Chapter 7: The Phantom and Finale

Adrianna and Mike continued through Boot Hill. They heard gunshots up ahead, and when they rounded a turn they saw a bank robbery in progress. The whole side of a bank had been blown away, and a few ghosts dressed as robbers were shooting at anyone who tried to stop them.

"Maybe if we just sneak around quietly, they won't notice us," Adrianna whispered to Mike. But as soon as they tried to be quiet, they were noticed.

"Hey you!" One of the robbers yelled, "You better high tail it out of here or you're going to be sleeping with the fishes!"

"Oh, don't mind us…we're just passing through!" Adrianna said hastily, holding her hands up.

"You two don't look like yer from 'round here" Another robber said, eyeing Mike and Adrianna, "Are you tryin' to take our loot!"

"Hey! Yeh can't!" A rather fat ghost robber said, "We stole this fair and square! It's ours now!"

Adrianna rolled her eyes.

"Look, we're just trying to get through this place, so if you could-"

Adrianna was interrupted by one of the ghosts firing a bullet at Mike's head. It was green and translucent, and it merely passed right through Mike's skull and hit another ghost.

"Well…that's fortunate." Mike said.

"Not for that other guy," Adrianna said, pointing her thumb at the ghost who had received the bullet. He was bleeding ectoplasm and sitting on the ground, crying like a baby.

"Eh…he'll be fine."

Mike and Adrianna passed an old bar that had a wall missing. Inside they could see a ghost playing an old piano honky-tonk style, using a light held by a skeleton hand sticking out from the top of the piano. Some invisible ghosts were playing poker, cards lifting up then laying on the table, and cigar smoke rising from invisible smokes. They saw some showgirls performing, but each time they did a high kick one or two of them lost a leg – it went flying through the air and landed on the ground on the other side of the bar.

Just as they thought things couldn't get any weirder, they ran into the Boot Hill Pharmacy. A corporeal pharmacist was mixing all sorts of strange liquids in the window.

"Howdy, folks! Need a remedy?" He asked politely as they approached, "I've been working on this one for quite some time now." He picked up a sickly green vial and downed the whole thing. A few seconds after doing so, the pharmacist's face turned a purplish green color, and he collapsed, dead. But just as Adrianna was going to peer over the counter to see if he was still there, he popped back up, his face normal, and a smile on his face.

"Howdy, folks! Need a remedy?" He asked politely, "I've been working on this one for quite some time now." He repeated the process, and fell dead again.

"I wonder if he even realizes what he's doing," Mike said as they watched him die over and over again.

"I don't think so – all of the souls are trapped here, doomed to repeat."

"They sound like animatronics at a Disney park," Mike said with a chuckle. Adrianna smiled, but the mood was quickly ruined.

They heard evil laughter off in the distance, and they knew it could only be one person: The Phantom.

Adrianna and Mike quickly ran to the source of the laughter, and found that the Phantom had changed: his once skeletal face was now a horribly disfigured corpse, rotting and peeling away. Blood leaked from his soulless eyes as he continued to dig another grave.

"You're too late," he said, in the most horrible sounding voice Adrianna had ever heard, "My daughter is at peace now…you will not remove her from her home! It is where she belongs!"

"What have you done to her?" Adrianna yelled to the Phantom, but he just laughed and disappeared with a flash of lightning. Adrianna looked around, and realized they were near the Manor again – a side door, built into the hill that the house rested on.

"C'mon! I think she's inside!" Adrianna said, and grabbed Mike's arm. She pushed open the metal door, and they were shocked at what they found.

In the middle of what looked like a giant blue crystal formation, lay Melanie.

She was dead.

The bride was nearly unrecognizable – the only sign that it was her was the tattered white dress that her skeletal corpse was wearing.

"We're too late." Adrianna said, falling to the ground. The bride was long gone -they had failed to save her. As Adrianna wiped a tear away, Mike noticed something.

"Look at the crystal," He said, and Adrianna lifted her head. It had started to glow blue, and the two heard some very distant music. It sounded like singing.

"Melanie?" Adrianna wondered aloud. They looked at the skeleton, and were shocked to see that it had moved. It was now pointing a bony finger towards the opposite of where they came in. She wanted them to continue on.

"Let's go," Adrianna said quietly, and she and Mike walked onward. They found themselves by some large, circular mirrors hanging on a wall.

"Maybe this is where the bride wanted us to go," Adrianna said. She looked at her reflection.

All of a sudden, the ghostly image of the phantom appeared above and behind her! Adrianna quickly whirled around, but saw nothing.

She stared in the mirror again, and a few seconds later, the Phantom reappeared. This time, she let it move closer.

It was slowly moving towards Adrianna, reaching for her neck…

But Adrianna was faster. She quickly spun around, and grabbed at him. She was able to get hold of invisible hands, and threw the Phantom down on the ground.

"Why are you doing this!" Adrianna asked him as he appeared into view. Mike ran over to help Adrianna hold him down. He glared at the two, but defeated, he explained.

"My daughter…I cannot let her leave." The Phantom said in his horrible voice.

"Why?" Adrianna said, "Why is it so important to you to keep her here?"

"Because she belongs here…she is happy here…" The Phantom said, blood continuing to drip off of him.

"Happy?" Adrianna said, appalled, "Are you blind? Have you seen the pain and hurt that you've caused Melanie? She was in love, and you destroyed it for your own selfish needs!"

"Her husband was evil…he wanted to take her away from me,"

"If you truly loved your daughter, you would've let him! You have to realize that you can't hold onto something forever, no matter how hard you try. Have you not noticed that even after all of these years, Melanie is still vigilant in her wait for her husband?"

The Phantom was silent.

"Melanie was not betraying you by marrying. She loved you, but she needed to move on with her life. But because of your selfishness, she can't. She's trapped here, forever, as well as all of these other ghosts. You've doomed them all to an eternity of suffering."

"I…I…" The Phantom stuttered. His eyes widened.

"What've I done?" He gasped. Adrianna let go of him and Mark did the same. The Phantom sat up and looked at himself.

"Look at what I have become! A monster!" He said, "I just wanted Melanie to be happy…but instead I've destroyed her!"

The phantom let out a moan of agony. He turned to Adrianna and Mike, and instead of blood flowing from his eyes, there were now tears.

"Please…destroy me…I should not exist on this earth now…and neither should anyone else here."

"That excludes us, right?" Mike said.

"How are we supposed to destroy you?" Adrianna asked the Phantom, ignoring Mike. The Phantom punched one of the mirrors with a bony hand, causing it to shatter. He picked up a large shard of glass and handed it to Adrianna.

"With this."

Adrianna stared at the shard of glass, then at the Phantom.

"I'm sorry I have to do this," She said, as she prepared to do what she knew she had to.

"No…I am the one that is sorry," The Phantom said, bowing his head.

Adrianna thrust the shard of glass into the Phantom's chest. He glowed orange, and released a scream of pain. Everything around him started to rumble. The other mirrors started to shake.

"C'mon! We gotta get out of here! This place is going down!" Mike said, grabbing Adrianna. He pulled her away, and she watched as the Phantom writhed and slowly decomposed.

They made their way through the wine cellar, up through the house and back out the front door, and ran as far away as they could. When they were a safe distance away, they turned to watch.

Thunder Mesa was having another earthquake.

The ground around all of the buildings in Boot Hill started to crack, and they slowly crumbled and vanished into the ground. Ravenswood Manor, the once majestic mansion on the hill, slowly crumbled and disappeared into the ground with the rest of the town. Even the "Boot Hill" sign fell into the earth.

There was no sign that the town even existed.

"It's over…we did it," Adrianna breathed, staring at the empty land. Then something even more amazing than the earthquake happened. From the cracks in the ground, Adrianna and Mike saw hundreds of ghosts fly up out of them and into the sky. They were finally able to move on.

But one ghost, instead of flying into the sky, floated towards Adrianna and Mike. It was Melanie.

"Thank you," She said in her beautiful tone, "For everything. My father has finally freed us from his evil. I can now be with my true love." She smiled, and slowly floated towards the sky, her wedding dress and appearance now beautiful. Adrianna and Mike waved as she finally went to join her husband.

Not much of Boot Hill remains now. Just a few cracks in the ground from the earthquake, one or two old wooden beams that weren't swallowed up…and if you listen closely, the mysterious tinkering of a music box, floating through the wind.

The End