"Don't Open That Door," Foo Fighters RPS, Dave/Taylor, Taylor/Chris, Kurt/Dave, Chps 18-20
"Don't Open That Door"
See previous chapters for info and warnings.
68,572 words so far
Chapters in this post: 18-20
'Did Taylor die? I hope he died in your arms while you cried, covered in his blood.''>
Chapter 18: Hell to Pay
Word Count: 2,384
The house seemed eerily quiet when Dave and Chris returned. Oogly sat at the top of the stairs that led down to the art room. She looked up at Dave and gave a questioning, "Meow?"
"Yeah, I know. Things aren't quite right down there." Dave turned to Chris. "Would you go in that cupboard and get all the cleaning supplies we'll need? I'm gonna change my clothes."
Chris nodded, trying to smile. "Okay." He patted Dave's arm.
Dave filled the bathtub in the master bath, which was separate from the shower, with a few inches of cold water. He'd always been told that cold water would help get blood out. Then he stripped off his clothes and put them in the tub, soaking them through and through. Already he could see the blood coming out and the water turning red.
Using the sink, Dave washed off his stomach and thigh, which were tacky with the blood that had soaked through. He also thoroughly scrubbed his hands and under his nails. Blood got everywhere, didn't it? Once he was done, Dave had to hold tightly to the side of the sink and will himself not to break down again. It was hard, after washing so much of Taylor's blood out of his being.
He felt better after he'd put on fresh clothes. Dave got a plastic red laundry basket and went back to the tub to get his wet clothing.
Suddenly, he saw the head in the tub. The bloody head Nicky had shown to Jordyn. And then it was gone.
Dave gasped, stumbling back a few steps. His heart lurched in his chest. What the hell was that?
The vision did not happen again, and Dave was able to collect his clothes. He thought about what had just happened while pretreating the remains of the bloodstains on his shirt and jeans. By the time the clothing was in the wash, he had figured it out.
Nicky was trying to communicate with anyone in the house, just as he had before they brought out the Ouija board. He was feeling out in the dark.
Seething with anger, Dave walked down the stairs to the art room. Chris was already there. He avoided looking at the statue as he mopped up Taylor's blood. Most of it was gone, the mop water turned pink and sudsy. Dave was grateful to him for doing it.
"Thank you, Chris," he said, rubbing his shoulder. Unable to stop himself, Dave approached the statue.
"Careful," Chris warned.
"It's okay," Dave said. "He's trapped." He looked the statue in the eye.
After a few seconds, a trail of blue paint ran from its eye. Like a tear.
His face twisting into a snarl, Dave screamed, "CRY ME A RIVER, BITCH!" and punched the statue so hard, its head hit the wall behind it and left a dent in the plaster.
Chris came over to him, taking his arm. "Dave, don't do this. You'll break your hand. It's a plastic mannequin."
"Maybe he can still feel it," Dave mumbled.
"No, I don't think he can. Nicky's a ghost."
"He'll still know how I feel about his pathetic little tear." Breathing hard with anger, Dave looked the statue up and down. "Come on. Help me get this fucking thing out of here. I'm getting Nicky out of my house."
"Where are we taking him?" Chris asked.
"To 606. I'm going to lock him up in a closet until I figure out who did this to us."
"What about Kurt?"
The question took him aback; Dave had been so focused on what happened to Taylor... "Oh, right. The last time we saw him, he was fighting with Len..."
"And then he possessed Taylor," Chris added.
"Maybe I better try that meditation thing and go talk to him."
"Is that safe?" Chris warily eyed the statue. "Is Nicky wandering the white space now?"
"I have to find out. Kurt may need my help." Sitting down on the couch, Dave tried to calm his breathing. "Will you watch to make sure nothing happens to me?"
"Yeah. If you start struggling or anything, I'll pull you out." Once more, Chris eyed the statue. "The last thing I want to do right now is go in there with you and possibly see or speak to Nicky."
"I can understand that." It was the first thing Dave wanted to do, to find Nicky and knock his soul all over the mindscape.
Dave leaned back and closed his eyes. As he had done before, Kurt pulled him quickly into the mindscape. It had changed again. The big bed had been replaced by one with clean, light blue sheets. Most of the doors were hidden away. Kurt lay on the bed, his hands clasped on top of his stomach. He raised his head when Dave walked up. "Hey."
"Hey." Dave sat on the edge of the bed. Kurt sat up so they were eye-to-eye. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm alright. Boddah kept Len from hurting me," Kurt explained. He finger-combed some of Dave's hair behind his ear. "How is Taylor?"
"He's in surgery to stop internal bleeding. They say he should be okay."
Looking down, Kurt said, "When I told Taylor that getting seriously hurt would drive Nicky out of his body, I never meant for him to stab himself." He looked up, eyes damp with threatening tears. "You know that, right? I was just trying to explain the advantages he had over Nicky in the fight."
"I know you weren't trying to hurt Taylor."
"I just wanted him to know about Nicky's lies and manipulation. It's very unlikely he ever would have killed Taylor no matter how many times he threatened to do it." Kurt shook his head. "You see what happened when Taylor stabbed himself."
"Nicky went right back in the statue." With a sigh, Dave asked, "Why didn't you tell me? If I'd known Nicky wasn't going to shoot Taylor, I would have fought him for the gun when I had the chance. I would have - "
"I didn't know, I didn't know until minutes before Taylor woke up! Yes, there are things I've known all along, but that wasn't one of them," Kurt replied, frustrated and feeling guilty nonetheless. "I tell you things as I'm told them myself, and as I'm allowed to. You don't know how many times I wanted to tell you how to wake Taylor up, but Boddah said it was too soon, that he'd take me out of here and I wouldn't be able to help you anymore. He's very serious about interfering with fate."
"Well, he's a reaper. I guess he would be." Dave pulled Kurt into a hug. "I'm sorry I got mad. You couldn't help the things you didn't know and couldn't tell me."
Kurt hugged him back. "I'm just glad you all got out of this alive."
They eventually broke the embrace and just looked at each other for a moment. Unable to resist, Dave leaned in and kissed Kurt, a kiss that lasted longer than he meant for it to. He briefly wondered to himself if this could be considered cheating, messing around with the ghost of his former lover. "Sorry, I just can't forget what it was like to be with you, and... I..."
Kurt shook his head. "You don't have to say it. I know that I devastated you when I killed myself." He looked down, chewing on his bottom lip. "I devastated a lot of people."
"You're making up for it, Kurt. You really are. I can tell just by speaking with you that you've grown a great deal in the years that have passed."
With a little pride on his face, Kurt raised his head. "I have. I've learned so much from making amends with the people I hurt with my suicide." He cradled Dave's face in his hand. "You're one of the last."
Dave rubbed his cheek against Kurt's fingers. "So what happens now?"
"Now? We find the witch who put the spell on this statue and get her to help us send Nicky back to Hell."
"Why do we need her help?"
"Because it's her spell. If we work against it without knowing exactly what she did, it could fuck everything up. Nicky could go free."
Dave leaned back, looking up and sighing. "How are we ever going to find her?"
"Boddah says you know someone with latent psychic abilities. Someone who could read the statue, give you a lot of information." Kurt explained. "Do you know who that is?"
"Uh, I think so. If I moved the statue out of my house, would that cause any problems?"
"Wherever the statue goes, I go with it. My best advice is to get the psychic to read the statue first, and use the information she gives you to safeguard this space while we work to give Nicky a one way ticket back where he belongs."
Dave nodded. "What do you mean by safeguard this space?"
Uncomfortable at the thought, Kurt squirmed a little. "Nicky's caged, but he's still here. He'll keep trying to communicate with anyone who comes around. That's unless you shut him up."
"It concerns me to leave him here, in my house."
"Of course, but if you move him now, it's going to mess with the spell. Just get the statue read, and safeguard it, and then it can be moved." Kurt swung his legs over the side of the bed. "Once we send Nicky back, we'll only have a few days before this space collapses, and I go back into limbo. So let's make sure we take care of everything first."
Dave nodded again. "I better get busy, then." He looked at Kurt. "What happens to you in limbo?"
"I start looking for forgiveness again. Got a few left."
Dave didn't ask who; he thought he already knew. "Before I go, take me to Nicky's cage. I have a few things I need to say to him."
The cage that held Nicky was covered with carved symbols, ones Dave didn't recognize, ones he had seen before but didn't know the meaning of, and some different types of crystals. Nicky paced the cage, his hands balled into fists, his breath coming quick and angry. When he saw Dave and Kurt approaching, he grabbed the bars and shook his body against them. "You let me out of here! Let me out!"
"You know that's not going to happen."
Grinning, Nicky hissed as he asked, "Did Taylor die? I hope he died in your arms while you cried, covered in his blood. I saw a glimpse of bloody clothes in your bathtub."
Dave shook his head. "No, he's alive. He bravely drove you out and he survived."
"You know what? It doesn't matter." The evil smile on Nicky's face sent chills up Dave's spine. "Someone else will try to communicate with me. I'll possess them and this time, I'll live again. And I'll find Taylor and cut his guts out. Then I'll come get you and cut you into pieces. Your wife will arrive home and find your head on the kitchen counter to greet her."
Dave didn't want to show fear to this psycho, but he couldn't help but wince. "No. No, you're not going to do any of those things. I'm going to find a way to take away any power that you have and send you back where you belong."
"Fine." Nicky pushed himself off the bars and began to pace again. "You made your choice. You could have been mine, but you'd rather die. We'll see who reaches their goal first."
Dave and Kurt said nothing else to him. They left the bubble in which he was trapped and returned to the safety of the big bed.
"What about all those demons? Where are they?" Dave asked as they reached the safe space.
Kurt explained, "Most of them have gone back to Hell. Len is still here because he linked himself with Nicky's soul. He's been caged too. Len can't do much to anyone as long as Nicky is trapped."
"Good deal. So once I get this psychic here, what do we do to safeguard the place?"
A few minutes later, Dave opened his eyes and sat up. He saw Chris scrubbing at the bloodstains on the chaise lounge with a brush. "Hey, thanks."
"Hey. What happened? Is Kurt okay?"
Dave explained everything he and Kurt had discussed. "I don't pretend to know how Witchcraft and spells work, but if a spell got Nicky in there to begin with, then a spell can take him out."
"Makes sense, I guess." Chris used a towel to blot up the fabric cleaner. "Um, can you move? I need to clean that cushion."
Dave looked behind him at the middle, back couch cushion. "Why?"
Chris guiltily looked at the cushion he'd rubbed himself against while Dave and Taylor made love. "I was kinda... sweaty sometimes... while I was lying here." He avoided Dave's gaze.
Even after twenty more minutes of cleaning, Dave still wasn't sure he wanted to keep the two pieces of furniture upon which he and Chris had been chained. "I may just chuck them both."
Chris checked his watch. "I really need to catch my flight. Will you be okay if I leave?"
"Yeah. I'm going to get started on what Kurt and I talked about. If I can get a hold of my psychic, I won't be alone in this house for long," Dave replied.
They said their goodbyes and Chris left for the airport. Dave took out his cell phone.
She answered on the second ring. "Petra? Hi, this Dave Grohl. Do you have a minute?"
Chapter 19: On the Mend
Word Count: 3,117
"It's in through here," Dave said, and stepped aside so Petra could enter the house.
She had been in the art room before, at a couple of Dave's block parties. On the phone, though, he hadn't told her very much, just that his house was still haunted and he needed someone to do a reading. Dave wanted to know he could trust what she said, that she was the real deal.
Petra stepped through the back door into the kitchen. She put her sunglasses up on her head, holding back some of the blonde hair that hadn't made it into a twisty ponytail. Dave knew she was younger than him, but still in her forties. There were rumors that she and Eddie had met on a Russian mail-order bride website, but they simply referred to it as a dating site.
"Do you feel anything?" he asked.
"I don't know if it works that quickly, Dave," Petra replied. Her voice still held a light Russian accent.
"Sorry. I don't really know how it works, except for what I've seen on TV and such. When I asked if you knew anyone from that magick store who might be able to read my house, I didn't think you'd say you."
"You had your suspicions." She looked around the kitchen, lightly touching the edges of the counter.
"Well, most people would have bought me a Parker Brothers Ouija board from the toy store. You got me a very special board."
"Yes. It was a hunch. You needed a powerful board to make contact with your ghost." Petra looked up from the counter. "You didn't tell me what happened."
Dave shrugged. "Things didn't go well. I need to make things safe in here again, before my kids come home from Hawaii."
Nodding, Petra looked toward the door that led down into the art room. "My grandmother was a hedge witch," she said. "People from all over the neighborhood came to her for home remedies, spells, protection against curses... hangover remedies..."
Dave couldn't help but snicker.
Petra smiled. "She told me I had some amount of psychic ability. That I could feel things other people couldn't. I get impressions by touching things. I don't know, sometimes it works." She went to the door to the art room and ran a hand over the painted wood. "You said the ghost came in with your new statue?"
"Yeah."
"Then it will be down here." Putting her hand on the door knob, Petra started to turn it.
"Wait!" Dave called. She looked back at him. "Just be careful, okay? You have to be really careful how you communicate with him."
Petra eyed him critically, as if she could read him too. "You didn't say the prayer that came with the board before you used it, did you?"
Feeling guilty, Dave shook his head.
"You opened a door that was hard to close."
He nodded.
"It's still a little open." Petra turned the knob. "Don't worry, I know how to protect us." Stepping through the doorway, she walked confidently down the stairs.
By the time they got to the art room and stood before the statue, some of Petra's confidence had left her. She shuddered just looking at it. "My lord, Dave... what have you got in your house? Such rage..."
"The ghost is in there."
"Who is this ghost?" And then, "What did he do?"
Swallowing the lump in his throat, Dave replied, "He killed people."
This raised her eyebrows. "You have the ghost of a murderer in your house?"
"Yeah."
"How did he get here?"
"I don't know."
Petra turned back to the statue, reaching in her purse and taking out a wide spool of white ribbon. "I can see that you're a very dangerous ghost. I don't dare speak to you until we set a few ground rules." Clearing her throat, Petra said, "I call upon the power of the All and my family's tradition of witchblood to harness this unquiet spirit. Charge this ribbon with white, protective energy in my family's name." She unwound enough ribbon until she could tie one of the statue's wrists with a knot, and then run the ribbon to the other wrist, binding them together. As she did this, Petra said, "I am speaking to the threatening spirit inside this statue, the one who has taken lives. I bind you from doing anymore harm to the inhabitants of this house, and everyone they love, and anyone else who may enter here. I bind you from acting out any violent impulses. I bind you from leaving your prison until such time as we send you away, and it will definitely not be by possessing the living." She knelt to tie his feet together. When that was done, she wound the ribbon around his head several times, covering his mouth. "I bind you from speaking any harm. You will only speak when spoken to, and you will stop talking when told. You are bound by these terms until such time as we deem it safe to let you go, and then you will depart in peace and go where you are told." Petra cut the last of the ribbon from the spool and stood back. "That should do it. My grandmother gave that spell to me."
"I don't think you left anything out."
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and put her hand on the statue's chest. "Do you have something to tell us?" Dave watched her squeeze her eyes shut harder, hoping the spell she had done would be as effective as she seemed to think it would be. "I won't help you," Petra said, speaking in a deeper voice. "You can go fuck yourself, Dave."
Dave swallowed any spit he had in his mouth. "Nicky?"
"Uh huh."
"Why wouldn't you help us? Don't you want revenge on the person who trapped you in that statue to begin with?" Dave asked.
Petra laughed, all snicker and no mirth. "Did you ever think that maybe I was working with them, that we had an agreement?"
This dislodged a memory from Saturday night, when Dave was passing between consciousness and the soothing blackness of the pills Nicky had slipped in his drink. He remembered the feeling of Nicky through Taylor's body hugging him around the chest and thanking someone. "Oh God, how did you do this? It's fucking Dave Grohl. Oh thank you, thank you." Everything everyone had been saying about this being suspicious was right. The statue, and Nicky, had been deliberately put in his house. "You made a deal with someone, to get you in here."
"Why Dave, that's crazy. How would such a thing even happen?"
Dave wanted to punch him again, just for the sarcastic, smug tone of his voice. "I don't know, you tell me."
Gasping, Petra backed up, taking her hand off the statue. "No, no, Nicholas. You can't get in. Stay! ...Stay." She looked at Dave. "He's a slippery little bastard."
"Was he possessing you just now?!"
"No. Just channeling. Speaking through me." Petra furrowed her brow in confusion and touched her ear. "I'm hearing something else." She looked around, and then down at the chaise lounge. "Oh. Hello. You look... somewhat familiar." Her eyes panned to the left and then went up, and up, until she was looking at a figure at least eight feet tall. Petra's eyes filled with fear and shock. "What is that? Dave, what is with your house?"
At first, he couldn't figure it out. "What do you see?"
"It's a very tall figure in a cloak, covering its face... I think it has a beak."
Dave sighed with relief. "Oh, that's just Boddah. He's a reaper. A friend. He won't hurt you." Looking down at the chaise lounge, he said, "I think I know who you were speaking to before."
"I, um... I recognize him. It's your friend. It's Kurt Cobain." She touched Dave's arm. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay. I knew he was here."
"He and the reaper are in some sort of pocket dimension created by the statue... by the magick that surrounds it. A limbo dimension. He's pointing over here... he's pointing to..." Petra walked over to the mirror that was hung across a corner of the room. The mirror that had reflected Taylor when Nicky possessed him, and shown them all a vision of Kurt and Taylor with Nicky's grandmother. She touched it. "This mirror... it's surrounded by a cloud of purple smoke. It's the magickal signature of the witch who enchanted it." Then she looked at the statue. "This has the same magickal signature."
"Then the same witch did both spells."
"Right."
"Then the artist of the mirror frame could be this witch," Dave surmised.
"It's a great place to start. And there's something else."
"What?"
With a sigh, Petra told him, "Besides the witch, you're going to need something that belonged to the ghost to send him away. The spell won't be very effective without it."
"How am I supposed to get something that belonged to Nicky?" Dave asked, clearly frustrated.
At first, Petra shrugged, but then turned toward Kurt. "Kurt says you already have it. That you'll figure it out."
Dave ran his hands through his hair, putting some of it behind his ears. "Does Kurt have anything else to say?"
Listening, Petra eventually replied, "He said it would be safe to enter this pocket dimension for a little while longer, especially with my new spell putting a leash on Nicholas. Just be careful what you ask him, because once he has been spoken to, he may speak." She listened a bit more, and had to giggle, her eyebrows raised in curiosity. "He also says your moustache tickles him when he kisses you."
At first Dave looked surprised, then he had to laugh too, and shake his head. "Oh, Kurt. I've missed you. I really have."
"He missed you too." Petra listened to the voice that only she could currently hear, and then said, "You will soon receive a dream that will tell you everything you need to know. Kurt will be allowed to bring it to you."
Dave nodded. "Okay. Thank you. And thanks, Kurt, for all your help with everything." Dave stroked the chaise lounge. It felt cold as death. "See you again soon."
When the doctor came looking for Taylor's family, Dave was sitting in the waiting room, reading a book he got from the used book store. He hoped the book, called Devious Smile: The Crimes of Austin Nicholas Kelly, would reveal to him what belonging of Nicky's he already had. The phone calls inquiring how Taylor was doing had stopped, albeit temporarily, giving him some time to breathe.
The doctor spotted Dave. "Hello again."
"Doctor Curry." Dave got up and shook the doctor's hand. "How did it go?"
"The surgery went well. We took care of the internal bleeding and confirmed that he didn't hit any vital organs. He's being brought into a room now. Is Mrs. Hawkins here yet?"
"No, but her plane should be landing soon."
"She may not make it before he's out for the night. We, of course, wake patients up in recovery, but once he gets to his room, he's going to sleep into tomorrow." Dr. Curry again offered his hand. Dave shook it. "The nurses will show you to his room."
"Thank you, Dr. Curry."
The attendants wheeled Taylor on his hospital bed by the waiting room; Dave followed along beside it. "Hey Taylor. How do you feel?"
Taylor groggily tried to focus his eyes on the person speaking to him. "Huh? Oh... hi Dave." He yawned. "I'm sleepy."
"He's not going to be much for conversation today," one of the nurses said with a grin. "He'll probably sleep for the rest of the day."
As if to prove her point, Taylor closed his eyes and grew quiet.
They got Taylor settled in his room. Dave took his hand and squeezed it. "I'll bring Alison in here to give you a good night kiss once she arrives, okay?"
"Mm? Good night kiss?" Taylor puckered and made a couple of kissing sounds.
The nurses laughed fondly.
Spotting the bag of urine hanging off the side of the bed, Dave joked, "Hey look Taylor, you've got your own personal stash of lemonade!"
Smacking his lips, Taylor said, "Mmmm. Lemonade." He went quiet, nodding off.
The nurses snickered and shook their heads. "Now, now," one of them said. "He's too weak to defend himself."
Dave stayed in the room a while longer to make sure Taylor wasn't going to wake up and ask for anything. As he was about to step out and check for messages, his phone rang.
It was Jordyn. "We're here. How's Taylor?"
"Sleeping. They just brought him out of recovery a half hour ago." Dave stuffed his book into a jacket pocket. "The surgery went well. Things look good."
Jordyn relayed this information to Alison. "Alison wants to visit him before we go back to the house."
"No problem. I'm on my way to get you." Checking Taylor one more time, Dave headed toward the parking lot.
"Um, I know you wanted to save Alison the worry, so I waited 'til we got here, but... I did tell her about the ghost."
Dave couldn't help but roll his eyes. "What did she say?"
"He wants to know what you said."
Alison called to the phone, "I said you guys got really drunk and scared yourselves with your ghost stories. We're lucky you're not all in the hospital."
Sighing, Dave realized it really didn't matter. He would prove it to them. "Ha ha. We'll talk about it when we get back to the house."
Dave reluctantly exited the hospital, leaving Taylor in their hands for the time being.
When Alison saw Taylor asleep in the hospital bed with the IV and other things attached to his body, she leaned down and kissed him on the lips. "My poor Bunny Foofoo." She peeked under the sheet at his bandaged abdomen. It all became more real to her at that moment. "Oh, Taylor." Alison smoothed his hair back off his face.
Taylor did not wake up, but did make a soft noise.
"They said he'd be pretty out of it until the morning," Dave commented. "Why don't we go back to the house and get something to eat, and I can explain all this ghost stuff?"
Alison nodded, obviously holding back tears.
Taking her hand and patting it, Jordyn said, "You're staying with us tonight."
"Thank you. I don't know what I'd do with myself if I had to rattle around in that house alone." Alison went back to Taylor's side and leaned over him. "Hey. Baby? Good night kiss?"
There came a quiet, "Mm, night," and Taylor softly kissed back, then was asleep again. He hadn't opened his eyes throughout the entire exchange.
"Surgery takes a lot out of you," she remarked, and followed her friends out of the hospital room.
Dave, putting his arm around Jordyn, joked with her, "How come you don't have any pet names for me?"
Smiling, she said, "Do you wanna be Bunny Foofoo too?"
Jordyn and Alison were both looking at him, perplexed, and he didn't know where to start. It certainly was a strange scene. In the kitchen where they sat, eating a quick dinner, there wasn't a glass cup to be found. (Nicky had broken them all.) Downstairs, there was a $20,000 statue tied up with white ribbon and two holes in the wall that hadn't been there before. In the bedroom, the suitcases they had helped Dave and Taylor pack were open and thoroughly rifled through, and the gun usually kept locked up in the nightstand lay out beside the bed. One of the oddest things to Jordyn was that someone had obviously cleaned her Lalique vase to a gleaming shine, where before it had grown dusty. Why on Earth...?
Dave tried to start at the beginning. "What I'm about to tell you is going to sound insane... but it's all completely true. I was there. I experienced it. Everything I'm about to tell you, I believe it, and Chris believes it, and I can guarantee you Taylor believes it."
Oogly jumped up on the table and looked at him. "Meow."
He couldn't help but grin; it was like the cat was saying I was there too, and she wanted to offer her support. Dave stroked her back. "All I ask is that you listen with an open mind."
The girls looked at each other and shrugged. "Okay."
"We did make contact with the ghost. At first, he was being vague and avoided telling us his full name, just that his name was Nicky. Shortly after, though, the things he said became threatening and scary. That he was here and he wasn't going anywhere, and there wasn't a thing we could do to make him leave. I started yelling at him, telling him to go, and I turned and saw... Taylor had his hands on the Ouija pointer, like this." Dave imitated the positioning of Taylor's hands on the planchette. "I saw his reflection in the mirror, you know the one hung across the corner?"
Jordyn nodded.
"And Taylor wasn't alone. There was this transparent cloud-like thing floating behind him, with its arms around him. It looked like a person, only ghostly, you know?"
Alison visibly shuddered.
"When I looked straight at Taylor, no ghost. But in the mirror... I didn't realize what was happening at the time, but... uh... You know how we talked about the ghost influencing Taylor to not act like himself?" Dave asked.
"Uh huh."
"The ghost actually possessed Taylor."
There was a long pause. Finally, "What?"
Even Oogly looked up at him. "Meow?"
Dave glanced around the table at all the confused, horrified faces. He wondered briefly what it would take for Jordyn to have him committed. "And on that note, I need another beer."
Dave played her words over and over in his mind, and they didn't change. His blood ran cold. Chills moved up his back. Eight people, eight people, eight people...'>
Chp 20: New Way Home
Word Count: 3,851
He told them the story, exactly how it had happened. He told them about Nicky drugging him. He told them about waking up handcuffed down to the chaise lounge. He told them about Taylor acting like someone else, and the dream he had of Kurt, but that it really wasn't a dream. Kurt was here, in a pocket dimension, with Boddah. And how Taylor's eyes changed color.
He told them about the spell that had been put on the statue, and finding out who the ghost was, and how someone had put him here, someone had made a deal. He told them how Chris got involved, and Nicky's threats of violence. Finally, he told them how Taylor had heroically driven Nicky back into the statue, and how they rushed him to the hospital to save his life.
The only detail Dave left out of the story for now was what the group of men spent most of their time doing from Saturday night to Monday morning: the sex. First, he had to get Jordyn and Alison to accept the possession.
When he finished, Dave put his second beer down on the table. "What do you think?" he asked.
The two women looked at each other with troubled expressions. "It's certainly a very... elaborate story..." Alison commented.
"Dave, you've got to have some creative talent to be able to write songs and everything, but... to make up something like this... you simply wouldn't. Not about your friends and bandmates." Jordyn sighed. "But it's just so unbelievable."
"Babe, I know. I know it is. But it happened."
His face was so earnest, so desperate to be believed. "The thing that scares me the most about all this is you really believe the story you just told us. You really and truly believe it."
Dave, feeling a little helpless, just nodded.
"Is there any chance that 'Nicky' slipped you some LSD?" Alison asked.
She didn't believe him. Alison thought he'd lost his mind. "I can prove it to you," he declared. It was his last shot.
"How?"
Now it was Dave's turn to be smug. "All you have to do is go down into the art room and fall asleep near the statue. We'll go to the limbo dimension where Kurt and Boddah are, and you can meet everybody. Including Nicky."
The women looked at each other again. "Lord knows I could use a nap," Alison said with a shrug.
'Okay," Jordyn agreed. "I'm pretty exhausted myself after that long flight." Silently to herself, she hoped the story would turn out to be true, as crazy as it was. Otherwise, her husband might be losing his mind.
Alison took the couch, Jordyn the chaise lounge, and Dave leaned himself back in a recliner near the enchanted mirror. The only warning he gave them was not to talk to Nicky. "Let me handle that."
Alison nodded off first, his wife second, but sleep would not come to Dave easily. He feared that for some reason, it wouldn't work, and the wives wouldn't be able to get into the mindscape with Kurt. That he wouldn't be able to prove a thing to them. He didn't realize that he'd fallen asleep until he heard Boddah's chatter.
Amazed with what she was seeing, Jordyn walked up to the light blue bed and addressed the young blonde man who sat up as she approached. He seemed just as shocked to see her as she was to see him. "Are you Kurt Cobain?"
He nodded. "Yeah."
Jordyn's expression hardened a bit, any trace of a smile disappearing. "You're the man who broke my husband's heart."
Dave encountered Alison first by following the noise Boddah was making. She stood in front of the reaper, looking at it with fear and wonder. "You're just as Dave described you. But that's the power of suggestion, isn't it?"
Boddah actually shrugged.
Coming up behind her, Dave put a hand on Alison's shoulder. She shrieked and whirled on him with wide eyes. "Jesus Christ, Dave!"
"Sorry, sorry. Uh, that's Boddah."
"I gathered."
"Boddah, I'm a little turned around in here. Which way is Kurt?"
Raising one bony hand, Boddah pointed off to the left.
"Thanks, man."
He steered Alison off in that direction. As they walked away from the reaper, she kept looking back, afraid it was following them. "That thing's a little creepy."
"Well, he is an agent of death."
They approached the bed where Kurt and Jordyn were talking; Dave noticed that the look on Kurt's face was troubled. "I see you two have met."
Kurt tried to put on a smile. "We have." His face suddenly lit up, amused and delighted. "You got yourself a spitfire here, Dave. She just gave me what for for taking myself out of this world. I deserved that."
Jordyn gave Dave a look, one he knew meant there was more to that story. They could talk about it later. "She keeps me on my toes." Touching her shoulder again, Dave said, "This is Taylor's wife, Alison."
Kurt nodded to her.
"And you're the ghost of Kurt Cobain, right?" Alison was still using a sarcastic, disbelieving tone.
"That I am." Kurt looked up at Dave. "She doesn't believe you, does she?"
Alison spoke first. "She's skeptical, yes."
Grinning, Kurt asked, "How exactly would Dave accomplish this?" He spread out his arms to indicate the mindscape. "It doesn't impress you at all that you're all having the same 'dream' right now?"
Alison frowned. "When I wake up, I'll ask Jordyn what she dreamed about. Then I'll know if that's really true."
"What else would it take to prove it to you?"
She thought about it a moment. "Dave told us the name of this ghost, and I didn't recognize the name. Court TV wasn't something I watched much back then. I have no idea what this Nicky guy looked like. Once I wake up, I'll Google him and if the faces match, I would have to accept that everything Dave told us really happened, and that he really does have the soul of a serial killer trapped inside some sort of limbo dimension. I wouldn't have any reason to put it off on the power of suggestion since Dave didn't even describe him."
Kurt seemed impressed. "You gotta admit, Dave, it's a good idea."
He just hoped Alison wouldn't find a way to weasel out of it when she saw that the Nicky in the cage looked exactly like the pictures on the internet. "Will you just show us where the cage is again? I get so turned around in here."
"Certainly."
Nicky stood at the bars of his cage, like he had been waiting for them the entire time. He wore a mischievous expression. As he looked at that face, Dave tried to reassure himself that he could keep control of what Nicky said. Nicky could only speak when spoken to, and had to stop talking when told to shut up. It was obvious that Nicky wanted to speak when he saw the two women. He wanted to speak very badly.
Nicky was assuming he knew who these women were. Dave wasn't going to help him by confirming it. "What is your name?"
"Austin Nicholas Kelly." He looked at Jordyn, then Alison. "But you can call me Nicky."
"Did you possess Taylor Hawkins?"
"Yes, I did. I wanted you all to myself, but - "
"Shut up," Dave told him, trying to stay calm. He would tell Jordyn and Alison about the sex, he and Taylor would do it together, but he didn't want them to find out this way. Not from Nicky. "How did you take control of Taylor's body?"
"First you tell me to shut up, then you want me to talk. You've got me so confused, I don't know what to do," Nicky said, amused with himself.
"Will you just answer the goddamn question?" Dave snapped. If Nicky confirmed the facts Dave had told the two women, maybe then they would believe him.
But Nicky wasn't about to help him. Nicky wanted to have some fun. He had an idea of what Jordyn looked like from the pictures around the house, but he pretended he didn't know which woman was her by talking straight to Alison. "Does he get forceful like this when the two of you are in bed with that His and Hers lube?"
Alison looked confused and said, "Huh?", but Jordyn cried, "How do you know about that?!", her eyes going wide.
"Shut your fucking mouth!" Dave yelled at him. Kurt put a hand over his eyes, almost doing a slow burn.
Pointing between herself and Jordyn, Alison said, "I'm not - "
"Alison, please don't talk to him," Dave begged. "He's just going to say shit to try to upset us." He addressed Jordyn. "Nicky looked through the drawers in our bedroom."
She shifted around like the question had made her uncomfortable. "It's really weird, to think he was in Taylor's body while he did all these things."
Nicky grinned at them, satisfied with himself.
Dave sighed. "I'll give you one more chance. Are you going to answer the question without adding some cute little comment?"
Instead of saying anything about this second question, Nicky simply answered the first one. "I used a spell that was put on the mannequin by a witch to take control of Taylor's body. You just have to learn how to twist magick to use it to your advantage."
"And you used it to put Taylor to sleep."
"Yes, I did. So I could use him to do whatever I wanted to you," he said to Dave.
Dave winced and closed his eyes for a moment. This was a bad idea. He hoped the small amount of information they had gained from Nicky would be enough, because he wasn't going to ask him anything else. "Okay, we're - "
Nicky cut him off before he could tell him to stop talking and quickly said to Alison, "Did your husband tell you he was Oh?"
Kurt groaned.
Both women looked at Dave with shocked expressions. "How does he know about that?!" Alison cried.
Right after, Jordyn shrieked, "Taylor is Oh?!"
That was it. Growling loudly, Dave ran up to the cage and grabbed Nicky by the shirt and hair and began to yank him into the bars as hard as he could. He immediately found out that he could hurt a ghost here when blood came out of Nicky's nose, but even though Dave was hurting him, he still laughed... and laughed... and laughed.
"Shut up, shut up, fucking shut up!" Dave screamed.
Afraid Nicky would hurt him, Kurt pulled Dave away from the cage. Dave let him go. Nicky fell back on the floor and did nothing to stop his soul from bleeding; he just looked at Dave and chuckled darkly.
"Taylor is Oh? Taylor is Oh?!" Jordyn kept saying.
Dave looked around. Alison was gone. Then he also woke up when he felt Alison shaking him.
"Wake up, goddamnit, wake up!" she said.
The sound of Nicky's snickers followed Dave into his waking. He blinked up at Alison, and glanced over at Jordyn, who was just waking up too. Both women looked upset. "Tell me what you know about Oh," Alison said. "How long have you known?"
Near tears, Jordyn said, "You had sex with Taylor?"
Dave put the footrest down on the recliner so he could fully sit up. "I'll tell you everything. Okay? But check Google first, while Nicky's face is still fresh in your mind."
Alison had almost forgotten about that. She got out her phone and opened the internet browser. After making sure she spelled his name right, Alison looked at the pictures that came up. Her eyes went wide and she put a hand over her mouth. "Oh my God. It's him. It's the guy from the cage." Her eyes filled with tears. "That animal was in control of my husband?"
Dave nodded.
From what Jordyn had said, her dream matched Alison's. She couldn't deny it anymore. "This is real. The possession, the ghost, it all really happened." Alison burst into tears. "My poor Taylor."
Jordyn went over and sat next to her, hugging her and rubbing her back. Dave watched them, feeling helpless and a little useless. What could he do to make any of this better? "He's going to be okay," he offered. "Doctors fixed him right up."
"But what about his mental state?" Alison sobbed. "Can you imagine what it could do to a person to be possessed by a serial killer?" She suddenly gasped. "Oh God. You said he left the house at least twice. How do we know he didn't... hurt someone?"
"Nicky got really mad at me when I suggested this was possible. I didn't want him to leave the house because I feared he might hurt somebody. He said he wouldn't do that because he didn't want to bring attention to himself. And also that he was discerning and didn't want to kill just anyone." Dave thought about how Nicky looked when he came back from the store. "I never saw any signs that he had hurt anyone. No blood or anything."
"Oh, what a smart serial killer he is, then," Alison said sarcastically.
Jordyn tried to comfort her too. "We'll check the paper. See if anyone went missing over the weekend."
That only brought on fresh tears. Alison covered her face with her hands. "What if this animal killed someone? My baby will be blamed." She wailed out, "My Bunny Foofoo."
Jordyn held her again. It took Alison a minute to get control of herself. "He said he wasn't going to hurt anyone?" she asked Dave, grasping at any hope she could get.
Nodding, he replied, "Yeah, that's what he said."
It would have to do. Alison took the tissue Jordyn offered her and blew her nose. "Okay. I'm going to try to stop thinking about it, then."
Dave kind of hoped that this conversation had made a good enough distraction from the things Nicky had brought up so they could discuss Oh and everything that came with him tomorrow, but he should have known he'd have no such luck. Jordyn said, "Good. Then can we discuss Oh?"
Dave cringed. "I'd rather discuss all this with Taylor present."
"But, I can't wait. I need to talk about it now." She turned to Alison. "How long have you known that Taylor was Oh? How long have you known that our husbands had sex?"
Alison put up her hands defensively. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, but Taylor swore me to secrecy. I thought he should tell you both."
"Why did he want to keep it a secret?"
"He joined the Foo Fighters shortly after. Taylor didn't want Dave to think that the reason he slept with him was to get into the band. Taylor slept with him because he wanted to, but he knew how bad it might look to Dave." Sighing, Alison continued, "You don't know how good it feels to have that secret out. It's too big of a secret to keep from someone, but I swore I wouldn't tell."
"When did Taylor tell you?" Dave asked.
"Shortly before we got married. I had met you, and Taylor said he wanted to get more of his sexual past out in the open. And he told me he'd slept with you, but you didn't know he was the guy you slept with." She fidgeted with the hem of her skirt. "You were too wasted."
Covering her face with her hands, Jordyn mumbled, "Oh my God, oh my God..." She dropped her hands into her lap. "Years ago, Dave told me about what things were like after his first marriage ended and how upset and depressed he was for months; his band was falling apart and Jennifer was leaving him, and one night, he met this blonde in a record store who only wanted to be known as Oh. But like you said, Dave was too wasted to really remember his face. And then not too long after, Taylor joined the band and the Foo Fighters started to come back together again." She gestured to her husband. "Dave told me that he thought Oh was good luck and he wished he could find him. And you're telling me that guy is Taylor? Holy shit."
Dave looked at his wife with guilt on his face; she was pretty blown away by this revelation. "I was just as shocked as you are."
"When did you find out, Dave?"
He scoffed. "When Nicky told me. He said he had access to Taylor's memories. He only did it to fuck with my head," Dave said. "One of his favorite things to do."
Alison, shaking her head, growled, "What a fucking sicko. I can't believe that someone who killed eight people was inside my husband's head, controlling him. It's terrifying."
Dave played her words over and over in his mind, and they didn't change. His blood ran cold. Chills moved up his back. Eight people, eight people, eight people...
"Dave?" Jordyn didn't like the shock and horror she saw on his face.
He asked, "Alison, how many people did you say Nicky killed?"
"Eight." She held up her phone. "That's what it says on the internet."
Grabbing his book about Nicky's crimes, Dave checked the back cover. He hadn't gotten very far into the book, but the summary on the back told him what he needed to know.
...murdered eight men over a period of ten years...
He sat down hard on the couch. Nicky's words filled his head.
"Eleven. It was eleven. "
"Dave, what is the matter? Your face has gone completely white." Jordyn sat down next to him, touching his hand.
When he spoke, his voice shook, no matter how hard he tried to keep it steady. "I'm going to tell you something Nicky told me, but I don't want you to panic."
"How can you expect me not to panic when you say it like that?" Alison said, close to yelling.
Putting up a defensive hand, Dave took a shaky breath. "Nicky told me he killed eleven people."
Almost instantly, Alison began to breathe way too hard and fast, on her way to hyperventilating. Her breaths were shrill, hysterical. "Then he used Taylor's body to... to... three more... oh God..."
Jordyn went over and took her by the arms. "Now we don't know that, Alison."
"Not for sure, but it looks pretty bad, doesn't it?"
Dave put his head in his hands.
Jordyn got Alison to stand up and go with her to the couch. There she attempted to get her to calm down. "Please, take deep breaths for me, Alison. You're going to hyperventilate."
Stroking his beard nervously, Dave tried to remember what Nicky had told him when. "Wait. Nicky possessed Taylor on Saturday night. He told me he had murdered eleven people the next morning. Yeah, Nicky did go out that night to buy the handcuffs and the rope, but he couldn't have killed three people and hidden the bodies in a few hours." Dave laughed at this ludicrous idea. "It took him ten years to kill eight. He must've taken three other lives in those ten years that the authorities don't know about. That kind of thing happens all the time with serial killers."
Alison was nodding. "Do you think that's all it is?"
"That makes a lot of sense," Jordyn agreed.
Suddenly, Alison burst into tears again. "But what if Dave is wrong?"
"Oh, Alison, shhhh..." Jordyn hugged her. "You can talk to Taylor in the morning and he'll tell you himself he didn't hurt anyone."
Alison said nothing else on the subject, just crying until she felt she was done. Then she declared, "I can't sleep here as long as that monster is in this house. I want to sleep in Taylor's room so I can be there when he wakes up."
"Okay, I can fully understand that. Do you want me to stay with you?"
"No, I'll be okay by myself for the night. Just, can I borrow a blanket?"
The women got up to go find one. Dave said, "Wait."
They stopped and looked back.
"Before we take you back to the hospital, you need to know about something Nicky did and how Taylor explained it to the doctor. There will probably be questions."
"Okay."
Dave explained, "Nicky went out for a short time on Sunday afternoon. He didn't want Chris and I to plot against him while he was gone, so he drugged us with half a Morphecil so we'd only be out for a couple hours. I woke up to him doing this to me." Unbuttoning a few buttons on his shirt, Dave pulled it to one side so they could see the red scratchy lines on his chest that spelled MINE.
Both women came closer. "Oh my God..." Jordyn exclaimed. "Did he do that with a knife?"
Dave nodded.
"My poor baby." Jordyn gave him a kiss.
"Monday morning, Nicky was trying to prove how much he cared for me, so he took a knife and carved YOURS into his arm."
Alison gasped. "Taylor's arm."
Nodding again, Dave added, "The doctor is going to have questions about it. Does your husband want to hurt himself? Shit like that. Obviously, Taylor couldn't tell them the truth, so he told them he had a fight with you over the phone on Sunday night, got drunk, and carved that word into his arm to prove his love for you." He shrugged. "It was the best we could come up with on the spur of the moment."
"No, it's a decent story. Certainly better than the ghost did it." Scoffing, Alison shook her head. "Can you imagine how that would go?"
"Not well."
While the girls prepared to go back to the hospital, Dave examined the wounds to his chest in the mirror. He put some antiseptic on them and was about to apply a gauze pad when the idea occurred to him for the first time.
MINE.
Could Dave himself act as the belonging of Nicky's they would need to make the spell work?
Chps 21-23
Masterpost
See previous chapters for info and warnings.
68,572 words so far
Chapters in this post: 18-20
'Did Taylor die? I hope he died in your arms while you cried, covered in his blood.''>
Chapter 18: Hell to Pay
Word Count: 2,384
The house seemed eerily quiet when Dave and Chris returned. Oogly sat at the top of the stairs that led down to the art room. She looked up at Dave and gave a questioning, "Meow?"
"Yeah, I know. Things aren't quite right down there." Dave turned to Chris. "Would you go in that cupboard and get all the cleaning supplies we'll need? I'm gonna change my clothes."
Chris nodded, trying to smile. "Okay." He patted Dave's arm.
Dave filled the bathtub in the master bath, which was separate from the shower, with a few inches of cold water. He'd always been told that cold water would help get blood out. Then he stripped off his clothes and put them in the tub, soaking them through and through. Already he could see the blood coming out and the water turning red.
Using the sink, Dave washed off his stomach and thigh, which were tacky with the blood that had soaked through. He also thoroughly scrubbed his hands and under his nails. Blood got everywhere, didn't it? Once he was done, Dave had to hold tightly to the side of the sink and will himself not to break down again. It was hard, after washing so much of Taylor's blood out of his being.
He felt better after he'd put on fresh clothes. Dave got a plastic red laundry basket and went back to the tub to get his wet clothing.
Suddenly, he saw the head in the tub. The bloody head Nicky had shown to Jordyn. And then it was gone.
Dave gasped, stumbling back a few steps. His heart lurched in his chest. What the hell was that?
The vision did not happen again, and Dave was able to collect his clothes. He thought about what had just happened while pretreating the remains of the bloodstains on his shirt and jeans. By the time the clothing was in the wash, he had figured it out.
Nicky was trying to communicate with anyone in the house, just as he had before they brought out the Ouija board. He was feeling out in the dark.
Seething with anger, Dave walked down the stairs to the art room. Chris was already there. He avoided looking at the statue as he mopped up Taylor's blood. Most of it was gone, the mop water turned pink and sudsy. Dave was grateful to him for doing it.
"Thank you, Chris," he said, rubbing his shoulder. Unable to stop himself, Dave approached the statue.
"Careful," Chris warned.
"It's okay," Dave said. "He's trapped." He looked the statue in the eye.
After a few seconds, a trail of blue paint ran from its eye. Like a tear.
His face twisting into a snarl, Dave screamed, "CRY ME A RIVER, BITCH!" and punched the statue so hard, its head hit the wall behind it and left a dent in the plaster.
Chris came over to him, taking his arm. "Dave, don't do this. You'll break your hand. It's a plastic mannequin."
"Maybe he can still feel it," Dave mumbled.
"No, I don't think he can. Nicky's a ghost."
"He'll still know how I feel about his pathetic little tear." Breathing hard with anger, Dave looked the statue up and down. "Come on. Help me get this fucking thing out of here. I'm getting Nicky out of my house."
"Where are we taking him?" Chris asked.
"To 606. I'm going to lock him up in a closet until I figure out who did this to us."
"What about Kurt?"
The question took him aback; Dave had been so focused on what happened to Taylor... "Oh, right. The last time we saw him, he was fighting with Len..."
"And then he possessed Taylor," Chris added.
"Maybe I better try that meditation thing and go talk to him."
"Is that safe?" Chris warily eyed the statue. "Is Nicky wandering the white space now?"
"I have to find out. Kurt may need my help." Sitting down on the couch, Dave tried to calm his breathing. "Will you watch to make sure nothing happens to me?"
"Yeah. If you start struggling or anything, I'll pull you out." Once more, Chris eyed the statue. "The last thing I want to do right now is go in there with you and possibly see or speak to Nicky."
"I can understand that." It was the first thing Dave wanted to do, to find Nicky and knock his soul all over the mindscape.
Dave leaned back and closed his eyes. As he had done before, Kurt pulled him quickly into the mindscape. It had changed again. The big bed had been replaced by one with clean, light blue sheets. Most of the doors were hidden away. Kurt lay on the bed, his hands clasped on top of his stomach. He raised his head when Dave walked up. "Hey."
"Hey." Dave sat on the edge of the bed. Kurt sat up so they were eye-to-eye. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm alright. Boddah kept Len from hurting me," Kurt explained. He finger-combed some of Dave's hair behind his ear. "How is Taylor?"
"He's in surgery to stop internal bleeding. They say he should be okay."
Looking down, Kurt said, "When I told Taylor that getting seriously hurt would drive Nicky out of his body, I never meant for him to stab himself." He looked up, eyes damp with threatening tears. "You know that, right? I was just trying to explain the advantages he had over Nicky in the fight."
"I know you weren't trying to hurt Taylor."
"I just wanted him to know about Nicky's lies and manipulation. It's very unlikely he ever would have killed Taylor no matter how many times he threatened to do it." Kurt shook his head. "You see what happened when Taylor stabbed himself."
"Nicky went right back in the statue." With a sigh, Dave asked, "Why didn't you tell me? If I'd known Nicky wasn't going to shoot Taylor, I would have fought him for the gun when I had the chance. I would have - "
"I didn't know, I didn't know until minutes before Taylor woke up! Yes, there are things I've known all along, but that wasn't one of them," Kurt replied, frustrated and feeling guilty nonetheless. "I tell you things as I'm told them myself, and as I'm allowed to. You don't know how many times I wanted to tell you how to wake Taylor up, but Boddah said it was too soon, that he'd take me out of here and I wouldn't be able to help you anymore. He's very serious about interfering with fate."
"Well, he's a reaper. I guess he would be." Dave pulled Kurt into a hug. "I'm sorry I got mad. You couldn't help the things you didn't know and couldn't tell me."
Kurt hugged him back. "I'm just glad you all got out of this alive."
They eventually broke the embrace and just looked at each other for a moment. Unable to resist, Dave leaned in and kissed Kurt, a kiss that lasted longer than he meant for it to. He briefly wondered to himself if this could be considered cheating, messing around with the ghost of his former lover. "Sorry, I just can't forget what it was like to be with you, and... I..."
Kurt shook his head. "You don't have to say it. I know that I devastated you when I killed myself." He looked down, chewing on his bottom lip. "I devastated a lot of people."
"You're making up for it, Kurt. You really are. I can tell just by speaking with you that you've grown a great deal in the years that have passed."
With a little pride on his face, Kurt raised his head. "I have. I've learned so much from making amends with the people I hurt with my suicide." He cradled Dave's face in his hand. "You're one of the last."
Dave rubbed his cheek against Kurt's fingers. "So what happens now?"
"Now? We find the witch who put the spell on this statue and get her to help us send Nicky back to Hell."
"Why do we need her help?"
"Because it's her spell. If we work against it without knowing exactly what she did, it could fuck everything up. Nicky could go free."
Dave leaned back, looking up and sighing. "How are we ever going to find her?"
"Boddah says you know someone with latent psychic abilities. Someone who could read the statue, give you a lot of information." Kurt explained. "Do you know who that is?"
"Uh, I think so. If I moved the statue out of my house, would that cause any problems?"
"Wherever the statue goes, I go with it. My best advice is to get the psychic to read the statue first, and use the information she gives you to safeguard this space while we work to give Nicky a one way ticket back where he belongs."
Dave nodded. "What do you mean by safeguard this space?"
Uncomfortable at the thought, Kurt squirmed a little. "Nicky's caged, but he's still here. He'll keep trying to communicate with anyone who comes around. That's unless you shut him up."
"It concerns me to leave him here, in my house."
"Of course, but if you move him now, it's going to mess with the spell. Just get the statue read, and safeguard it, and then it can be moved." Kurt swung his legs over the side of the bed. "Once we send Nicky back, we'll only have a few days before this space collapses, and I go back into limbo. So let's make sure we take care of everything first."
Dave nodded again. "I better get busy, then." He looked at Kurt. "What happens to you in limbo?"
"I start looking for forgiveness again. Got a few left."
Dave didn't ask who; he thought he already knew. "Before I go, take me to Nicky's cage. I have a few things I need to say to him."
The cage that held Nicky was covered with carved symbols, ones Dave didn't recognize, ones he had seen before but didn't know the meaning of, and some different types of crystals. Nicky paced the cage, his hands balled into fists, his breath coming quick and angry. When he saw Dave and Kurt approaching, he grabbed the bars and shook his body against them. "You let me out of here! Let me out!"
"You know that's not going to happen."
Grinning, Nicky hissed as he asked, "Did Taylor die? I hope he died in your arms while you cried, covered in his blood. I saw a glimpse of bloody clothes in your bathtub."
Dave shook his head. "No, he's alive. He bravely drove you out and he survived."
"You know what? It doesn't matter." The evil smile on Nicky's face sent chills up Dave's spine. "Someone else will try to communicate with me. I'll possess them and this time, I'll live again. And I'll find Taylor and cut his guts out. Then I'll come get you and cut you into pieces. Your wife will arrive home and find your head on the kitchen counter to greet her."
Dave didn't want to show fear to this psycho, but he couldn't help but wince. "No. No, you're not going to do any of those things. I'm going to find a way to take away any power that you have and send you back where you belong."
"Fine." Nicky pushed himself off the bars and began to pace again. "You made your choice. You could have been mine, but you'd rather die. We'll see who reaches their goal first."
Dave and Kurt said nothing else to him. They left the bubble in which he was trapped and returned to the safety of the big bed.
"What about all those demons? Where are they?" Dave asked as they reached the safe space.
Kurt explained, "Most of them have gone back to Hell. Len is still here because he linked himself with Nicky's soul. He's been caged too. Len can't do much to anyone as long as Nicky is trapped."
"Good deal. So once I get this psychic here, what do we do to safeguard the place?"
A few minutes later, Dave opened his eyes and sat up. He saw Chris scrubbing at the bloodstains on the chaise lounge with a brush. "Hey, thanks."
"Hey. What happened? Is Kurt okay?"
Dave explained everything he and Kurt had discussed. "I don't pretend to know how Witchcraft and spells work, but if a spell got Nicky in there to begin with, then a spell can take him out."
"Makes sense, I guess." Chris used a towel to blot up the fabric cleaner. "Um, can you move? I need to clean that cushion."
Dave looked behind him at the middle, back couch cushion. "Why?"
Chris guiltily looked at the cushion he'd rubbed himself against while Dave and Taylor made love. "I was kinda... sweaty sometimes... while I was lying here." He avoided Dave's gaze.
Even after twenty more minutes of cleaning, Dave still wasn't sure he wanted to keep the two pieces of furniture upon which he and Chris had been chained. "I may just chuck them both."
Chris checked his watch. "I really need to catch my flight. Will you be okay if I leave?"
"Yeah. I'm going to get started on what Kurt and I talked about. If I can get a hold of my psychic, I won't be alone in this house for long," Dave replied.
They said their goodbyes and Chris left for the airport. Dave took out his cell phone.
She answered on the second ring. "Petra? Hi, this Dave Grohl. Do you have a minute?"
Chapter 19: On the Mend
Word Count: 3,117
"It's in through here," Dave said, and stepped aside so Petra could enter the house.
She had been in the art room before, at a couple of Dave's block parties. On the phone, though, he hadn't told her very much, just that his house was still haunted and he needed someone to do a reading. Dave wanted to know he could trust what she said, that she was the real deal.
Petra stepped through the back door into the kitchen. She put her sunglasses up on her head, holding back some of the blonde hair that hadn't made it into a twisty ponytail. Dave knew she was younger than him, but still in her forties. There were rumors that she and Eddie had met on a Russian mail-order bride website, but they simply referred to it as a dating site.
"Do you feel anything?" he asked.
"I don't know if it works that quickly, Dave," Petra replied. Her voice still held a light Russian accent.
"Sorry. I don't really know how it works, except for what I've seen on TV and such. When I asked if you knew anyone from that magick store who might be able to read my house, I didn't think you'd say you."
"You had your suspicions." She looked around the kitchen, lightly touching the edges of the counter.
"Well, most people would have bought me a Parker Brothers Ouija board from the toy store. You got me a very special board."
"Yes. It was a hunch. You needed a powerful board to make contact with your ghost." Petra looked up from the counter. "You didn't tell me what happened."
Dave shrugged. "Things didn't go well. I need to make things safe in here again, before my kids come home from Hawaii."
Nodding, Petra looked toward the door that led down into the art room. "My grandmother was a hedge witch," she said. "People from all over the neighborhood came to her for home remedies, spells, protection against curses... hangover remedies..."
Dave couldn't help but snicker.
Petra smiled. "She told me I had some amount of psychic ability. That I could feel things other people couldn't. I get impressions by touching things. I don't know, sometimes it works." She went to the door to the art room and ran a hand over the painted wood. "You said the ghost came in with your new statue?"
"Yeah."
"Then it will be down here." Putting her hand on the door knob, Petra started to turn it.
"Wait!" Dave called. She looked back at him. "Just be careful, okay? You have to be really careful how you communicate with him."
Petra eyed him critically, as if she could read him too. "You didn't say the prayer that came with the board before you used it, did you?"
Feeling guilty, Dave shook his head.
"You opened a door that was hard to close."
He nodded.
"It's still a little open." Petra turned the knob. "Don't worry, I know how to protect us." Stepping through the doorway, she walked confidently down the stairs.
By the time they got to the art room and stood before the statue, some of Petra's confidence had left her. She shuddered just looking at it. "My lord, Dave... what have you got in your house? Such rage..."
"The ghost is in there."
"Who is this ghost?" And then, "What did he do?"
Swallowing the lump in his throat, Dave replied, "He killed people."
This raised her eyebrows. "You have the ghost of a murderer in your house?"
"Yeah."
"How did he get here?"
"I don't know."
Petra turned back to the statue, reaching in her purse and taking out a wide spool of white ribbon. "I can see that you're a very dangerous ghost. I don't dare speak to you until we set a few ground rules." Clearing her throat, Petra said, "I call upon the power of the All and my family's tradition of witchblood to harness this unquiet spirit. Charge this ribbon with white, protective energy in my family's name." She unwound enough ribbon until she could tie one of the statue's wrists with a knot, and then run the ribbon to the other wrist, binding them together. As she did this, Petra said, "I am speaking to the threatening spirit inside this statue, the one who has taken lives. I bind you from doing anymore harm to the inhabitants of this house, and everyone they love, and anyone else who may enter here. I bind you from acting out any violent impulses. I bind you from leaving your prison until such time as we send you away, and it will definitely not be by possessing the living." She knelt to tie his feet together. When that was done, she wound the ribbon around his head several times, covering his mouth. "I bind you from speaking any harm. You will only speak when spoken to, and you will stop talking when told. You are bound by these terms until such time as we deem it safe to let you go, and then you will depart in peace and go where you are told." Petra cut the last of the ribbon from the spool and stood back. "That should do it. My grandmother gave that spell to me."
"I don't think you left anything out."
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and put her hand on the statue's chest. "Do you have something to tell us?" Dave watched her squeeze her eyes shut harder, hoping the spell she had done would be as effective as she seemed to think it would be. "I won't help you," Petra said, speaking in a deeper voice. "You can go fuck yourself, Dave."
Dave swallowed any spit he had in his mouth. "Nicky?"
"Uh huh."
"Why wouldn't you help us? Don't you want revenge on the person who trapped you in that statue to begin with?" Dave asked.
Petra laughed, all snicker and no mirth. "Did you ever think that maybe I was working with them, that we had an agreement?"
This dislodged a memory from Saturday night, when Dave was passing between consciousness and the soothing blackness of the pills Nicky had slipped in his drink. He remembered the feeling of Nicky through Taylor's body hugging him around the chest and thanking someone. "Oh God, how did you do this? It's fucking Dave Grohl. Oh thank you, thank you." Everything everyone had been saying about this being suspicious was right. The statue, and Nicky, had been deliberately put in his house. "You made a deal with someone, to get you in here."
"Why Dave, that's crazy. How would such a thing even happen?"
Dave wanted to punch him again, just for the sarcastic, smug tone of his voice. "I don't know, you tell me."
Gasping, Petra backed up, taking her hand off the statue. "No, no, Nicholas. You can't get in. Stay! ...Stay." She looked at Dave. "He's a slippery little bastard."
"Was he possessing you just now?!"
"No. Just channeling. Speaking through me." Petra furrowed her brow in confusion and touched her ear. "I'm hearing something else." She looked around, and then down at the chaise lounge. "Oh. Hello. You look... somewhat familiar." Her eyes panned to the left and then went up, and up, until she was looking at a figure at least eight feet tall. Petra's eyes filled with fear and shock. "What is that? Dave, what is with your house?"
At first, he couldn't figure it out. "What do you see?"
"It's a very tall figure in a cloak, covering its face... I think it has a beak."
Dave sighed with relief. "Oh, that's just Boddah. He's a reaper. A friend. He won't hurt you." Looking down at the chaise lounge, he said, "I think I know who you were speaking to before."
"I, um... I recognize him. It's your friend. It's Kurt Cobain." She touched Dave's arm. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay. I knew he was here."
"He and the reaper are in some sort of pocket dimension created by the statue... by the magick that surrounds it. A limbo dimension. He's pointing over here... he's pointing to..." Petra walked over to the mirror that was hung across a corner of the room. The mirror that had reflected Taylor when Nicky possessed him, and shown them all a vision of Kurt and Taylor with Nicky's grandmother. She touched it. "This mirror... it's surrounded by a cloud of purple smoke. It's the magickal signature of the witch who enchanted it." Then she looked at the statue. "This has the same magickal signature."
"Then the same witch did both spells."
"Right."
"Then the artist of the mirror frame could be this witch," Dave surmised.
"It's a great place to start. And there's something else."
"What?"
With a sigh, Petra told him, "Besides the witch, you're going to need something that belonged to the ghost to send him away. The spell won't be very effective without it."
"How am I supposed to get something that belonged to Nicky?" Dave asked, clearly frustrated.
At first, Petra shrugged, but then turned toward Kurt. "Kurt says you already have it. That you'll figure it out."
Dave ran his hands through his hair, putting some of it behind his ears. "Does Kurt have anything else to say?"
Listening, Petra eventually replied, "He said it would be safe to enter this pocket dimension for a little while longer, especially with my new spell putting a leash on Nicholas. Just be careful what you ask him, because once he has been spoken to, he may speak." She listened a bit more, and had to giggle, her eyebrows raised in curiosity. "He also says your moustache tickles him when he kisses you."
At first Dave looked surprised, then he had to laugh too, and shake his head. "Oh, Kurt. I've missed you. I really have."
"He missed you too." Petra listened to the voice that only she could currently hear, and then said, "You will soon receive a dream that will tell you everything you need to know. Kurt will be allowed to bring it to you."
Dave nodded. "Okay. Thank you. And thanks, Kurt, for all your help with everything." Dave stroked the chaise lounge. It felt cold as death. "See you again soon."
When the doctor came looking for Taylor's family, Dave was sitting in the waiting room, reading a book he got from the used book store. He hoped the book, called Devious Smile: The Crimes of Austin Nicholas Kelly, would reveal to him what belonging of Nicky's he already had. The phone calls inquiring how Taylor was doing had stopped, albeit temporarily, giving him some time to breathe.
The doctor spotted Dave. "Hello again."
"Doctor Curry." Dave got up and shook the doctor's hand. "How did it go?"
"The surgery went well. We took care of the internal bleeding and confirmed that he didn't hit any vital organs. He's being brought into a room now. Is Mrs. Hawkins here yet?"
"No, but her plane should be landing soon."
"She may not make it before he's out for the night. We, of course, wake patients up in recovery, but once he gets to his room, he's going to sleep into tomorrow." Dr. Curry again offered his hand. Dave shook it. "The nurses will show you to his room."
"Thank you, Dr. Curry."
The attendants wheeled Taylor on his hospital bed by the waiting room; Dave followed along beside it. "Hey Taylor. How do you feel?"
Taylor groggily tried to focus his eyes on the person speaking to him. "Huh? Oh... hi Dave." He yawned. "I'm sleepy."
"He's not going to be much for conversation today," one of the nurses said with a grin. "He'll probably sleep for the rest of the day."
As if to prove her point, Taylor closed his eyes and grew quiet.
They got Taylor settled in his room. Dave took his hand and squeezed it. "I'll bring Alison in here to give you a good night kiss once she arrives, okay?"
"Mm? Good night kiss?" Taylor puckered and made a couple of kissing sounds.
The nurses laughed fondly.
Spotting the bag of urine hanging off the side of the bed, Dave joked, "Hey look Taylor, you've got your own personal stash of lemonade!"
Smacking his lips, Taylor said, "Mmmm. Lemonade." He went quiet, nodding off.
The nurses snickered and shook their heads. "Now, now," one of them said. "He's too weak to defend himself."
Dave stayed in the room a while longer to make sure Taylor wasn't going to wake up and ask for anything. As he was about to step out and check for messages, his phone rang.
It was Jordyn. "We're here. How's Taylor?"
"Sleeping. They just brought him out of recovery a half hour ago." Dave stuffed his book into a jacket pocket. "The surgery went well. Things look good."
Jordyn relayed this information to Alison. "Alison wants to visit him before we go back to the house."
"No problem. I'm on my way to get you." Checking Taylor one more time, Dave headed toward the parking lot.
"Um, I know you wanted to save Alison the worry, so I waited 'til we got here, but... I did tell her about the ghost."
Dave couldn't help but roll his eyes. "What did she say?"
"He wants to know what you said."
Alison called to the phone, "I said you guys got really drunk and scared yourselves with your ghost stories. We're lucky you're not all in the hospital."
Sighing, Dave realized it really didn't matter. He would prove it to them. "Ha ha. We'll talk about it when we get back to the house."
Dave reluctantly exited the hospital, leaving Taylor in their hands for the time being.
When Alison saw Taylor asleep in the hospital bed with the IV and other things attached to his body, she leaned down and kissed him on the lips. "My poor Bunny Foofoo." She peeked under the sheet at his bandaged abdomen. It all became more real to her at that moment. "Oh, Taylor." Alison smoothed his hair back off his face.
Taylor did not wake up, but did make a soft noise.
"They said he'd be pretty out of it until the morning," Dave commented. "Why don't we go back to the house and get something to eat, and I can explain all this ghost stuff?"
Alison nodded, obviously holding back tears.
Taking her hand and patting it, Jordyn said, "You're staying with us tonight."
"Thank you. I don't know what I'd do with myself if I had to rattle around in that house alone." Alison went back to Taylor's side and leaned over him. "Hey. Baby? Good night kiss?"
There came a quiet, "Mm, night," and Taylor softly kissed back, then was asleep again. He hadn't opened his eyes throughout the entire exchange.
"Surgery takes a lot out of you," she remarked, and followed her friends out of the hospital room.
Dave, putting his arm around Jordyn, joked with her, "How come you don't have any pet names for me?"
Smiling, she said, "Do you wanna be Bunny Foofoo too?"
Jordyn and Alison were both looking at him, perplexed, and he didn't know where to start. It certainly was a strange scene. In the kitchen where they sat, eating a quick dinner, there wasn't a glass cup to be found. (Nicky had broken them all.) Downstairs, there was a $20,000 statue tied up with white ribbon and two holes in the wall that hadn't been there before. In the bedroom, the suitcases they had helped Dave and Taylor pack were open and thoroughly rifled through, and the gun usually kept locked up in the nightstand lay out beside the bed. One of the oddest things to Jordyn was that someone had obviously cleaned her Lalique vase to a gleaming shine, where before it had grown dusty. Why on Earth...?
Dave tried to start at the beginning. "What I'm about to tell you is going to sound insane... but it's all completely true. I was there. I experienced it. Everything I'm about to tell you, I believe it, and Chris believes it, and I can guarantee you Taylor believes it."
Oogly jumped up on the table and looked at him. "Meow."
He couldn't help but grin; it was like the cat was saying I was there too, and she wanted to offer her support. Dave stroked her back. "All I ask is that you listen with an open mind."
The girls looked at each other and shrugged. "Okay."
"We did make contact with the ghost. At first, he was being vague and avoided telling us his full name, just that his name was Nicky. Shortly after, though, the things he said became threatening and scary. That he was here and he wasn't going anywhere, and there wasn't a thing we could do to make him leave. I started yelling at him, telling him to go, and I turned and saw... Taylor had his hands on the Ouija pointer, like this." Dave imitated the positioning of Taylor's hands on the planchette. "I saw his reflection in the mirror, you know the one hung across the corner?"
Jordyn nodded.
"And Taylor wasn't alone. There was this transparent cloud-like thing floating behind him, with its arms around him. It looked like a person, only ghostly, you know?"
Alison visibly shuddered.
"When I looked straight at Taylor, no ghost. But in the mirror... I didn't realize what was happening at the time, but... uh... You know how we talked about the ghost influencing Taylor to not act like himself?" Dave asked.
"Uh huh."
"The ghost actually possessed Taylor."
There was a long pause. Finally, "What?"
Even Oogly looked up at him. "Meow?"
Dave glanced around the table at all the confused, horrified faces. He wondered briefly what it would take for Jordyn to have him committed. "And on that note, I need another beer."
Dave played her words over and over in his mind, and they didn't change. His blood ran cold. Chills moved up his back. Eight people, eight people, eight people...'>
Chp 20: New Way Home
Word Count: 3,851
He told them the story, exactly how it had happened. He told them about Nicky drugging him. He told them about waking up handcuffed down to the chaise lounge. He told them about Taylor acting like someone else, and the dream he had of Kurt, but that it really wasn't a dream. Kurt was here, in a pocket dimension, with Boddah. And how Taylor's eyes changed color.
He told them about the spell that had been put on the statue, and finding out who the ghost was, and how someone had put him here, someone had made a deal. He told them how Chris got involved, and Nicky's threats of violence. Finally, he told them how Taylor had heroically driven Nicky back into the statue, and how they rushed him to the hospital to save his life.
The only detail Dave left out of the story for now was what the group of men spent most of their time doing from Saturday night to Monday morning: the sex. First, he had to get Jordyn and Alison to accept the possession.
When he finished, Dave put his second beer down on the table. "What do you think?" he asked.
The two women looked at each other with troubled expressions. "It's certainly a very... elaborate story..." Alison commented.
"Dave, you've got to have some creative talent to be able to write songs and everything, but... to make up something like this... you simply wouldn't. Not about your friends and bandmates." Jordyn sighed. "But it's just so unbelievable."
"Babe, I know. I know it is. But it happened."
His face was so earnest, so desperate to be believed. "The thing that scares me the most about all this is you really believe the story you just told us. You really and truly believe it."
Dave, feeling a little helpless, just nodded.
"Is there any chance that 'Nicky' slipped you some LSD?" Alison asked.
She didn't believe him. Alison thought he'd lost his mind. "I can prove it to you," he declared. It was his last shot.
"How?"
Now it was Dave's turn to be smug. "All you have to do is go down into the art room and fall asleep near the statue. We'll go to the limbo dimension where Kurt and Boddah are, and you can meet everybody. Including Nicky."
The women looked at each other again. "Lord knows I could use a nap," Alison said with a shrug.
'Okay," Jordyn agreed. "I'm pretty exhausted myself after that long flight." Silently to herself, she hoped the story would turn out to be true, as crazy as it was. Otherwise, her husband might be losing his mind.
Alison took the couch, Jordyn the chaise lounge, and Dave leaned himself back in a recliner near the enchanted mirror. The only warning he gave them was not to talk to Nicky. "Let me handle that."
Alison nodded off first, his wife second, but sleep would not come to Dave easily. He feared that for some reason, it wouldn't work, and the wives wouldn't be able to get into the mindscape with Kurt. That he wouldn't be able to prove a thing to them. He didn't realize that he'd fallen asleep until he heard Boddah's chatter.
Amazed with what she was seeing, Jordyn walked up to the light blue bed and addressed the young blonde man who sat up as she approached. He seemed just as shocked to see her as she was to see him. "Are you Kurt Cobain?"
He nodded. "Yeah."
Jordyn's expression hardened a bit, any trace of a smile disappearing. "You're the man who broke my husband's heart."
Dave encountered Alison first by following the noise Boddah was making. She stood in front of the reaper, looking at it with fear and wonder. "You're just as Dave described you. But that's the power of suggestion, isn't it?"
Boddah actually shrugged.
Coming up behind her, Dave put a hand on Alison's shoulder. She shrieked and whirled on him with wide eyes. "Jesus Christ, Dave!"
"Sorry, sorry. Uh, that's Boddah."
"I gathered."
"Boddah, I'm a little turned around in here. Which way is Kurt?"
Raising one bony hand, Boddah pointed off to the left.
"Thanks, man."
He steered Alison off in that direction. As they walked away from the reaper, she kept looking back, afraid it was following them. "That thing's a little creepy."
"Well, he is an agent of death."
They approached the bed where Kurt and Jordyn were talking; Dave noticed that the look on Kurt's face was troubled. "I see you two have met."
Kurt tried to put on a smile. "We have." His face suddenly lit up, amused and delighted. "You got yourself a spitfire here, Dave. She just gave me what for for taking myself out of this world. I deserved that."
Jordyn gave Dave a look, one he knew meant there was more to that story. They could talk about it later. "She keeps me on my toes." Touching her shoulder again, Dave said, "This is Taylor's wife, Alison."
Kurt nodded to her.
"And you're the ghost of Kurt Cobain, right?" Alison was still using a sarcastic, disbelieving tone.
"That I am." Kurt looked up at Dave. "She doesn't believe you, does she?"
Alison spoke first. "She's skeptical, yes."
Grinning, Kurt asked, "How exactly would Dave accomplish this?" He spread out his arms to indicate the mindscape. "It doesn't impress you at all that you're all having the same 'dream' right now?"
Alison frowned. "When I wake up, I'll ask Jordyn what she dreamed about. Then I'll know if that's really true."
"What else would it take to prove it to you?"
She thought about it a moment. "Dave told us the name of this ghost, and I didn't recognize the name. Court TV wasn't something I watched much back then. I have no idea what this Nicky guy looked like. Once I wake up, I'll Google him and if the faces match, I would have to accept that everything Dave told us really happened, and that he really does have the soul of a serial killer trapped inside some sort of limbo dimension. I wouldn't have any reason to put it off on the power of suggestion since Dave didn't even describe him."
Kurt seemed impressed. "You gotta admit, Dave, it's a good idea."
He just hoped Alison wouldn't find a way to weasel out of it when she saw that the Nicky in the cage looked exactly like the pictures on the internet. "Will you just show us where the cage is again? I get so turned around in here."
"Certainly."
Nicky stood at the bars of his cage, like he had been waiting for them the entire time. He wore a mischievous expression. As he looked at that face, Dave tried to reassure himself that he could keep control of what Nicky said. Nicky could only speak when spoken to, and had to stop talking when told to shut up. It was obvious that Nicky wanted to speak when he saw the two women. He wanted to speak very badly.
Nicky was assuming he knew who these women were. Dave wasn't going to help him by confirming it. "What is your name?"
"Austin Nicholas Kelly." He looked at Jordyn, then Alison. "But you can call me Nicky."
"Did you possess Taylor Hawkins?"
"Yes, I did. I wanted you all to myself, but - "
"Shut up," Dave told him, trying to stay calm. He would tell Jordyn and Alison about the sex, he and Taylor would do it together, but he didn't want them to find out this way. Not from Nicky. "How did you take control of Taylor's body?"
"First you tell me to shut up, then you want me to talk. You've got me so confused, I don't know what to do," Nicky said, amused with himself.
"Will you just answer the goddamn question?" Dave snapped. If Nicky confirmed the facts Dave had told the two women, maybe then they would believe him.
But Nicky wasn't about to help him. Nicky wanted to have some fun. He had an idea of what Jordyn looked like from the pictures around the house, but he pretended he didn't know which woman was her by talking straight to Alison. "Does he get forceful like this when the two of you are in bed with that His and Hers lube?"
Alison looked confused and said, "Huh?", but Jordyn cried, "How do you know about that?!", her eyes going wide.
"Shut your fucking mouth!" Dave yelled at him. Kurt put a hand over his eyes, almost doing a slow burn.
Pointing between herself and Jordyn, Alison said, "I'm not - "
"Alison, please don't talk to him," Dave begged. "He's just going to say shit to try to upset us." He addressed Jordyn. "Nicky looked through the drawers in our bedroom."
She shifted around like the question had made her uncomfortable. "It's really weird, to think he was in Taylor's body while he did all these things."
Nicky grinned at them, satisfied with himself.
Dave sighed. "I'll give you one more chance. Are you going to answer the question without adding some cute little comment?"
Instead of saying anything about this second question, Nicky simply answered the first one. "I used a spell that was put on the mannequin by a witch to take control of Taylor's body. You just have to learn how to twist magick to use it to your advantage."
"And you used it to put Taylor to sleep."
"Yes, I did. So I could use him to do whatever I wanted to you," he said to Dave.
Dave winced and closed his eyes for a moment. This was a bad idea. He hoped the small amount of information they had gained from Nicky would be enough, because he wasn't going to ask him anything else. "Okay, we're - "
Nicky cut him off before he could tell him to stop talking and quickly said to Alison, "Did your husband tell you he was Oh?"
Kurt groaned.
Both women looked at Dave with shocked expressions. "How does he know about that?!" Alison cried.
Right after, Jordyn shrieked, "Taylor is Oh?!"
That was it. Growling loudly, Dave ran up to the cage and grabbed Nicky by the shirt and hair and began to yank him into the bars as hard as he could. He immediately found out that he could hurt a ghost here when blood came out of Nicky's nose, but even though Dave was hurting him, he still laughed... and laughed... and laughed.
"Shut up, shut up, fucking shut up!" Dave screamed.
Afraid Nicky would hurt him, Kurt pulled Dave away from the cage. Dave let him go. Nicky fell back on the floor and did nothing to stop his soul from bleeding; he just looked at Dave and chuckled darkly.
"Taylor is Oh? Taylor is Oh?!" Jordyn kept saying.
Dave looked around. Alison was gone. Then he also woke up when he felt Alison shaking him.
"Wake up, goddamnit, wake up!" she said.
The sound of Nicky's snickers followed Dave into his waking. He blinked up at Alison, and glanced over at Jordyn, who was just waking up too. Both women looked upset. "Tell me what you know about Oh," Alison said. "How long have you known?"
Near tears, Jordyn said, "You had sex with Taylor?"
Dave put the footrest down on the recliner so he could fully sit up. "I'll tell you everything. Okay? But check Google first, while Nicky's face is still fresh in your mind."
Alison had almost forgotten about that. She got out her phone and opened the internet browser. After making sure she spelled his name right, Alison looked at the pictures that came up. Her eyes went wide and she put a hand over her mouth. "Oh my God. It's him. It's the guy from the cage." Her eyes filled with tears. "That animal was in control of my husband?"
Dave nodded.
From what Jordyn had said, her dream matched Alison's. She couldn't deny it anymore. "This is real. The possession, the ghost, it all really happened." Alison burst into tears. "My poor Taylor."
Jordyn went over and sat next to her, hugging her and rubbing her back. Dave watched them, feeling helpless and a little useless. What could he do to make any of this better? "He's going to be okay," he offered. "Doctors fixed him right up."
"But what about his mental state?" Alison sobbed. "Can you imagine what it could do to a person to be possessed by a serial killer?" She suddenly gasped. "Oh God. You said he left the house at least twice. How do we know he didn't... hurt someone?"
"Nicky got really mad at me when I suggested this was possible. I didn't want him to leave the house because I feared he might hurt somebody. He said he wouldn't do that because he didn't want to bring attention to himself. And also that he was discerning and didn't want to kill just anyone." Dave thought about how Nicky looked when he came back from the store. "I never saw any signs that he had hurt anyone. No blood or anything."
"Oh, what a smart serial killer he is, then," Alison said sarcastically.
Jordyn tried to comfort her too. "We'll check the paper. See if anyone went missing over the weekend."
That only brought on fresh tears. Alison covered her face with her hands. "What if this animal killed someone? My baby will be blamed." She wailed out, "My Bunny Foofoo."
Jordyn held her again. It took Alison a minute to get control of herself. "He said he wasn't going to hurt anyone?" she asked Dave, grasping at any hope she could get.
Nodding, he replied, "Yeah, that's what he said."
It would have to do. Alison took the tissue Jordyn offered her and blew her nose. "Okay. I'm going to try to stop thinking about it, then."
Dave kind of hoped that this conversation had made a good enough distraction from the things Nicky had brought up so they could discuss Oh and everything that came with him tomorrow, but he should have known he'd have no such luck. Jordyn said, "Good. Then can we discuss Oh?"
Dave cringed. "I'd rather discuss all this with Taylor present."
"But, I can't wait. I need to talk about it now." She turned to Alison. "How long have you known that Taylor was Oh? How long have you known that our husbands had sex?"
Alison put up her hands defensively. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, but Taylor swore me to secrecy. I thought he should tell you both."
"Why did he want to keep it a secret?"
"He joined the Foo Fighters shortly after. Taylor didn't want Dave to think that the reason he slept with him was to get into the band. Taylor slept with him because he wanted to, but he knew how bad it might look to Dave." Sighing, Alison continued, "You don't know how good it feels to have that secret out. It's too big of a secret to keep from someone, but I swore I wouldn't tell."
"When did Taylor tell you?" Dave asked.
"Shortly before we got married. I had met you, and Taylor said he wanted to get more of his sexual past out in the open. And he told me he'd slept with you, but you didn't know he was the guy you slept with." She fidgeted with the hem of her skirt. "You were too wasted."
Covering her face with her hands, Jordyn mumbled, "Oh my God, oh my God..." She dropped her hands into her lap. "Years ago, Dave told me about what things were like after his first marriage ended and how upset and depressed he was for months; his band was falling apart and Jennifer was leaving him, and one night, he met this blonde in a record store who only wanted to be known as Oh. But like you said, Dave was too wasted to really remember his face. And then not too long after, Taylor joined the band and the Foo Fighters started to come back together again." She gestured to her husband. "Dave told me that he thought Oh was good luck and he wished he could find him. And you're telling me that guy is Taylor? Holy shit."
Dave looked at his wife with guilt on his face; she was pretty blown away by this revelation. "I was just as shocked as you are."
"When did you find out, Dave?"
He scoffed. "When Nicky told me. He said he had access to Taylor's memories. He only did it to fuck with my head," Dave said. "One of his favorite things to do."
Alison, shaking her head, growled, "What a fucking sicko. I can't believe that someone who killed eight people was inside my husband's head, controlling him. It's terrifying."
Dave played her words over and over in his mind, and they didn't change. His blood ran cold. Chills moved up his back. Eight people, eight people, eight people...
"Dave?" Jordyn didn't like the shock and horror she saw on his face.
He asked, "Alison, how many people did you say Nicky killed?"
"Eight." She held up her phone. "That's what it says on the internet."
Grabbing his book about Nicky's crimes, Dave checked the back cover. He hadn't gotten very far into the book, but the summary on the back told him what he needed to know.
...murdered eight men over a period of ten years...
He sat down hard on the couch. Nicky's words filled his head.
"Eleven. It was eleven. "
"Dave, what is the matter? Your face has gone completely white." Jordyn sat down next to him, touching his hand.
When he spoke, his voice shook, no matter how hard he tried to keep it steady. "I'm going to tell you something Nicky told me, but I don't want you to panic."
"How can you expect me not to panic when you say it like that?" Alison said, close to yelling.
Putting up a defensive hand, Dave took a shaky breath. "Nicky told me he killed eleven people."
Almost instantly, Alison began to breathe way too hard and fast, on her way to hyperventilating. Her breaths were shrill, hysterical. "Then he used Taylor's body to... to... three more... oh God..."
Jordyn went over and took her by the arms. "Now we don't know that, Alison."
"Not for sure, but it looks pretty bad, doesn't it?"
Dave put his head in his hands.
Jordyn got Alison to stand up and go with her to the couch. There she attempted to get her to calm down. "Please, take deep breaths for me, Alison. You're going to hyperventilate."
Stroking his beard nervously, Dave tried to remember what Nicky had told him when. "Wait. Nicky possessed Taylor on Saturday night. He told me he had murdered eleven people the next morning. Yeah, Nicky did go out that night to buy the handcuffs and the rope, but he couldn't have killed three people and hidden the bodies in a few hours." Dave laughed at this ludicrous idea. "It took him ten years to kill eight. He must've taken three other lives in those ten years that the authorities don't know about. That kind of thing happens all the time with serial killers."
Alison was nodding. "Do you think that's all it is?"
"That makes a lot of sense," Jordyn agreed.
Suddenly, Alison burst into tears again. "But what if Dave is wrong?"
"Oh, Alison, shhhh..." Jordyn hugged her. "You can talk to Taylor in the morning and he'll tell you himself he didn't hurt anyone."
Alison said nothing else on the subject, just crying until she felt she was done. Then she declared, "I can't sleep here as long as that monster is in this house. I want to sleep in Taylor's room so I can be there when he wakes up."
"Okay, I can fully understand that. Do you want me to stay with you?"
"No, I'll be okay by myself for the night. Just, can I borrow a blanket?"
The women got up to go find one. Dave said, "Wait."
They stopped and looked back.
"Before we take you back to the hospital, you need to know about something Nicky did and how Taylor explained it to the doctor. There will probably be questions."
"Okay."
Dave explained, "Nicky went out for a short time on Sunday afternoon. He didn't want Chris and I to plot against him while he was gone, so he drugged us with half a Morphecil so we'd only be out for a couple hours. I woke up to him doing this to me." Unbuttoning a few buttons on his shirt, Dave pulled it to one side so they could see the red scratchy lines on his chest that spelled MINE.
Both women came closer. "Oh my God..." Jordyn exclaimed. "Did he do that with a knife?"
Dave nodded.
"My poor baby." Jordyn gave him a kiss.
"Monday morning, Nicky was trying to prove how much he cared for me, so he took a knife and carved YOURS into his arm."
Alison gasped. "Taylor's arm."
Nodding again, Dave added, "The doctor is going to have questions about it. Does your husband want to hurt himself? Shit like that. Obviously, Taylor couldn't tell them the truth, so he told them he had a fight with you over the phone on Sunday night, got drunk, and carved that word into his arm to prove his love for you." He shrugged. "It was the best we could come up with on the spur of the moment."
"No, it's a decent story. Certainly better than the ghost did it." Scoffing, Alison shook her head. "Can you imagine how that would go?"
"Not well."
While the girls prepared to go back to the hospital, Dave examined the wounds to his chest in the mirror. He put some antiseptic on them and was about to apply a gauze pad when the idea occurred to him for the first time.
MINE.
Could Dave himself act as the belonging of Nicky's they would need to make the spell work?
Chps 21-23
Masterpost