Fearmaster

[NicTei]

Fearmaster
Keeping the ghoulies out

When things get creepy, they call him in to take a look.  They call him the Fearmaster, for his knowledge of things supernatural, unbelievable, or just plain wrong.

So, when things get unnatural, who you gonna call?  The Ghostbusters?  No, the things the Fearmaster deals with would send those nerds running for the cover of their mother's house.  You call in the Fearmaster.  What have you got to lose?  Oh yeah.

Your life.

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I started this one because I didn't want to let everyone else have all of the fun with the interactive stories, and because the Macabre Mansion was really low on participants.  I just hope it doesn't scare anyone away...

Read on!

Contents:
Chapter 1:  Another Day, Another Case
Chapter 2:  Um...Anyone There?
Chapter 3:  Flashback
Chapter 4:  A Request
Chapter 5:  The Angel
Chapter 6:  Brat
Chapter 7:  Immortalists
Chapter 8:  Don't Ask Questions
Chapter 9:  The Grave
Chapter 10:  Run!!
Chapter 11:  Research

[NicTei]

   The night was cold and very dark.  Too dark.  The low hum of the van would’ve put him to sleep had he not been so nervous about this case.  The last one had put him up against a rather nasty poltergeist, and his shoulder still ached from where a vase had been hurled at him by the invisible force.  He took a deep breath, calming himself down.  It was his job, and no one else wanted to do it.  He was the Fearmaster.

   He pushed his glasses farther up onto his face with his middle finger, brushing some of his long black hair out of his face.  He often wore it in a ponytail that he tucked into the collar of his long black trench coat, but he had left it untied tonight.  He could still taste the Fettuccine Alfredo that he had been eating when he was called.  He hated to be interrupted during dinner.

“We’re here, sir!” the chauffeur said, looking at him in the rearview mirror.

   The Fearmaster thanked the driver and stepped out of the car, his heavy boots crunching on the loose pebbles in the pavement.  Already the police chief and his ‘handler’ were walking over to him, their strides fast and long.  They were apparently uncomfortable in the current temperature. 

“Good. You’re here.  I’m afraid we’ve got another case for you,” the police chief said gruffly, his breath rising as steam into the night sky.

   He had his hands under the armpit of his uniform, and he looked absolutely miserable.  His large handlebar mustache didn’t seem to be bringing any warmth; not that it was supposed to anyways.  His green eyes gazed around for any source of warmth, and the Fearmaster could tell that he was obviously reluctant to enter the building behind them.

“What took you so long?”

   The question came from his handler, Ms. Melissa Cole.  She, too, looked quite miserable, though she was wearing warmer clothes than usual.  Instead of her usual skirt and high-heels, she was dressed in slacks, slightly warmer looking shoes on her feet.  She pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders.

   A quick gust of cold wind blew past, blowing her long brown hair out of her face.  Her blue eyes shined in the light, eyes that were so much like his own.  Eyes that hid secrets and sins of the past.

   “Well, I was eating supper; a plate of steaming hot ‘Fettuccine Alfredo,’ and the doorbell rang.  I just figured it was one of those annoying brats that always come by my apartment, so I let it go until the chauffeur himself stepped in using the key you gave him.  By the way, why do you insist on giving the drivers keys to my apartment?” Fearmaster replied, finishing with a question.

“Because you always come late,” Cole replied.

“Well Liz, should we show him the body?” the Chief asked.

“That would be a good idea, especially with the temperature as low as it is,” the Fearmaster cut in.

   As he had guessed, they started walking towards the warehouse-like building the towered behind them.  When they got to the large doors, the Chief opened and hurried inside.  Ignoring his rudeness, Cole held the door open for the Fearmaster before entering herself.

   The moment he stepped inside, he could feel the death on the air, as well as smell the blood.  The odor was so strong, in fact, that he could almost taste it when he inhaled through his mouth.  However, the smell was soon replaced with that of cigarette smoke.  He looked around for the source and found that the Chief had lit up a joint.

“I would suggest you put that out,” Fearmaster said, looking at the cigarette.

“Why?” the Chief asked.

A loud creak sounded around the building, and Fearmaster looked around.  “You never know what you’ll piss off.”

“Well, that’s why you’re here!” the Chief replied.

“Being a bodyguard against the supernatural wasn’t part of my job description.  Don’t assume I can stop everything,” Fearmaster retorted.

Grumbling, the Chief dropped the cigarette and stepped on it, putting it out.  “I don’t see what the danger was…” he muttered into his mustache.

   Without saying a word, Fearmaster reached into the pocket on the inside of his trench coat and pulled out his wallet.  Inside was a small set of pictures, held together with a rubber-band.  He pulled the band off and searched through them before selecting one and showing it to the Chief. 

   He stared at it for a while before realizing what it was.  He swore loudly and backed away, looking like he was going to be sick.  Fearmaster showed the picture to Cole and she had a similar reaction, though she simply looked like she had smelled something long dead.

“Why the heck did you show me that!?” the Chief shouted, wiping his mouth after vomiting for real.

“Well, that’s what happened to one of the people I had by me when he lit up a cigarette in the wrong place.  No gas, no flammable substances nearby, just something unnatural that didn’t like smoke,” Fearmaster replied, looking at the picture before putting it away.

“I still don’t see why-!”

“Are you ever going to smoke again?” Fearmaster asked, putting his wallet back into his pocket.

“Not likely!” the Chief replied angrily.

“Then my anti-smoking campaign is a success so far.  I just hope I can bring it to the schools soon, just to get the message out.”

   The Chief glared at Fearmaster, who was now walking to the only door out of the room they were in, which was roped off by police tape.  The officers that had been on the scene when the body was discovered were long gone, told by the Chief that they could leave.  Ducking under the tape, the Fearmaster looked at the body that was sprawled in the far corner of the slightly smaller room.

   It was of a young woman, though the only evidence to this was the clump of long blonde hair not too far from the body and the purse still clutched in its hand.  Other than that, the body was unidentifiable.  Holding back the urge to run away as always, Fearmaster approached the body, kneeling down beside it.

   Her chest had been ripped open, and her ribcage was showing, the ivory bones stained red with blood.  Her legs from the knees down were missing, a tattered and torn skirt covering her from the waist down to mid-thigh.  And her face was the worst.  It wasn’t even distinguishable as a human body part, but was simply a mess of red and gray sludge, with bits of the shattered skull sticking out and one eyeball floating in the puddle.

   Ignoring the sound of the Chief vomiting once more, Fearmaster got to his feet.  He began looking around the room, and then the room they had just came from.  Cole, confused at what he was doing, asked him.

“Hm?  Oh, I’m looking for a hose,” Fearmaster replied casually.

“Why in the world are you looking for a hose?” Cole asked exasperated.

“So I can clean off the body, why else?” Fearmaster answered as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.

“And why, pray tell, do you want to do that?” Cole asked.  Her tone was resigned.

“Then I can figure out what attacked this poor woman, and if you two need to get out of here,” Fearmaster said, disappearing momentarily around a door. 

   He came back with a long hose.  Hooking it up to a faucet that had been driving him insane with its dripping, he sprayed the body down, the gore spreading to the corners of the room.  Cole stepped out of the room to evade the spray, but Fearmaster stayed where he was.  He had been through enough in his job to know that a little gore wasn’t as bad as it would get.

   When the body was cleaned up, Fearmaster crouched down beside it once more.  What he saw wasn’t encouraging.  He had been hoping for something like stabs, slashes, or even tooth- or claw-marks, but it appeared that the poor woman had been torn apart too badly to be able to discern entry or exit points of whatever was used, be it knife or claw.

   However, he had some luck on her face.  Down by the jawbone, where some skin hadn’t been torn open was a large bruise.  Whatever it was had attacked with blunt force before tearing her apart.  Now all that remained was to figure out if it had been the blunt-force trauma that killed her or blood-loss from the mutilation.

   He knew better than to touch the body, so he got up and walked to the entrance of the building.  Then he remembered that the things he thought he had would be in the car, which the chauffeur had driven away quite some time ago.  He was about to swear loudly, but remembered that keeping calm on the job was key.  Anger, fear, or anxiety could give anything, supernatural or natural, ideas.

   There was a muffled cry from inside, and he spun around, running back in as fast as he could.  During his high-school years, some five years ago, he hadn’t been an all-star athlete, preferring knowledge.  The years on this job, however, had shown him that the ability to run faster than whatever is chasing you is invaluable.  This prompted a daily 5-mile jog, which frequently put him on the verge of unconsciousness.

   Upon entering the building, he saw two things.  The first was an enormous pool of blood on the ground.  The second was Cole, who had collapsed to a sitting position on the floor.  He rushed over to her, skirting around the red puddle.

“What happened?” he asked, looking around warily.

“The blood…it appeared here, underneath the Chief…he sank into it…” Cole replied, shaking violently.

   Helping her up, Fearmaster walked her to the door, though he faced the rest of the building.  The easiest way to get killed was to turn your back on an enemy, and this enemy was invisible, not to mention stronger than he was or ever would be.  When they were both safely outside, he turned to her.  She was obviously distraught, more so than he had ever seen her before.

“You stay out here.  Nothing you can do can harm…it…one bit.  Whatever ‘it’ is…” he said his hands on her shoulders.

   She nodded and sniffed, but handed him her gun.  He looked at it questioningly, but realized that she figured that he’d be safe if he had a physical weapon.  He nodded and put it in his coat pocket.  He then turned around to enter the building.

   Once inside, he noticed that the atmosphere had changed drastically.  Before it had simply felt like a warehouse:  big and empty.  Now it felt as if he were standing in front of a venomous snake while at the same time standing on the edge of a cliff; it was only a matter of time before something happened.  It felt good to be back on the job.

   Through the doorway, he could see that changes had occurred, though he had been outside of the building for mere seconds.  The body of the woman was gone; only a bloody clump of hair and purse remained.  A chill ran through him; this wasn’t right.  But, then again, it never was.

   The weight of the gun slapped against his chest in his pocket.  Strangely, though he knew better, he felt comforted by the presence of such a deadly, at least to mortal man, weapon.  He knew that whatever he was going up against may not be so easily affected by the lead slug, but his hope was that it would be.  He’d rather be out of here with his ears ringing and an angry chief than holding onto a useless weapon while being pummeled by something he couldn’t see.

Facing the rest of the building from his position by the door, he took a bold step forward, clenching his fist and raising it in front of him, knowing that he looked like a dork, though it felt empowering.

“Alright, show yourself!” he called into the building, hearing his voice echo throughout its entire expanse.

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What happens next?  Go ahead and make a suggestion, but remember this is supposed to have a supernatural theme!
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[Chinaren]

Nice start NT!

...daily 5-mile jog, which frequently put him on the verge of unconsciousness.

Ha, good line!

Well written too.  The only thing I'd say is to describe the blood and gore in a more colorful, horrific fashion.  Make it gruesome!

Anyway, I say nothing happens next!  The spirit has departed.  For now. 

[NicTei]

Oooh, creepy idea there, China!  That'll be there, but I still think there should be some sort of showdown in the next chappy.

Of course, one of my other options that I myself would put up would be something like:

Nothing happens and Fearmaster stands there looking like an idiot
or
He's on Candid Camera
OR
"You've been PUNK'D!

[Saint]

You've been PUNK'd!!!! *chants over and over*

[NicTei]

Saint, I was actually joking about the 'You been Punk'd!' thing.   I didn't want that as a valid answer; it's supposed to be a supernatural theme, so there's gotta be something about ghosts you could think off...

Ah well.   I'll pardon you this time , and if there's a small number of ideas, that'll be there, but if there's more than three, it's out.

 

[NicTei]

Poll's up; I added some results just to flesh it out.  And yes, things will go horribly awry if you choose "You been Punk'd!"

Horribly.  Awry.

You will cry.

CRY!!!

 

[Saint]

Punk'd xD

[NicTei]

Saint, things will go horribly awry for you.  Horribly.  Awry.
...
...
BOOO!

 

[Saint]

eep! Awry! not Awry, anything but that
...
...
...
...
...


What's "awry" mean?

[NicTei]

WRONG.  Awry means WRONG.
...
...
Hehehehe...

 

[Chinaren]

Ha.  Made it a three way tie.   

[NicTei]

Come on, guys!  Get your votes in; I'm not writing three entirely different chapters for each ending!

By the way, I've ressurected Chiaroscuro; chapter 6 is now up, for those of you that are interested.  Saint, you may wonder if I've finally gotten over my dilemma of killing off my characters.  I won't tell you yes or no, but yes.

At any rate, I really wanted to be able to post these chapters regularly, but I guess that won't happen when everyone starts a THREE WAY TIE!!!

[Saint]

Punk'd!! Come on NicTei, I'm begging here! Punk'd! Don't make me use Pankibi!

[NicTei]

Pankibi?  What the heck is Pankibi?

[Saint]

My spare account, just incase I can't do anything with Saint again (I originally made it 'cause I couldn't post on tome when it was moved to smf)

[NicTei]

Note:  Votes from Pankibi will not be counted on this forum.

*raspberry*

[Saint]

You can't see who votes

No, I wouldn't use Pankibi anyway..

[NicTei]

Okay...
But seriously.  If Punk'd wins, then things will go terribly wrong right away.

[NicTei]

Boy, you guys must really hate me to keep this four-way tie up without breaking it.
...
...
...
OH COME ON!!!!

[Saint]

Can't you just do punk'd? Come on, I'm begging here!

[Rocket Rabbit]

As much as punk'd tempts me, I daren't risk the wrath of NicTei.

Also, I think it would be cooler if he was expecting it to be there and it wasn't.

I'm thinking... have you ever watched Most Haunted? They go into haunted places and shout at ghosts. And they never get any replies...

RR

[Saint]

NOOOOO!!! PUNK'D!!!! I don't like you anymore RR*

*Actual level of likeness not influenced by punk'd-less-ness, and may be significantly higher than initially indicated.

[NicTei]

Okay, now that I've got good results, I'll start working on the next chapter.

*tries to figure out how he'll fill up the next chapter with 'Nothing happens' and 'whatever it is is gone.'*

Hm...

[NicTei]

   Nothing happened.  At all.  There was no reply, not even retaliation.  Absolutely nothing happened.  Fearmaster’s fist slowly fell back to his side.  He waited.

   Still nothing happened, so he pulled out the gun he was given and started forward into the building.  He held the gun how he had seen it held in so many television shows, adding the stride he had seen agent Cole using.  He felt like more of a dork than when he had thrust his fist into the air as he called…whatever it was, out.  He wondered if he should be frightened by that, but pushed it away.

   He stepped around a corner, spinning both ways with the gun outstretched.  Nothing greeted him but an empty room.  He took another step, but heard an ominous sloshing noise.  Looking down, he saw that he had stepped directly into a pool of blood.  He bent down, running his fingers through it to see if it was a simple manifestation.  It was genuine.

   He proceeded to the next room, and then to the next.  Still, there were no signs of the spiritual forces that had been there, just empty rooms.  Suddenly, a loud clattering noise sounded from behind him.  He spun around and instinctively pulled the trigger.

   There was a loud bang as the pressurized can that had fallen exploded.  He threw his hands in front of his face, feeling the shards of metal stab into his arms.  He dropped the gun and it went off again, shooting the handle off of a door. 

   Another ominous sound resounded through the chamber; the distinctive ‘thud’ of a falling body.  He looked to see the Chief lying face down on the floor in front of the open door to the basement.  Fearmaster picked up the gun and cautiously stalked over to the Chief, aiming his gun down the basement stairs.  Though the sight of the stairs looked like a rotten face would emerge at any moment, nothing happened.

   He bent over to the Chief, shaking his shoulder.  When there was no response, he turned the Chief over.  Swearing loudly, he leaped back from the body, horrified.

   The Chief’s entire face had been torn off, his skull showing through.  His eyes were still in their sockets, wide and staring.  It also appeared that his tongue had been shoved into one of his nostrils. 

   Once he had gotten over the initial shock, Fearmaster turned the Chief’s body over again, standing back up.  His gun held cautiously, he retraced his steps out of the warehouse.  As he closed the door behind him, he thought he saw a figure, but it faded when he looked again.  The familiarity of the figure frightened him, causing him to slam the door harder than was necessary.

“It couldn’t be…could it?” he asked himself as he returned to the car where agent Cole was waiting.

   Two days had passed since that frightening night.  It wasn’t as frightening for Fearmaster as it was for agent Cole; Fearmaster dealt with apparitions of decomposing corpses that moved all of the time.  Agent Cole usually saw the corpses still.

   Fearmaster sat at his table in his apartment, eating a favorite of his:  Fettuccini Alfredo.  Arrayed on the table were various deeds and reports on the warehouse he had just been in.  He knew by the look of the corpses of the woman and the Chief that whatever resided there was not benevolent.

   There was a knock on the door, and he got up off his chair, finishing off a bite of food.  He spun around to get the door, his customary ponytail slapping onto his shoulder as he turned.  He took a couple of long strides and got to the door in moments.

When he opened it, he was surprised to see agent Cole standing there, her hand halfway between herself and the door, as if she had been withdrawing it when Fearmaster came.

“Is there a problem?” he asked.

“Can I…come in?” Cole asked hesitantly.

“Sure,” Fearmaster replied, slightly confused.

Cole saw the papers.  “Were you cleaning?” she asked, indicating the deeds.

“No, I’m just researching the warehouse to see if anything could’ve happened there that would justify that…thing,” Fearmaster replied, noticing the fear in Cole’s eyes as she remembered that night.

“Would you prefer I didn’t talk about it?” he asked quieter.

Cole looked up.  “What?  Oh, no.  I know you’ve seen worse, so I-”

“You’re only my handler; you’re not expected to put up with what I’ve seen,” Fearmaster interrupted.

   There was silence for a while.  Fearmaster pulled out another plate and put some of the warm pasta on it, setting it at the other end of the small, square table.  He shuffled the papers together and set them on the chair beside him.

“Go ahead, sit down!” he said, indicating the chair in front of him.

   Agent Cole sat down and quietly started to eat.  Fearmaster followed her example, and not a word was spoken for a while.  Then, she set her fork on her plate; all of her pasta was gone.
“How was it?” Fearmaster asked.

“Very good, thanks,” Cole replied, smiling weakly.

   Fearmaster finished the last bite of his pasta and took the plates over to his diminutive sink.  He returned to find Cole looking over his apartment.  He did the same.

   The decorations were sparse; only a couple of dead plants lay on the windowsills.  Set across from a large television was an old, worn sofa, the once dark brown cushions faded into a light tan.  A similarly colored chair was just off to the side of the couch, set at an angle so that the television screen was still visible.  A small hallway connected his bathroom to his bedroom, the latter being the smaller of the two.  Inside the bedroom was not much more than a cot and a closet.

“It’s very…um…simple?” Cole offered.

“I’m hardly ever here, so it’s not like I really have a lot of time to plan the décor,” Fearmaster replied, leaping over the back of the couch and landing in a sitting position.

“If you’re hardly ever here, why have a large T.V.?” Cole asked, indicating the large screen.

“I tend to get home early enough to see ‘Ghost Hunters’ or ‘Crypto-zoology’ on cable,” Fearmaster replied with a grin.

“Of course…” Cole muttered, rolling her eyes.

   She turned around to see one other piece of furniture in the room; a small endtable.  On it was a photograph of what was unmistakably Fearmaster, albeit with much shorter hair, and-
“Mrs. Cole?  You should leave now,” Fearmaster said suddenly.  He had somehow moved from the couch to a position right behind her, and appeared to be shielding her from something.

“What’s going on?” she whispered.

“Just go; I’ll take care of this.  There may not even be cause for alarm,” Fearmaster replied.

   There was something about the distant look in his eyes that was creeping Cole out, so she left.  She was disappointed; she hadn’t really studied the figure in the picture with Fearmaster.  As she closed the door, she thought she heard Fearmaster speaking, but couldn’t be sure.

   Fearmaster looked around his apartment.  He could’ve sworn he had seen a distinctive shimmer out of the corner of his eye.  Sure, he had been intently glaring at pieces of paper for a while, and hadn’t had much sleep since finding the Chief, but to get careless and dismiss everything was to have your head lopped off by some strange force when you weren’t looking.

“Hello?” he called out.

   Nothing responded, so he started to step cautiously through his apartment.  Hauntings, or ‘Occupation by Forces of a Distant Nature’ as he liked to call them, were usually benign, but could turn malevolent at any turn.  He was also slightly more attuned to electromagnetic forces than most, which meant he could simply be ‘feeling’ his VCR.

   He felt around, looking to see if he could find what was causing this sensation.  He checked through every inch of the main room and found nothing.  He then went to check his bedroom, and found that it was just his alarm clock.

   However, when he returned to the main room, he found that the papers he had so haphazardly shuffled onto the chair were now arranged into a neat pile, with only one paper set on the table.  Also, the photograph that agent Cole had been looking at was turned down, so that the picture was looking into the wood and the back was facing the ceiling.

   He picked up the single piece of paper, gasping when he saw what it read.  Not what it read, actually, but how it was formatted.  There were two articles set side by side, one dated fifty years ago, and another dated just a decade back.  It was not natural.

   The older article pertained to a murderer found dead in the warehouse.  He was particularly known for his horrid mutilations of his victims.  “America’s Jack the Ripper,” the headlines read.  This wasn’t what was scaring him so much, it was the newer article, an article he knew well.

   It read “Young Girl Dead, Mother Missing.”  This wouldn’t have been so startling except for one tiny detail.  One tiny, little, miniscule detail.

   The girl was his daughter.

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Oooh!  What a twist! 
Now what happens?  Does he charge in to the warehouse and figure out the articles later, or something else?  Suggestion time!
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[NicTei]

Yeah, I know.  It was a short one.  Sue me*.



*Please don't sue me.

[Chinaren]

It was about the right length I think NT!

I don't think this is as well written as some of your others.  There's still a lot of 'telling' rather than 'showing'.  Showing is what makes the story more colorful and vivid. 

Anyway, the Suggestions:

Mmm.  Well, he's going to track down more information about the newspaper articles.  Who left them there?  Where did they come from?  And where did these events happen? 

[NicTei]

Anyone else?  Come on, guys!  Get the suggestions up!  Surely you have your own opinion of what should happen next?

[paul-carroll]

My suggestion - he tries to track down who wrote the articles to see if they have any more information.

Nice story by the way! I really enjoyed it 

[NicTei]

Okay, so we appear to be leaving the evil warehouse alone to figure out what the heck put information about his case and his dead daughter in his house without him seeing them. 

I'll get the poll up.