set of vitals on the kid because he was being that obsessive. Something about wanting a baseline on ghosts and some other nonsense, I don’t know his exact reason. Started off with body temp and the like but when I was pressing against his neck I felt something. I could palpate a pulse on his neck. It’s slow but it’s real along with an exceptionally slow respiration rate. The kid freaked and told us we had to be wrong.”

“That’s impossible,” Jacobs said with dead sincerity. “Ghosts are dead, pulseless creatures. We may have only scratched the surface of ghost biology but at least that fact is proven.”

“And it’s a mystery that will have to wait,” Smithy interrupted. “It’s been a freakin’ horrible day and we all need our sleep. We’re going to have to take shifts. Thor, sleep now…no arguments, no questions. Eric, do you want first or second watch?”

“I’ll take the first one,” he decided.

“Then I’ll take it next,” she said. “Thor, you’ll get the last one. I just want to run another scan before turning in. Are you coming Eric?”

“Right behind you…” The two disappeared to the front, the cockpit door closing behind them.

Thor gingerly hopped off the bed and hobbled over to the boy. Phantom’s bare hands had broken free of the cocoon of blankets. He traced a pattern along the web of scars on the ghost’s right arm. The marks looked familiar but he couldn’t figure out why. For all he knew, before Danny died he had taken care of the ghost as a patient. There was no possible way he could remember every case, every name and face so that could be why he looked so familiar.

Thor tucked the hands under the blanket, double checking the IV to make sure it continued to flow. He made a mental note to tell Eric to wake him up in a couple hours to change bags, replacing an empty one with a full unit of blood/ecto mix. Finally he let is hand rest gently under the boy’s jaw, his pulse subtle but there.

As clocks struck midnight, the beginning of a new day, Willard Thorton did something he hadn’t done in years.

He prayed.

Chapter Five