WARNING: This is probably the darkest fic I've ever written. It contains rape (though there are no actual graphic descriptions of the act), blood and violence, and character death.

This is a story that's been bouncing around in my head, and with recent events in my life, I've been in a very dark and foul mood, and this is one of the results.

Please don't flame. Some people won't like it or will be offended, and to those people I say this is a piece of fiction written for therapeutic reasons. So I don't want to hear your crap, I'm not interested.

So read and review.

/

She was dressed to break hearts.

The little black dress cut low over her cleavage and fell to mid-thigh in a flirty skirt that flared out from her hips when she twirled. Her long, ivory calves and delicate feet were encased in black gladiator heels. Her toes and nails were painted a deep purple, and silver hoops hung from each ear. Her hair was piled up in a bun made to look loose and messy. Her eyes were shadowed with a smoky gray, and her lips were painted with the same color as her nails.

When the goth sashayed onto the dance floor with her two friends, every man in the club turned to get a good look.

Bertha and Prudence knew the men weren't looking at them, they were looking at Lydia. They knew the reason those boys bought them drinks was because they wanted to get closer to Lydia. They didn't mind, though. Because Lydia was the kind of girl who didn't pick up on the lustful attentions of the opposite sex, and when she did, she would maneuver everyone around until the three girls were alone again. She wasn't out to party and abandon her friends for a one night stand, like any normal 'hot' chick her age.

Lydia Deetz had long since abandoned the awkward transitional years of puberty, and had grown into a beautiful creature of the night.

She was twenty-five, living in New York, and worked with a team writing the scripts for a hot new paranormal series on TV. She was no longer a depressed little waif lost in the tangled jungle of low self-esteem and self-pity. No, now she had the whole world at her fingertips and a bright future ahead of her. Nothing could stop Lydia Deetz.

The men had locked onto her in the club, stalking her across the dance floor like a lion does its prey. There were three of them, all similar in appearance, all easily lost in the crowd so when the hairs on the back of her neck stood up in alarm, and she looked around in confusion at her sudden sense of unease, she never spotted them. They followed her through the club, watched her laugh with her two homely friends, and trailed after her when the female trio finally exited the building around midnight. To their delight, she broke off from the other two, waving goodnight.

Lydia pursed her lips. Where had she parked again?

"Lost, honey?"

The goth spun to face the smiling young man standing behind her, his hands by his sides and his fingers flexing slowly. "Oh… no. My boyfriend just went to get the car…" She said quickly, taking a step back from the stranger. She was stopped by a solid mass suddenly at her back, and turned with fear in her wide eyes to look at a second, unremarkable man leering down at her.

"You didn't come with a man, sweetie. You came with those two dogs."

"What's a sexy thing like you doing, hanging out with such ugly bitches?"

Lydia clutched her purse tightly with both hands and pulled it off her shoulder. "I don't want any trouble. I have money, if you want-"

"We don't want your money, sweet-lips." The third guy appeared and grabbed her arm.

Lydia screamed and swung her purse, but all three now had their hands on her. One covered her mouth, clamping his hand tight on her face until her jaw creaked. Together, they pulled her into the nearest alley. Tears streamed down her face as she struggled, kicking and punching, trying to bite the palm of the one covering her mouth. They were too strong for her, though, and they managed to wrestle her to the ground with ease.

When one pulled back to undo his belt, she took her chance and kicked him in the groin.

He swore violently as he toppled over, clutching his balls. One of the others pulled a knife from his pocket and flipped it open. He held it to Lydia's throat, nicking her pale skin. "Bad idea, slut."

She shook her head as they cut away her clothes and mauled her body. Every time she managed to struggle away from one of them, they would punch and slap her, or the one with the blade would slash at her arms and legs.

The pain of the rape was immense. As they violated her, tossing her around on the ground like dogs fighting over a bone, she wept and she prayed.

At one point, her mind receded into the darkness, to a place where she couldn't feel the pain any longer. She began to see flashes of her past. Her fifth birthday party, when the clown had fallen on the table holding the cake and the pizzeria they had moved the party to. Christmas when she was nine, and her parents had given Lydia her very first camera. And a few months later, when her mother had walked out the door with her suitcase and never returned. Meeting Delia the very next day, and realizing exactly why her mother had left.

Moving to Winter River. Meeting Adam and Barbera.

She abruptly returned to her painful reality and clenched her eyes shut at the sharp jolt of pain in her side.

"Are you crazy?!"

"It was an accident. Besides, probably for the best. The whore would have turned us in."

Even as she lay dying they continued their sick game, passing her around once they'd had their turn until finally, finally, they were done.

She listened to them congratulate one another, and swore she heard the sound of a high-five taking place. It was then that Lydia realized her mouth was no longer covered.

Her mind suddenly returned her to the age of fourteen, to the moment when she stood before the model town and made a deal with the devil. So the red silk and pounds of flimsy tulle, to a moss-covered face and reeking breath, to a severed finger with a glinting golden ring.

"I'm the Ghost with the Most, Babes."

"-you gotta say my name, three times."

"I want out, permanently. And in order for me to do that, heh, I gotta get married."

"It's showtime."

"B…B…Betel…geuse…"

The men stopped in their dusting off and back-slapping to stare down at her. "Shit, I thought she was dead."

"Pfft, she will be soon. Come on, let's go."

"Buh… beh… Be…tel…geuse…"

"What is she saying?"

"No idea."

One of them kicked her foot, and bent to pick up her panties from the disgusting alley ground. "Who cares?"

"Come on, Lyds." The voice murmured in her ear. "Turn on the juice, Babes. We'll see what shakes loose."

"Be…Betelgeuse!"

Darkness descended on the alley, and a sickening chortle filled the air. The stench of decay mixed with the reek of sex and garbage already in the alley. And then the screams started echoing off the stone walls of the surrounding buildings. She didn't know how long she lay there in the trash and the cum and the blood, waiting for death to embrace her.

Hadn't she wanted this for so long? The sweet release of the end?

"I want in."

The diminutive figure on the balcony of the toy whorehouse looked at her like she'd started speaking Japanese. "Why?"

"Well well well." That annoying voice. She hadn't thought about it in years, but when he spoke, she knew, without a doubt, exactly who it was. "You always did look best in red, Babes." His hard-soled shoes never made a sound as he walked over the pavement towards her prone form. "You sure as shit filled out. I can actually tell you're a girl without hearing that sweet croon of yours." Her eyes had drifted closed of their own accord, and she no longer had the strength to open them, to see through the tears. She could barely make out his features, even when he crouched by her side. "Got yourself in a real fuckin' mess, didn't ya? Still the same naïve little girl you were back then." Her lips parted as she tried to speak, to say something, anything. "I gotta tell ya, kid. I pictured our reunion differently." His cold, clammy hand wrapped around her arm and lifted it into the air so he could check her pulse. "I also pictured it a lot sooner. Like, maybe the same week. You know…" She folded her arm over her stomach, and leaned down to press his ear between her breasts, listening to the erratic beat of her heart and the pained, gasping breaths in her lungs. "You, wracked with guilt calling me up to apologize. I'd fuck with your head a bit until I drove you into a straitjacket, then we'd finish our little mar-i-age, shake hands, and part ways as hubbie and wifey poo, never to see each other again." She could see him doing something, moving around weirdly. Suddenly his torso was red, and there was a warm weight over her body. It filled her nose with the aroma of filthy man and she realized he must have thrown his jacket over her torn, broken body. "Course, I expected you to still be an ugly little twelve-year-old boy. Not some fine piece of ass." She heard him snap and cigarette smoke joined the myriad of aromas in the alley. He flopped down onto his ass and propped his elbows up on his knees. "Now I'm thinkin'… if things were a little different, maybe I wouldn't torment you. Maybe we'd have a… sappy ass reconciliation, we'd marry, we'd fuck, then we'd part ways. Or something. Maybe I'd drop in for a little booty call once in a while, if you were game. 'Course you would be, ya know?" He smiled at her. "No woman ever turns down a dose of the ol' Juice." There were sirens in the distance now, their wailing faint but growing closer. The man blew a thick stream of smoke into the air above their heads. Lydia was entranced by it, by the way it swirled and curled over her. "The bad news, Babes, is that you're gonna die." He said after a long moment. "The ambulance won't get here in time. You've lost too much blood, and I'm pretty sure your lungs have collapsed. Even if I wanted to, I don't think I could do anything either. Ghost with the most or not." He leaned forward, and she felt his cold palm on her forehead. "The good news is you don't have much longer, and now, I get to make good on that promise."

There were bright lights around her now, men in white touching her, pushing a needle under her skin, pressing icy metal paddles against her bare chest.

Betelgeuse sat beside her as she died, chomping on his cigarette and making rude comments and gestures that the EMTs couldn't hear or see.

On the second attempt to shock her heart into functioning, Lydia sat up.

Her dress was no longer torn, but the material was a deep crimson. Her hair was back in place, and there was no evidence of the violence that had been done to her.

As she stood next to her dead husband-to-be, Lydia stared down at her mangled corpse.

"Trippy, ain't it?" Betelgeuse slung an arm over the young woman's shoulders. "Seein' yourself dead for the first time."

Lydia lay her head against his shoulder. "I guess." She sighed as the men zipped the black plastic bug shut over her mutilated face. "What happens now, Beej?"

The poltergeist shrugged. "Depends." He pulled her closer and planted a sloppy, smacking kiss on her cheek. "For now, let's go drink dead people beer and eat rotten food."

"…Gross."