Vengeance: A Halloween Novella

Chapter 13

October 30, 2023

Calgary, Canada

Elias Pettersson manifests into a ghostly apparition like the many seen and heard about on TV shows. At first he is an odd shaped ball anomaly and then he is able to draw upon the leftover energy from the Scotiabank Saddledome. He becomes a mist and then takes the form of a glowing figure, gliding through the halls with a purpose.

Before long, he hears voices up ahead of him. He dives behind a pillar and peers out, spotting a messy brunette haired man with a patchy beard decorating the bottom half of his face.

The cauldron is all set up and ready for all the ingredients. He just has to complete his mission. The plan.

Luckily with the help of the others, he discovered how to cast himself from limbo to the real world as a ghost. Just a simple spell out of the handy guidebook.

He recalls the plan with Tkachuk's five victims: return as a ghost, collect the blood of a Calgary Flame, return to limbo, concoct the potion, return again to Earth as a human and stop Tkachuk, preventing him from killing or hurting Brock.

The man was bidding someone farewell as he is now walking down the hall, heading right toward where Elias is hiding.

Elias accidentally bumps against one of the equipment benches that is outside and moves it. The loud scratching noise cuts through the still, semi-quiet air and startles the man, causing him to jump and turn toward Elias' hiding spot.

"W-who's there?" the man stammers out.

His amber eyes are bright with fright.

It's at that moment that Elias recognizes the man. It's Dillon Dube, one of the younger depth forwards for the Calgary Flames. (Also, one of the few tolerable ones too.) Poor kid is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Elias steps out of hiding, holding his hands up.

Dillon throws out one of his sticks, aiming it in his direction. "I mean it! Who's there?"

Elias opens his mouth up to say something, but stops himself. The reality hits him. He's not visible to Dillon. He flings his arm out to the side and taps on the pillar, unknowingly knocking a role of stick tape onto the ground.

Dillon stares at it and then looks at the pillar. He slowly steps backward. The horror is gradually coming to fill him. Then he freaks out and races for the exit, shouting out, "GHOST!! SCOTIABANK IS HAUNTED!!"

Elias bolts after him and tackles him to the ground. He draws on the energy from his fear as he squirms in place on the ground under him. "Please, please, stop. It'll be okay. I'm not going to hurt you."

"GHOST!" Dillon shouts out, pushing at Elias' inhumanly strong grip.

Elias realizes that now, he is beginning to become visible to him. It's not everyday you see someone glowing or have a normally scrawny kid holding down someone with more strength than he should normally possess.

Elias looks down at him. "I promise, I won't kill you or hurt you. I just need a little bit of your blood so I can return and stop Matthew Tkachuk from killing Brock Boeser. It's a long story, but just trust me."

"Elias Pettersson?" Dillon questions.

Elias nods at him. "Please?"

Dillon squirms his way out of Elias' hold on him and struggles to sit up.

Thankfully, no one came when he screamed. Whoever he'd said goodbye too was long gone and probably couldn't hear him. It was just the two of them.

Dillon shakes his head. "I-I can't...Tkachuk said..."

Elias steps back, fully visible to him now and glowing white. His mind is racing with thoughts. It's not looking good and with Dillon possibly being friends with Tkachuk...Elias can't take any chances. He's going to have to hurt him.

Dillon gets up to his feet. "Tkachuk says you killed him. He was supposed to have killed you. But you've come back. I must alert him!"

Elias' heart skips a beat.

Dillon whips his phone out with a shaking hand and heads for the exit door.

Elias lunges for him, knocking the cell phone from his grasp and accidentally sending him slamming into one of the security checkpoints. He hits his head, busting his nose open and knocking him out.

Elias gasps as he crashes to the ground, limp and unconscious. Blood pools out of his nose and mouth from the sudden, hard impact. "Sorry, Dube..."

"Take the blood, you idiot!" Kailer hisses in his ear. "Remember your mission, Save Brock."

Elias startles from his dead stare, taking out a vial from his pocket. He scoops the blood up into it, enough to fill the entire vial and then vanishes in sparkles. He reappears back in the limbo room, the lightning twice as bright in the projection clouds.

Connor, Kailer, Jason, Tyson and Clayton are all awaiting him, standing by a giant bubbling cauldron.

Elias walks over to it and them, holding the vial. He looks at them as he drops the vial's contents into the smoking pot. Then he tosses the vial to the side, making it vanish into the cloud projections and conjures up a dagger from the dead air, following the book's guide. He slits his palm and lets the drops of his own blood trickle into the pot and then he slices a lock of his hair and drops that into the pot. 

The cauldron poofs up a cloud of smoke from it and Elias scoops some of the potion into a cup. He sips it and at once, he finds himself spinning around. It's like he's traveling through one of those kaleidoscope toys. He thinks that he's just going to get super dizzy from the spinning.

The others soon vanish from sight.

The spinning finally stops...

And then there's darkness.