A Ghost Story-Claire-Part 2

[black_hat]

And here's the rest of the first part of the ghost story. 

 

“I think we should go to Florida!” Jamie announced, tiptoeing along the edge of the icy fountain.

 

To her horror.

 

“And I think you shouldn’t want to bust your butt,” Claire gripped, and then felt sorry.

 

“Claire, do you think there are people in China?”

 

“Maybe,” she admitted, and went to get the kid off the fountain. Obviously afraid of scarves, she opted for the more traditional route of ice-skating without the skates. Claire gripped her underneath her arms, and set her down on the snow carefully.

 

She had chosen Central Park due to the lack of…unfortunate surprises in the snow. It had been pretty desolate here when people were running. Not much time for sight-seeing or peaceful strolls.

 

“If so, shouldn’t we learn Chinese?”

 

“…I guess. You can learn Chinese, and speak for me.”

 

“Yay. I can do that!” And like the wind, the girl ran along, her arms outstretched in mimicry of a bird. Pointedly out of reach, in Claire’s opinion. So Claire ducked down to gather a nice, big ball of snow. Grinning, she thought this would be fun.

 

She heaved it through the air, and it sailed overhead. It seemed like it would miss its intended target, but it caught the edge of Jamie’s head. The girl squealed and ran for the trees for a fortress. But it was futile.

 

“First strike, first strike!” Claire cried and reached for more. She was a pro at snowball fights.

 

No snowballs were returned. “Hey, that’s not how you play,” she sang out. “If you run, you get automatic point reduction…”

 

She waited, counting out the seconds. Two minutes…four minutes…

 

Oh for…Claire ran forward, sensing a trap. An ambush of sorts. Jamie was smart enough to do that, for sure.

 

And she had been.

 

Claire was surprised when a whole mass of snow fell on her head. She sputtered, shocked at the sudden, wet cold. Gasping, she looked up to see a small coat had been suspended above the trees, and filled to the gills with snow!

 

And a string…or long strip of tape had tripped it up. From the looks of it, it had been a police tape, the coloring washed away from the weather. She had run right into it.

 

“O-okay. You…do win…” She looked around, searching for a laughing face in the surroundings but there was nothing. With dread—when was she not afraid, nowadays?—Claire got to her feet and hurried along, calling Jamie’s name.

 

She finally spotted a small figure at the edge of the park. Way too far off the safe places…

 

“Didn’t you hear me calling you?!” she demanded, and then skidded to a stop herself.

 

A small cat had been…put on the fence. Very recently.

 

She stared, and grabbed Jamie back by the shoulders, staring around. Suddenly a dark suspicion hit her in full force.

 

“Did you?!” she demanded, afraid, and turned the girl forcibly around. Wide, shocked eyes greeted her, and she knew instantly she had been wrong.

 

“No!” Jamie cried out, shaking Claire’s hands off her shoulders. “Why would you—why would…”

 

A very adult expression came over her features, and she stared at Claire, seeming aged by her hurt. It was much worse than this morning. Much worse than ever.

 

“I…if not you, then who…”

 

“I don’t know!”

 

“Come on. We’ve got to get out of here.”

 

“I don’t want to go with you,” she said, backing away.

 

“Jamie, this isn’t the time for that,” Claire warned, trying to keep an eye out.

 

“I didn’t do it!” she screamed out at the top of her lungs, and if the…person (it had to have been a person, that much was obvious) who had done it was nearby, they certainly knew they weren’t alone anymore.

 

“Honey, we…could be in real trouble here.” And they could, she realized. She had left her father’s gun at the apartment, not expecting any sort of need for it. “I’m sorry but you can’t blame me for being surprised. I…I don’t know what this is, but we’re safer inside and together.”

 

“Well, you can’t get hurt, so why do you care?!” 

 

“Because I can get hurt. If something happens to you, it will hurt me very, very badly. So let’s go.”

 

Jamie looked as if she didn’t believe this statement, and Claire knew she had lost a lot of her trust that she had worked so hard to gain over the last few months. But the girl took her hand, and allowed herself to be pulled along, albeit sullenly.

 

They were out of Central Park, and half way down the street, when Jamie spoke.

 

“They’ll see our footsteps and follow us, you know.”

 

“Well, I think that’s just going to have to be that way.”

 

“No, it doesn’t! We can walk in our footsteps…go past the apartment and then go backwards a little bit, stepping in our old tracks.”

 

Claire gazed down at her, amazed.

 

“It’s an old Indian trick,” Jamie said, shrugging.

 

“It’s…a plan at least,” she admitted, looking over her shoulder. They did so, going past the apartment a few blocks and around the corner where their tracks—if they had continued—would be lost in a continuous melting slush. At that place, they began to backtrack, and it was harder, and slower, than Claire thought it would be.

 

As they rounded the corner, however, she did not see any sign that they were being followed.

 

Once inside, she scooped up Jamie in her arms and ran for their room. Locking the door swiftly, she sighed and slid down it, ignoring the glare she was receiving from her now-disgruntled companion.

 

“What on earth was that?” she whispered, shaking her head.

 

“I think it’s them.”

 

“Oh, I hope not,” Claire muttered, shaking, and went to the drawer. To her immense relief, the gun was still there, undisturbed. “That was so messed up.”

 

“…Do you think it’s my dad?”

 

She turned to look at the small figure that actually appeared to be fighting back hope. She felt a sharp pain go through her, one so desperately betrayed that it wanted to bring her to her knees again.

 

“No, honey. I don’t.”

 

It couldn’t be. Sylar had been killed by Peter a few weeks before the big event of the Apocalypse. It was almost funny. Jamie didn’t know of his death. Actually, all she had known about her biological father was that he wasn’t a very nice man. To put it mildly.

 

One didn’t go around shoving a kid’s nose in that fact.

 

Apparently, though, his company would be preferable to hers. Out-fucking-rageous.

 

She really reigned in her panic, and horror, and immense hurt, and stumbled towards the window, scanning the sidewalk intently.

 

“I don’t think he would do that.”

 

And she didn’t. That was the surreal part. Even if that monster was still walking around, putting a cat on a fence was hardly what he would do. She had read his case file, once. Nothing like that was reported.

 

So: who was out there?

 

All it would take is a small mutation. A small but vital mutation in resisting the virus. A normal person could have it, even. Undetectable until the aftershock. A healthy nut-job to be sure, possibly driven insane by the death of friends, family, and in general, others outside one’s self.

 

She wished she had never suggested they go out too far, to a place she hadn’t thoroughly checked out beforehand. Perhaps…it was better to know now rather than find out later in worse circumstances.

 

“I…wow. This isn’t so hot, kiddo.”

 

“No kidding.”

 

Ah. Still angry. Still justifiably angry.

 

“I owe you an apology,” she began.

 

“Maybe it was you. Ever think of that?”

 

She choked on her words, and looked in the reflection of the window. Jamie stood with her arms crossed, eyes narrowed.

 

“And how?” Claire asked. “Why? When? Little things like that kind of matter.”

 

“When you go out,” was the simple reply. “You leave me here, and go out. I don’t know what you do.”

 

“I go out to Walmart. Walmart. Not to make skibobs of animals. God.”

 

“How do you know that about yourself? I mean, how can you be so sure that you didn’t go a bit nuts after everyone died?”

 

“Because I didn’t.”

 

“Proof, please?” It was the smugness. That shade of something, the other that got to her. It didn’t really matter where the smugness itself came from. It was how it was used, used, and something inside of her broke.

 

“That’s very fucking cruel!” Claire burst out, and was surprised to find out that she was about to cry. “No wonder you want your father here! You’re just fucking like him!” 

 

The girl’s face broke, wounded, but…and…she was pleased. Guilty, so twisted upon being caught, being exposed, guilty that she was pleased. But pleased, nonetheless.

 

“I know. I know you think so. Everyone…thought so.”

 

Not really. Claire knew otherwise, but instead, she smiled.

 

“Sit down on the couch. Sit there, and be good, for once.”

 

It was very great self-hate that she watched Jamie walk, slumped all the while, to the couch. She seemed completely hollowed out, now. They had nothing to look forward to. Not to life, not to enjoyment of each other’s presence. That much was painfully revealed, no matter how much Claire had tried to hide it. It was like being forced to walk down an endless road filled with razor spikes.

 

“I…do wish someone else was here,” she admitted, to silence. “I even would prefer Sylar, an evil that I knew, rather than just some random, pointless…horror. Or horrors, according to you. I don’t think it’s me. But…how can I say otherwise, hmm?”

 

Jamie slumped further into the couch, further into a ball.

 

“I wish Peter had made it. You would have liked him better, I imagine.”

 

“Yes. Or Molly. I would have liked her way better.”

 

Claire closed her eyes. “I think I would have to.”

 

There was a sniffle, or a hint of a sniffle, at that. “Well, I guess we need to leave tonight. No sense in staying where someone is…”

 

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Jamie protested, shaking her head so violently that Claire was sure she would give herself a medical problem. “I’m trapped with you. I’m stuck with you. No matter where we go.”

 

“That can change,” she offered. Jamie bit her lip. “I’m very sad. Jamie. I’m just very sad.”

 

They sat in the room until it began to get dark out. Claire got to her feet and went to light a candle. No power, no lights. She heard a shift of fabric, and she barked out a ‘Don’t even think about it’ for good measure.

The girl wasn’t going anywhere, no way, not even. She couldn’t…let her go. Jamie would just have to suck it up, and deal.

 

Then there was a crash, from somewhere close. Claire jerked, nearly bumping her head against the closet door.

 

“Claire?” a small voice squeaked, from the middle of the living room. Oh. Jamie had bumped against the coffee table. For a moment, she nastily wondered where the kid had inherited her lack of grace.

 

She dug frantically through the mess, looking for a small bit of candle.

 

“Hold on, I’m coming, I just—have to find this stupid-.”

 

There wasn’t a single candle in feeling-range, and she groped around, having been positive that there had to be something. A flash-light was last minute, purely, as wasting  a good battery on spooky noises which was probably a cat was totally dumb.

 

“Claire…”

 

“I said hold on.”

 

“…uh…there’s someone in here with us.”

 

She froze, listening hard. There was just the quiet that came with snow, and small, shallow breathing. Nothing more, nothing less. And of course, she hadn’t heard a door open. This was Jamie’s revenge, and Claire planned to ignore it. Just an inch, and the standard eight year old would take a mile. She remembered this lesson from Lyle…

 

She sighed, and continued her search. “How could I lose perfectly good candles?”

 

Something cold hit her shoulder, and she bit back a scream. Grabbing at it, she felt a waxy, cool surface, and smelled a hint of cinnamon from the stereotypical holiday candle.

 

“Okay, where did you find this?” she asked, the warning inherent in her voice, glaring at the pale shape behind her, outline made apparent by the cool moonlight of the window. “Just because you’re bored, doesn’t mean you can just melt wax to play with. These are important, Jamie.”

 

“…Auntie Claire?” Jamie opined from the living room.

 

The shape tilted its head, and she went from hot to cold. She sprang to her feet, almost tripping over all the items she had upturned, and struck out with a clenched fist…to find nothing there at all.