Control

(Inspired by Halsey, "Control")

It wasn't the worst place he'd been stranded in, all things considered.

That honor probably went to the time in '77 he had to track a vampire family back to their nest in that rotted out, mold- and asbestos-filled mansion they'd managed to take over in southern Georgia. At the height of an August heat wave. Just after a massive rainstorm had flooded most of the ground floor.

The sudden flashback made him shudder at the sensory memories that flooded his nose. He scrunched up his face and attempted to banish the pungent memory as he assessed his surroundings, trying to get his bearings.

The house itself wasn't excessively large, standing only two stories tall, lacking a basement. A small crawlspace was likely billed as a "cozy storage attic" the last time a realtor expounded on the home, in an attempt to garner favor with more favorable audience. Really, it was pathetically small, much too limited to trap any spirit or witch's pouch-and he'd looked, just to be sure, nearly becoming trapped himself while trying to lower his body down the rickety ladder extended from the ceiling.

Regarding the main floor, nothing was out of the ordinary. Abandoned appliances littered the kitchen counters, likely having been ignored for years. He pushed a dingy cerulean toaster back a few inches, watching as a small layer of dust drifted off and powdered his fingers. A customary search of the kitchen revealed a handful of forgotten cans of vegetables, a few boxes of instant potatoes, and a bag of Halloween candy that contained brands he hadn't heard of since he was a child. A quick wipe of his hands on his jeans to clear the dust and cobwebs, and he was on his way into the den.

The moment he crossed the threshold, the atmosphere changed and the temperature dropped an easy thirty degrees. He coughed from the sudden compression in the air and watched as his breath trailed out in front of his mouth. He knew what was coming; he just didn't know from which direction.

The familiar weight of the Colt in his waistband was comforting, his hand reaching for it in an automatic response, fingertips brushing against the fabric covering his lower back. As ready as he was, he didn't want to waste the bullets if he could help it. He glanced around the room but there was no fireplace; odd, he'd seen the chimney when he pulled up outside.

It must be upstairs. That wasn't very convenient, but it would have to do, if he could get there in time.

He waited a moment longer, perhaps a moment too long, but nothing was setting off his nerves, besides the eeriness of the house itself. When nothing appeared, he quickly turned on his heels and made a direct path towards the stairs, first stopping at the bottom step to inspect the looming passage ahead of him.

A floor-to-ceiling mirror at the head of the staircase did little to ease his nerves. He fucking hated mirrors. Rationally he knew that they made houses appear bigger than they were; it was an illusion designed to make homeowners think they owned more home than they really did, using reflections and tricks of the light. Realistically, all they were good for was storing evil.

He made his way up the stairs and found the hallway split in two directions; to the right was what he assumed was the master bedroom, and a half-open doorway that appeared to lead into a bathroom. To his left was two more doors, each closed, likely spare bedrooms once occupied by children. Taking a gamble, he headed right and pushed open the heavy oak door, cringing at the loud creaking noise it made as it moved on the hinges for probably the first time in twenty years.

There it was-a massive brick fireplace, looming on the far wall, the mantle filled with old photographs. And his treasure, propped up next to the left side, a large rod-iron poker. A quick cross over the carpet with long, lean strides and it was in his hands, heavy and solid. He took a step away from the mantle and carved out two right-handed test swings in the increasingly colder room, listening to the satisfying swish as iron cut through molecules and hissed in the still air.

A low growl from the doorway caught his attention and he looked over a second too late, misjudging the distance. Something caught his left arm and he staggered back into the bricks, uncomfortably smashing his left shoulder in the process of trying to steady himself. The poker flew out of his hand and landed mutely on the carpet. The growl was behind him now, to his right; he spun around and his vision went fuzzy as he was hit in the face with what felt like a baseball bat. The last thing he saw was a flash of red as he hit the floor.

"Goddamn right, you should be scared of me," a voice growled- his voice-echoed in the cold air. Gasps and cries were surrounding him, and he didn't know where to focus his attention. Only the moon shone overhead, illuminating the small field in which he stood. The steely gaze of a young Asian male caught his eye and he adjusted his body to fully face him. The boy was on his knees, hands tied behind his back, a determined glint in his eyes.

He didn't trust this kid.

He'd have to fix that.

He was in control.

He awoke hours later, feeling somewhat refreshed as he sat up. It took him a moment to realize he wasn't in the Impala, or in his bed at the run-down motel he'd checked into the day before. Soft pillows were at his back, falling over themselves as he shifted, trying to recall what had happened. Crackling caught his ear and he blinked, trying to regain his senses as a painful migraine began to spread from the base of his neck.

The room came into focus and he recognized the brick fireplace across the carpet, no longer covered in dust. A fire was roaring, the flames licking at a brass grate that looked like it was unfolded more for decorative effect than protecting anyone or anything.

His first move was to assess his situation-the weight of the Colt was distinctly absent from his waist, which made him uneasy and pissed off, he couldn't tell which was the stronger reaction. He reached up to touch his cheek, where he was remembering catching the business end of a brutal attack, but his skin felt cool to the touch: no blood, no scabs, nothing out of the ordinary.

He carefully swung his legs out and over the edge of the bed to test his balance by standing. Everything seemed fine, and he squat down a little, realizing he was able to move without pain or issue, besides the pain in his skull.

The sudden realization of what had likely happened gave him pause. A cursory glance at the pictures on the mantle confirmed what he had worked out just then-a fucking ghost had managed to get inside his head.

Fuck.

It was never good to let a spirit get this close. Once a hunter was possessed, they often went mad relatively quickly, since they knew the signs. Most cases he'd investigated had ended in suicide.

He had decided long ago that he was never going to put the boys through that, and that determination wasn't changing now.

With that affirmed, he took off at a quick pace, heading into the hallway and ducking around the corner to end up standing at the top of the stairs. A flash of black caught his periphery vision and he turned to find himself facing a floor-to-ceiling mirror, edged in ornate gold, carved to look like ivy crawling and living around the edges. Despite the layers of dust on every surface in the house, the mirror was perfectly clear; not even a smudge was visible on the solid pane of glass, even after he pressed his palm against it to test... what , exactly, he didn't know, but it was something he felt he needed to check.

It was unsettling.

Time to get moving. If he was going to banish the ghost, he'd need supplies, and last he remembered they were in the Impala parked outside. It didn't matter that his keys were missing; he'd long ago rigged the trunk to open thanks to a hidden button only he knew of. He charged downstairs, ignoring the blast of cold air enveloping him as he hit the last step, and reached for the doorknob, opening the heavy oak door towards himself.

Even before the world ended, he'd enjoyed the thrill of baseball, watching the men swing their bats, the heavy object flying so gracefully through the air. The sound the wood made when it contacted the ball-a solid crack , and the instrument kept swinging, alive from the sheer force of the batter's will.

The rounded apex of his bat, his Lucille, was so beautiful and smooth, worked over from months of practice. The body was wrapped in barbed wire, sharper than razor blades to the touch, and sometimes he would find himself lost in thought, pressing a fingertip against one of the barbs.

Blood would be dripping from his flesh before he would snap back.

A few steps outside and he realized he was in for a fight. This wasn't going to be easy. The spirit was already entangling itself into his psyche, and he was starting to see things. Unpleasant things.

"Who's next?" he called out, his tone jovial. Crying was assaulting his ears from every direction, mixed with choking gasps and audible threats against his safety and life. Some creative names were being thrown out, and he was cataloguing them for future dialogue. "Come on, we don't have all night. Some of us like to sleep."

"Fuck you," he heard from the man he'd had his eye on earlier, a little quieter than the rest. He swiveled in the dirt, raising an eyebrow.

"I appreciate the offer, boy," he sneered, "but you're much too young for me. Besides, I've figured out that you have someone to fill that hole already. Or, should I say, someone's hole for you to fill?"

A glob of something spattered against the toe of his boots and he sighed, leaning down to wipe the mess away with his right pinky, Lucille still propped up against his left shoulder. As he expected, a young girl a few feet away from the boy, but closer to him, was glaring at him, her lower lip trembling with...fear? Animosity?

No...it was amusement. Tinged with terror, granted, but she appeared to almost be smiling.

"Is this a game to you?" he asked curiously, crouching down, putting a safe enough distance between them in case she did something stupid, like attempt to lunge at him, despite her arms and legs being bound.

"You heard him," she replied, the corner of her upper lip joining the ruse, forming an honest, small smile. "Fuck. You."

"Oh, yes , now that's more like it!" He straightened his legs to lift his body once more above the captured, his smile outshining hers in an instant, much more assured. "I think it's time we really got this party started !"

The house offered no solace, the walls watching forlornly as he staggered through. His hands pressed against the peeling paint, offering little support as his head continued to split.

This was miserable. He'd been involved in hauntings before, but this was on another level. This fucker was a straight-up sadist, and his eyes continued to see things he wasn't entirely convinced weren't really there. At more than one point he reached out in a lame attempt to save these people, these poor souls who were trapped in his web of insanity, but he knew it was too late. They were changeless. Doomed to live these moments on an endless loop.

That was the trouble with ghosts; sometimes he got too involved in the backstory of it all.

He needed to focus. Maybe these people were innocent. Maybe they weren't. In the end, it wasn't their story to tell.

A picture caught his eye on a table in the far corner of the dining room, an unassuming blackened wood frame calling out to him. He stumbled towards it, nearly tripping on the threadbare rug that barely covered the moldy carpet, and picked it up to turn it over and over again in his hands as though it were a puzzle box and not a simple picture beneath the cracked glass captured a moment in time of a young man holding a baseball bat, smiling for the camera, his eyes twinkling with laughter as they looked into the distance beyond the lens. It took only a second to realize why the photo was so terrifying, despite the joy in the man's expression.

He was staring at a picture of himself.

The madness had set in more quickly than he had anticipated.

"Now, my parties usually don't start with people getting... smashed right away," he announced with a grin, gesturing with the tip of his boot to the pulpy, crimson mess that spread across the dirt to his left. A few stray sobs echoed in the still evening air, but he ignored them."That comes later. But I suppose you all don't really know me yet. Maybe we should change that."

He crouched down and dipped his right hand towards the bloody heap, letting his fingertips graze the wreckage. It was mostly gristle with some brain matter mixed in, and it thrilled him to see up close the damage Lucille had achieved. "You all have heard my name. You know who I am. I've made an example of how things are going to go around here. Should we have a pop quiz?"

No one spoke, but that was fine. He hadn't been expecting an answer. "Who wants to go first?" he continued, slowly standing up once again. Lucille was gripped tightly in his left hand. "Who here is the leader of this pathetic crew?"

There had to be a way out of this. He wasn't going to succumb to the madness, the sickness that was spreading through his mind, weaving its tendrils around his own memories and thoughts and feelings.

The bat. He could feel its weight in his hands,the smooth wood heavy against his palm. That was the key, he understood its importance, that it was more than a weapon-it was his child, his legacy, the one thing he had left in the shambles of the world in which he lived and died.

He had to find the bat.

Surely it was close; he could feel its presence once he focused his mind, attempting to block out the surrounding noise of distant gunfire, of cries for mercy, of flames crackling all around him. The air was getting thick and he was beginning to have trouble breathing, his heart feeling as though it was pumping blood directly up his throat. He gagged and dry-heaved for a moment, and when his sleeve was no longer catching flecks of blood-imaginary, he prayed-he made his way towards the stairs.

"Eeny, meeny, miney, mo," he chanted, spinning in a small circle, his feet stepping in time with the words. "Catch a tiger…" He floated the tip of Lucille towards the Asian man. "By the toe…" She hovered in front of the redhead with a beard. "If he hollers…" Next the child, who looked like he would piss his pants right then and there-

"Let him go."

The true leader had decided to showcase his mettle. "You interrupted my song."

"It was predictable."

He looked down on the perpetrator, a greasy biker who looked like he hadn't showered in years. "Excuse me, but the last thing anyone can accuse me of is being boring. Please apologize."

With direct attention on him, the man was quiet. Perhaps he had quickly realized he had fucked up tremendously.

He slowly climbed the stairs, each step progressively harder. His legs were aching, fighting the lethargy that tempted him to sit down, to watch the scene downstairs, to find out what happened to the people tied up. It wasn't important, as he could never hope to fix the carnage, or know if it had ever truly happened.

It was hiding somewhere close, he could feel it as he ascended. The colossal pane of glass stretched skyward as he approached, and there was a sort of energy radiating in waves the more he focused his thoughts on the object. He raised his hand and the reflection raised his own, clad in a leather jacket, a red scarf tucked around his neck and into the collar. It looked like him, but he knew better.

In a swift motion he brought down his hand, his fingers curled into a fist, and the glass splintered. Millions of shards fell to the floor in a shower of sharp edges all around him, but he didn't care if he was cut.

All he cared about was the bat, lying where the glass had once been.

He bent down to pick it up, turning the handle of the worn wood over in his hands, testing the weight against his palms. His hands shook as he fought the urge to swing it. After shaking one hand free of the power emanating from the bat, he dug in the pocket of his jeans for the matches and lighter fluid he'd grabbed from the car.

There wasn't much time; already the carpet and glass shards around his feet were morphing into dirt, and he could feel himself being pulled into the other side, towards the memories. Quickly he set the bat on the dirt and unscrewed the lid of the lighter fluid, pouring it over the surface, watching it soak into the grain. He was grateful the barbed wire seemed to only be in the illusions, but noticed as he doused the handle there was a smear of blood, a deep maroon, nearly black from age. An involuntary shudder escaped his body.

Next was the matches. The small pocketbook was mostly empty but the few weak sticks remaining would have to get the job done. A quick swipe against the wall was enough to light the heads and he dropped it on the ground, just in time to see his reflection in a few shards of glass stubbornly clinging to the mirror frame.

The man in the leather jacket stared back at him, his lips twisted into a sneer, large splatters of blood covering most of his face, streaking across his forehead as though it had been carelessly wiped away from the back of a hand. A few drops of the thick liquid dripped from his chin, gathered there from a rivulet on his cheek. His eyes held a look of sheer madness he'd only seen a handful of times in all his years of hunting.

He reached up to touch his own cheek, not sure what to expect-but his fingers came away clean as the reflection melted into his familiar grizzled, tired face. Screams of the survivors reached a crescendo for a brief moment, fading away as flames surged, biting at the air.

The house seemed smaller as he walked outside, covered in ashes. He'd attempted to clean up the mess, despite the disarray of the house, to cover any tracks of arson.

A few moments later he was safely sitting in the driver's seat of the Impala, his leather-bound journal in his lap, pen scratching across the pages to mark the event. He filed it under "Possession, Ghost," though he hoped no one would ever need to add to it.