He had no idea how long it had been since the last electric shock but it felt like a very long time and now Fun Ghoul dared to believe that the torture might finally be over. With a slight sigh of relief, he sagged in the chair, aching and exhausted, with only the strap across his chest holding him upright. Every now and again a muscle still twitched and his breathing hitched in response as the panic rose in him once more. His head rolled forward and he sighed with the effort of trying to raise it once more. Finally accepting his weakness, he allowed it to simply hang, and closing his eyes he tried to slow his breathing once more. His heart was still beating; he could feel it, almost hear it. Quite how it was still beating he wasn’t certain but he was glad of it despite the pain - reminding himself that if he could feel pain, he knew he was still alive.

The silence in the room was suffocating and although part of him was relieved that he was no longer filling that silence with his own screams, Ghoul hated it. He loathed silence. He feared it. It took him back to the days long past when his guardian would lock him in a closet and leave him all day. At first he would cry and beg to be released, but he soon learned that even if his guardian were even there, which seemed unlikely, no one was going to come to his aid. He would spend entire days locked in those tiny closets with only silence, all the time knowing that when his guardian did return, he would be drunk and looking for any excuse to beat him. As a young boy of six, he couldn’t help it if he soiled himself after spending all day without access to a bathroom and not only would it be uncomfortable and humiliating, but he would certainly suffer for it physically too. Escaping to live with Gerard and Mikey when he was eight had literally been a life-saving decision, but by then the damage was done. As the brothers’ guardian, Korse had come to know their young friend, Frankie, in the time he lived with them in Battery City. Now he was his prisoner and with deep fear and trepidation he realised that Korse was aware of all his weaknesses. Was it too much to hope that he had forgotten?

He almost looked up as the door to the small room slid open. His natural curiosity and sense of self-preservation almost insisted on it. But there was a deeper preservation at work - one that would possibly offer him the element of surprise. He heard the dull pad of boots on the vinyl flooring and through his eyelashes he could see the legs of what he knew was Exterminator Korse. He had stopped half way between the door and where Ghoul was seated. Staring and smiling with the look of a man who held all the power and was absolutely in control. Ghoul couldn’t see his face, but somehow he knew the expression that covered it; he’d seen it a thousand times before - not only on Korse but others just like him.

Walking forward again and stopping in front of Ghoul, Korse looked down and emitted a low, throaty chuckle.

“So then, Fun Ghoul, what’s your plan? You pretend to be unconscious, I untie you and you overpower me? Is that it?”

Ghoul said nothing. Replying would only confirm Korse’s suspicions.

“Very well,” Korse continued with audible contempt, “I’ll play along.”

Reaching for the buckles on the straps, Korse made short work of releasing Ghoul from their hold.

“Well?” He prompted. “Aren’t you going to attack me now? It’s just me, there are no guards.”

Ghoul, furious at the man’s goading and now even more determined, summoned all his energy and launched himself from the chair. In moments, without even managing to lay a hand on the exterminator he landed in a crumpled heap on the floor at Korse’s feet; the cruel man’s laughter assaulting his ears. Using his right foot to push Ghoul onto his back with barely any resistance, Korse continued to laugh at the look of drained exhaustion on the young Killjoy’s face.

“What’s the matter, Ghoul? Muscles not working?” He chuckled.
“You knew that would happen,” frustrated by his weakness, Ghoul’s expression was an angry and bitter scowl as he stared up helplessly. It had been more a statement than a question, and laced with a venomous edge.
“Of course I knew,” Korse raised an eyebrow, aiming a disdainful sneer at his prisoner. “Have you ever known me to take unnecessary risks?”

Ghoul looked up, his expression one of thoughtful astonishment. It was as if he was seeing the exterminator for the first time. Behind his sneer, Korse felt momentarily confused; there was something about Ghoul’s reaction that unnerved him somehow.

“That’ll be your downfall, Korse,” Ghoul warned, still lying on the floor unable to move.
“You’re in an odd position to talk to me about reprisals, Killjoy,” Korse shook his head, regaining his self-satisfied expression. “No, I think I have things... or should I say you, very much under control.”

Behind him, three draculoids entered the room, standing and waiting about ten feet from Korse, awaiting instructions.

“Take him to Sensory Five.” He spoke to the draculoids without turning his simultaneously cold yet smug expression away from the Killjoy. “Let’s see how he copes with that.” Korse grinned with a sly affectation plucking at the corners of his mouth.

“Televised, sir?” One of the draculoids asked.

Korse adopted a thoughtful pose, holding his right elbow close to his side with his left hand, he tapped his lips with the index finger of his right.

“Yes,” he thought for a few more moments. “Use program two and bind his hands behind him.”
“Yes, sir,” the draculoid replied.

Moving forward, the draculoid who had spoken flipped Ghoul over onto his stomach, winding him slightly. Grabbing the Killjoy’s arms he began to pull them behind his back, but to his surprise, Ghoul managed to pull his right arm free. Amazed to have regained control over his arms, Ghoul used his right arm to lever himself onto his back before reaching up to grab the draculoid by his shirt before taking a swing at him. His fist collided with the side of the draculoid’s face, but the impact was negligible compared with the usual power he was able to manage. The return punch was enough to daze him and in moments he was once again on his stomach with his hands behind him. Lifted to his feet two draculoids linked his arms and half dragged, half walked him, stumbling towards his next torture.

“I will kill you, Korse,” he spat, turning his head to look directly at the exterminator.
“No, you won’t,” Korse replied smugly. “Poison won’t let you, will he?”

Ghoul frowned angrily; it was true, Party had always insisted that they didn’t kill the exterminator. He knew why, but right now he really didn’t care what Party wanted. Struggling weakly in the draculoids grip as he was dragged out of the small room, he yelled back:

“I will kill you, Korse! No matter what you think!”

*

It was a short walk to the elevator and Ghoul was biding his time. With every passing second he was feeling stronger. He was never going to reach full strength without a lot of rest but he hoped that he didn’t need full strength and that whatever he could manage would be enough. Although, even he had to admit that with his hands locked behind him, his chances and options were limited but he refused to simply go with them without a fight. Pushed into the elevator, Ghoul turned to face the doors, scowling as two draculoids stood to his right and one to his left. Did it really need three of them? The draculoid nearest to the doors pressed the button for the seventh floor and waited. Ghoul was tense, waiting for his chance - if he could get away from his escort, then perhaps there was a chance. Discreetly, Ghoul slowly turned until he was standing with his right shoulder facing the doors; he would make his move soon. As the doors began to close, Ghoul waited until they were roughly twelve to fourteen inches apart and launched himself through the gap. Managing to squeeze through the gap, almost bouncing off the right hand door, Ghoullost his balance as the doors continued to close. Stumbling forward, he fell, crashing awkwardly into the wall ahead of him. Behind him, as he had hoped, all three draculoids headed for the still closing gap at once, colliding with each other and watching with frustration as the door closed, with their prisoner loose in the corridor. Pressing the door open button frantically, they were too late and the elevator was already heading upwards.

Gathering his senses, Ghoul looked up as he forced himself to stand. Frowning in confusion, Ghoul pressed himself against the wall as the corridor seemed to tilt sharply and he realised that he was seeing double.

“Damn it!” He snapped as his senses swam.

Alarms wailed all around him and he knew that no matter how he felt, he had to try to head for the exit. Taking a long, deep breath Ghoul assessed where he was. He had visited the BLI offices only once before and that had been as a child, taken there to identify the body of his cruel and vicious guardian. As much as he had wanted him dead, he felt it a painful and even scary task to be asked to identify the body, especially as he had lain in the alley he was found in for several days at least having been partly devoured by rats. Ghoul remembered that, on seeing him, somehow the decaying and part eaten body didn’t seem nearly as scary as it had when he had been alive. However, the sight was still unpleasant and he had suffered nightmares as a result. Despite his visit to the offices being over twenty years previous, Ghoul still had a good sense of where he was and how to find his way to one of the staff exits - his main objective being to avoid the main lobby, which he knew would be impossible to pass through. Pushing himself away from the wall, Ghoul staggered briefly before heading along the long corridor. The draculoids if not already returned to the floor he was on would have at the very least informed everyone where he was, he knew he had to get off this particular floor if he were to hide or escape. Ducking through a door leading to a flight of stairs, Ghoul headed down, edging his way by leaning on the wall as he negotiated the steps. There was something about looking down that seemed to disorientate him even more and the stairs moved repeatedly in and out of focus. Tentatively, he lowered a foot down to the next step, determined to make his way down. His first foot landed solidly enough, but his racing heart was causing his blood to rush a little too fast making him feel all the more dizzy. Behind him, he heard shouts; they were already looking for him on this floor. Grimacing as the stairs moved in and out of focus, Ghoul quickly realised that he had no choice, he had to try and he had to do it quickly. Taking another step, he sighed his relief as he successfully descended two more steps. It was then his heel caught on the lip of the next step. Losing his footing once more, Ghoul moved forward, desperate to find his balance but instead found his foot moving through the air with no step beneath it. All too soon, he realised that he was tipping forward too far to recover his equilibrium and found himself falling forward, bouncing off both the steps and the wall, rolling and tumbling out of control with no way to break his fall. He landed almost as suddenly as he had begun to fall, slamming into the wall with bone-shaking force. He had no choice but to lie still. Firstly, all the air had been knocked from his lungs and he was gasping for breath. Secondly, the jarring of his back and head against the wall, combined with his already swimming senses, were overwhelming and the spinning and tilting sensations were enough to make himself keep still purely to avoid being physically sick. There was nothing to be done; above him he heard the door to the stairwell opening and the clatter of boots on the steps. Before they had even laid a hand on him, Ghoul was mercifully unconscious. For the time being he was away from whatever pain and torture they had planned for him but he had no idea what he would wake to - if, indeed, he did.

Notes

Hello lovely readers. So, another installment - poor Ghoul :’(

We’ll probably get back to the others in the next chapter - never sure what’s going to happen!

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this :) Please feel free to leave a comment and I guess there’ll be another update of this one in a couple of weeks or so. Next update from me will probably be on Before They Were Fabulous.

Hugs to all!
Sas xx