As Brittany and The Ghost walked, they talked about every part of their lives since they had parted ways following High School.
"YES! Those were the best days! Jamming in your old truck, letting "Ribcage" bump those speakers." Laughed Brittany.
"They were indeed the best." Agreed the Ghost laughed with her.
"So where are we going?"
"I want to check and see if my Dad is still alive."
"Oh? I thought that you and your parents..."
"Nah, after my Grandma died, my dad and I reconnected. Made shit work again between the two of us."
"Well that's good to hear!" Brittany paused for a moment, ".... What about you and your mom?"
The Ghost kept walking, as the silence was the only answer he'd give her.
"I take it, it's still not great?"
"We haven't spoken much and the times that we have spoken... I've kept our interactions brief. I can't yet forgive her for the things that were said and done to me, behind my back.... That's something I can't let go of yet."
Brittany stopped him from walking. "I understand. You always were trying to make others feel better, although, I don't think they knew just how much pain you were already carrying." As she finished her thought, she had the Ghost bend down. She unsealed the helmet and took it off. "There, I wanted to see your face again. You don't have to hide it from me." She said, placing a hand under his cheek. He laughed a bit.
"Come on, we've got ground to cover."
Brittany raised an eyebrow at him.
"Fine, I'll give you a ride on my shoulders and tell you everything once we're back in town." Said the Ghost. Her smile instantly returned and she laughed.
"Great! I'll hold you to that last part."
The Ghost rolled his eyes and he stood back up with her on his shoulders. As they entered a subdivision, it didn't take them long to locate the home of the Ghost's parents. However, there was a group of raiders making their way round to the back of the house.
"Helmet?" Asked Brittany.
"No. Wait here." Said the Ghost taking Brittany off of his shoulders. He activated the exit-armor protocol. As the entire back unlocked from around him, he exited the armor, the Ghost was wearing his olive-green coverall, adrenaline mask, and steel-toed boots. However, he had one new addition to his outfit. Rather than his normal, bison-leather work gloves, he had on a prototype he'd made.
"Hey... Wait.... Put your armor back on..." Brittany tried to get him to think rationally, but he'd already vanished behind the house. As he reached the back door, there was broken glass on the deck for where the raiders broke in. He carefully and quietly made his way into the house, heading up stairs first. He could hear the raiders whisper voices rising from the basement of the eerily quiet house. He opened the office door to find it empty. However, as he was about to close the door, the raiders had made their way up from the basement and were now heading to the upstairs level. He quickly shifted rooms over to his sister's old room and kept the door open, hiding out of sight. Once he'd heard all the raiders stacked up near the door to his parents bedroom, he took a long, deep breath. The mask filled his lungs with a chemical that drove his adrenaline levels into overdrive, but that wasn't all. With the flip of hose blocking switch, the Ghost's entire body shot full of noradrenaline.
"Ready?" asked a Raider.
However, his partner was frozen in fear. Staring at something behind him. Before the Raider could see what it was, the Ghost had his hand around the Raider's throat.
"You....FUCKED UP COMING HERE!" He yelled as slammed the raider and his pal through the indoor balcony railing. The two slammed into the hardwood floor below, alerting the other three raiders still in the basement. The Ghost waited for the other raiders to come check on their pals.
"You two, check the backyard, I'll see what those two morons are fucking up this time." Said the lead raider. As the two left the house, the Ghost waited until the raider directly under him.
"Come on you two. Seriously? Arguing over loot?"
One of the raider's tried to warn him, but couldn't speak. The Ghost used the raider's boss to break his jump. The Ghost slammed his head off the floor over and over and over... The other raider that had laid there, had his head curb stomped in. The single raider who attempted to warn his boss lay there paralyzed, watching the Ghost lose his mind, splattering the raiders brains all over the front room's walls, floor, and coating the front door.
"Stay here." Said the Ghost leaving the paralyzed raider in the front room to deal with the other two raiders. As he exited the house through the back door, one of the raiders spotted him, and charged at him with a knife in hand.
"LOOKS LIKE A MORON CAME TO DIE!" The raider shouted. However, the Ghost caught the raider's arm, the same hand the knife was in. He twisted the raider's arm in one swift motion shattering the ball and socket of his shoulder and arm. The raider screamed in agony, just as the second one approached the Ghost. However, before dealing with raider number four, the Ghost used his steel toed boot to shatter the raider's femur. The man wailed in agony before passing out from pain-induced adrenaline.
"What... What the fuck are you!?!?" yelled the last, uninjured or dead raider.
"I am known to most as "Perseverance Incarnate", but when faced by people such as yourself...." The Ghost locks his gaze upon the raider. His eyes were bloodshot, an expression of insanity-induced psychopathic rage took over his face. "I AM A REAPER! YOUR SOUL IS MINE!" Yelled the Ghost as he took the raider to the ground. His hands were covered by a prototype glove and brace system he'd nicknamed, "The Gauntlets", and they were dripping with blood. They allowed the Ghost to transfer the impact recoil of his punches directly to his upper arms and shoulder rather than have his right hand, that had sustained nerve damage in his time with the US Army, take the recoil.
As Brittany rounded the corner to check on him, she watched the Ghost grab a brick and raise it over his head, ready to bludgeon the raider into whatever afterlife awaited him. She ran to him, and stopped him from crushing the raider's skull.
"GHOST PLEASE!" She yelled at him frantically. His eyes locked with hers, finally slowing his breathing.
"Ghost... comeback to me...."
"Give me your rifle."
"W-what?"
"They don't get to live. Not after bringing more pain to this place." Said the Ghost. Brittany could see he hated being even remotely close to this house. Even if it was just a building, she could almost feel the memories, the raw pain of them at least entangled around the Ghost's heart.
"Let's just go. Forget this place."
The Ghost's rage finally let go. He looked at her, his eyes burning hot. "I-I..."
"Don't even think of apologizing. Anyone would've snapped like you did, but nobody could've held it in as long as you did with everything this place has stripped you of."
The Ghost took a deep breath and stood up. "It's time this... all of this.... comes to an end." Said the Ghost as he looked at the house. Brittany held his hand. "It will."
The Ghost laughed, "Not in the way you're thinking. Give me five minutes."
She nodded at him. The Ghost dragged the barely alive raider into the house, and closed the door. He dragged all of the raider's bodies into a pile in front of the oven, and set the two alive one on top.
"Congrats, you idiots get to help me remove every nightmarish memory this place ever carved into my life." Said the Ghost before he went into the basement.
Down there, he broke several gas lines open allowing natural gas to pour into the house. He rushed back upstairs and checked his parents bedroom and the attic. The house was empty, not a soul from his past inside. As he returned to the kitchen, he grabbed a handful of silverware, chucked it into the microwave, covered the broken glass with duct tape, and sealed the door. Once he was out front, he climbed back into the armor, letting it seal around him. As he and Brittany got back to Route 6, the house erupted in a massive, fireball explosion. They stopped and stared at it for a minute. The Ghost took off the helmet once more and knelt down in front of Brittany.
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For stopping me. I damn near lost every bit of my sanity..."
"You're a good man, Ghost. You've just been through so much shit, it's hard to remember a place as good or even the people who lived there as family." Her words were gentle and allowed the Ghost to laugh.
"What's so funny?"
"You said something similar at my graduation party all those years ago." He said as he put her on his shoulders. She smiled as the two of them headed back to Ottawa, with nothing left to do.