One Year - Monster Within

A/N: One Year is my little Beetlejuice project, for those of you unfamiliar with the premise the entire series takes place between the movie and the cartoon, to show the progression that made Lydia best friends with everyone's favorite psychopath ghost. Originally the whole thing was one story, but it got way too long, so I divided it into shorter arcs when I went back to rewrite it.

This is part two, and the first part is Intertwined which I rated M for excessive swearing and character death. If you're not squeamish about such things I would suggest you read it before this one to get the full story.

I hope you enjoy reading Monster Within, and I hope you'll review with your comments or criticisms after you're done.

Chapter One - Hollow

321 Days. (October 24, Monday)
[Winter River Motel]

The alarm clock buzzed. Why was the alarm clock buzzing? Lydia groaned. Mrow? The black cat shoved itself under her nose obtrusively.

"Alright Percy, alright," she pushed Percy away and turned off the alarm clock.

Mrow! Percy cried more urgently shoving himself under her arm.

"I know, Percy," Lydia shoved the cat away again and sat up. As she stood Percy jumped from the bed and incessantly threw himself against her shins purring loudly. Luckily black hair wouldn't show up on black clothes. "Okay," Lydia scooped cat food from a bag and poured it rattling into the tin dish on the floor. Now Percy was too preoccupied to bug her as she flopped face first back into the pillow.

. . .

"It's Monday isn't it," Lydia said aloud, standing back up, " Today was the day her family was moving back into the house, more accurately Charles was dropping everything back at home before driving Delia across state to a health and wellness retreat in Rhode Island.

Practically dragging herself into the bathroom Lydia stared into the cracked motel mirror. She looked awful. She felt awful.

Lydia almost regretted calling the Winter River Police Department. Life would've been so much easier if she had just forced Betelgeuse to clean up the aftermath before leaving. Police called it a murder suicide, if it had happened in New York she wouldn't have been out of the house for twenty four hours. She wouldn't have been crammed into a sleazy motel room for more than a week, with nothing to do other than watch motel porn, read legal documents, or wallow in self-pity after losing the two greatest friends she had ever had.

Of course she couldn't tell anyone about that, her total reasoning behind the gunman's apparent suicide was convincing the man that there was no such thing as ghosts. Adam and Barbara Maitland would never be recognized by the world, unless Lydia got around to writing memoirs. Unlikely as right now the only thing she wanted to write was a suicide note, she'd been working on one but the motel pen had run out of ink even before she'd run out of the cheap notepad the motel provided.

It wasn't long until she had run out of reading material too. The details of Betelgeuse's curse weren't exactly riveting, but she understood the content well enough. Strangely enough, the ability to understand nearly every instruction manual that she put her eyes to was one of her less unusual talents. Although she was probably the only girl her age who could fix a car after spending an afternoon in a room of manuals while her father haggled over price.

A deep sigh escaped her lips as she tried to use her minimal supply of make-up to cover the bags of restless nights. Ten minutes to grab essentials as not conducive to appearing normal, her eyes were naturally deep; she usually wore makeup to look less goth.

Lydia wanted her folder of suicide notes. She wanted her sketchbook of horrors. She wanted her camera, her bugs. She'd left her identity somewhere else, and aside from police interviews she'd essentially been isolated for the past week. Not the best conditions for a frequently suicidal teenager.

"Lydia, honey, time to go," Charles knocked. Lydia groaned and opened the door, Percy immediately dashed out. "If you need another minute," her father looked at her sympathetically.

"Nope, let's go," Lydia said, grabbing her suitcase. More than anything, she just wanted to go home, Percy quickly jumping into the car next to her. Her parents thought it was weird, keeping the pet of the gunman that had invaded their home, but Lydia didn't think so, the cat was immediately hers even as she let the feisty fellow out of the trunk of her now dead assailant, Gregory Wilson.

[The Neitherworld]

"Hoo-boy," Betelgeuse drummed his fingers on the counter as the cashier suggested different gift baskets. "You see I think he'd like the homicidal maniac special, but I don't want to give him the wrong sort of encouragement. I was thinking more along the lines of 'Welcome to hell, stupid'."

"We have the newcomer's gift basket."

"Naw, that old thing would just bore him… what's that one?"

"That's the lost soul's basket, special for those who've just gotten out of the lost souls room."

"Ooo, I'll take that one."

"Did your friend just get out of the lost soul's room?"

"No, he just sent a couple of ghosts there, probably more but I really only wanna rub in the two."

"Your total comes to thirty three oh two."

Betelgeuse pulled open his wallet, revealing a small web and the he-spider building it; save that guy for later. "Oh my gosh, is that Boris To'Death?" Betelgeuse gasped.

"Where?" the cashier plastered himself over the window and Betelgeuse quietly snagged a bill from the open register.

"Oh, sorry, I guess I'm crazy, could you break a hundred?"

"Yeah, sure, your change is sixty six ninety eight."

"Thanks, that includes the delivery right?"

"Of course."

Betelgeuse merely smiled, stuffing the much less empty wallet back into his pocket as he left the store. "It is just too easy sometimes." Now that that was taken care of Betelgeuse had to wonder what a free-spirited spirit with no obligation to king or country was to do with his free time. He'd already tried to get back to Lydia Deetz, about a dozen times, but it seemed like the little snippet had already screwed him with her newfound influence. It wasn't comforting having someone else own his soul, not that he hadn't sold his soul a dozen times already, just that those contracts had convenient little loopholes. Writing them himself made it easier but Betelgeuse was pretty good at spotting loopholes. Spotting one within only three pages of his own curse paperwork wasn't a motivator for reading the other two thousand pages. His brain might've exploded if he tried reading it all anyway.

Passing by an electronics store, Betelgeuse's eye were caught by a commercial, some demented digital jack-in-the-box spouting about the latest deals. It was the kind of thing that with some dumb luck, and it would be dumb, there'd be a million more commercials like that, the Neitherworld had odd copyright laws. Still the offers were what caught the ghost's attention, a special on spray paint, minor vandalism seemed like a good start to a celebration of his newfound semi freedom. Sounded like some of the best fun to have without the aid of his juice, being currently banished.

Lydia sure wasn't gonna care what he did.

[The Deetz/Maitland Household]

Lydia opened the door and stepped inside. She'd been so eager to get back home, now that she was it just felt so… wrong. Stumbling slightly Lydia put her hand on the wall, doubling over slightly. Her own home shouldn't have been a punch to the gut. "Take the day off sweetie, I'll be back this evening," Charles kissed her forehead before he left; left Lydia alone in that house that was no longer her home. When Lydia had first moved into the house months ago she could feel the otherness that seemed to leak from the walls. Even when the Maitlands had been away for all the renovations the house sort of hummed. The walls had held the essence of the Maitlands, now it was gone…

Maybe it had something to do with their functional parameters, but Lydia drifted through the house unconsciously searching for some hint of the Maitlands. Eventually her search led her to the attic, even the room that was always the most like the Maitlands was wrong. Everything had been sanitized somehow; even the lingering chill was gone. Gone forever, a tear that Lydia hadn't noticed forming dripped into her mouth, salting her tongue. Lydia's pain filled gasp sounded more like a hiccup as she turned and ran from the attic back to her own room.

"Dammit," Lydia squeaked. Furiously she wiped her sleeve across her face before grabbing her book bag and tossing practically half her room inside. An hour ago she thought that coming home would help, that it would lessen the pit growing in her stomach. How naïve. Now all she could think about was escape. She couldn't stay there for a minute longer. Her last fragmented hope for Barbara and Adam was gone. The closest thing in her life to sane now was seven hours of droning lectures.

What a pathetic thing to cling to.

Lydia whipped off her simple black dress, quickly replacing the garment with the itchy uniforms of Miss Shannon's School for Girls. The farm community was archaically gendered after sixth grade, but Lydia wasn't in the mood to criticize values, she just needed something to keep her busy.

It didn't matter to Lydia that she was late, she rode down the hill without touching the brake for some sensation other than emptiness. She still had a long ride to debate how stupid and pathetic she was for expecting school to make her feel better. There was the painfully obvious fact that she had no friends. It would be impossible to avoid the other students. News travelled fast in small towns, and the news had a lot of time to travel. Would getting mauled by dozens of girls with a billion questions about the event be helpful in any way shape or form?

[Miss Shannon's School for Girls]

There was a notice in front the school, an artist's rendition of the school after renovations. First time Lydia had heard about plans to change the school, amazing what happens with a week spent between a motel and a police office.

At least it was break, all the classes would be shuffling and Lydia could choose an appropriately dark and gloomy back corner to wallow in. Still, something wasn't right, Lydia suddenly felt nervous after she locked up her bike. When she walked into the school everyone walked past her as if she wasn't there.

For a moment Lydia breathed in sharply, the Maitlands had told her how they had no idea that they were dead until Barbara had found the handbook… Lydia checked her bag, nothing new in there. "Hi," Lydia tried waving at a random student.

"Oh, hey," the girl replied, drifting away as Lydia sighed with relief.

Still, if she wasn't dead, why would all the students be so busy ignoring her? It could always be a rumour of some sort. Lydia headed to her locker.

"The new girl is so cool," Lydia whirled around, but she couldn't spot the speaker.

No way would anyone here call her cool, and if it had something to do with a rumour about her no way would everyone be ignoring her. But if it was a new new student, that had to be it, it could easily explain her confusion. A new student would be more exciting to a horde of walking talking hormones.

Lydia grabbed the necessary text books and made her way down the hall. Getting to her next classroom and crawling into her back corner she sighed. It wasn't much but for the first time in a week she almost felt normal; or at least normal for her. Go figure class would be a half-decent cure for the missing Maitland blues.

Class wouldn't start for another ten minutes, so Lydia reached into her bag and pulled out a plain black folder. Suicide notes. Lydia always found them to be somewhat akin to poetry when written well. Usually the initial note was overly moody and filled with spelling mistakes, but Lydia rewrote and collected the ones she hadn't used, which so far had been all of them. Perhaps she would write one today, get out some of her angst even if she wouldn't act on it. The science lab had any number of colourful chemicals.

Lydia briefly looked over her works, and paused on the only letter she'd written in Winter River.

I am utterly alone…

Funny, those words meant so little then as compared to now, but now she knew that suicide wouldn't make it any better.

"Dammit," Lydia squeaked crumpling over her desk. The hollow pit in her stomach was back, as though her five minutes of relief hadn't even happened.

Then there was a giggle; a disturbingly familiar giggle; an exceedingly obnoxious and haughty giggle. Even though she had little religious background and was extremely sceptical about the existence of anything even resembling a deity Lydia had once prayed she'd never have to hear that giggle again.

The chemicals from the science lab got suddenly much more attractive.

It didn't make sense. No Brewster would ever degrade themselves to Winter River Connecticut. The Brewster family was very high brow, their closest competitor was Maxie Dean, and they could probably get him to lick their boots. Maxie Dean was too good for this little hick town; it had taken a genuine haunting and a ghost enthusiastic wife to get him there for dinner.

"It's so hard to find good help around here," Clare Brewster said with a giggle as she examined her nails while entering. "I'm used to having so many friends, but this place is like so small, it's just impossible to find anyone who is even up to par with the people that I'm used to having distantly basking."

Lydia wanted to retch as her torturous childhood came back to her.

Clare had already surrounded herself with a small posse. In elementary Lydia used to call them the clones. Although it didn't look it yet, each would soon walk, talk and dress like Clare. The only partition in the group was a small girl hidden behind a stack of books, the homework dog. Clare picked one up around third grade, and apparently still wasn't in the habit of doing her own homework. Lydia remembered playing that role. Then just as the bell was ringing another girl walked in, with shame written all over her face, in ink. There was the target, the one girl that Clare kept specifically out of her clique to be teased. Lydia remembered playing that role too.

The teacher began roll call, and Lydia tried to put the blonde bimbo out of her head. Probably the only reason she forgot to stifle herself when the teacher called her name. She should have known better than to reply with both lifting her arm and calling aloud, "Here."

"Lydia Deetz?" Clare said in a sing song voice. Lydia knew now, announcing her presence audibly was not a smart move. "Oh my goodness, Lydia?" Clare did her best catwalk to Lydia's desk, "Can you imagine two big city girls like us meeting in a place like this?"

"I can honest say I didn't see it coming," Lydia dug her nails into her desk, anything to hold herself in place.

"Well Lydia, although I'm sure you're delighted by my presence."

"Yeah, I'm just thrilled to be around the most obtuse and vapid contamination of the human race," Lydia smiled crookedly.

"Yeah-hunh, but unfortunately for you, you're like, just not cool enough for me to hang around."

"Everything I've been living for… gone," Lydia barely whispered, yet somehow still paying attention to Clare.

"Don't worry, because you're an unpopular girl from the city instead of the hicks, I'll still let you talk to me," Clare said and skipped back to her seat.

Lydia smiled; hell she wanted to laugh.

The hollow feeling in her chest was gone.

It had been replaced with hate.

[Chapter One: End]