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I
"Great, my first car accident and I'm not even driving yet!"
The little white Mazda roared around the corner, its tyres barely managing to grip the wet bitumen. It fishtailed for a handful of giddying seconds, the rear end sweeping across lanes unchecked before regaining position and speeding down the road that ran alongside the high school.
A heartbeat later, the corner exploded. Chunks of debris hurtled through the air, smashing windows and pummelling the pavement as a glowing mass the size of a semitrailer flung itself at the spot where the car had just been. Cheated of its prey, the ghost's amorphous, tentacled body quivered before turning towards the rapidly escaping vehicle and shaking debris from where it had stuck to its gelatinous skin.
"Change gears," Mr Lancer said as though he hadn't noticed the destruction behind them. Danny's fingers tightened around the gearstick, the car veering a bit with his single-handed steering as he transitioned from third to fourth. Rain beat against the windshield, and the teacher calmly flicked the wipers to a higher setting as the driver shakily returned his grip to the steering wheel and jerked the car back into the correct lane.
They had passed the school now, and the football field whipped past as the car was jostled by another impact – the creature had leaped again, missing the driver's-ed vehicle by a scant few feet.
Its roar was loud over the screaming in the backseat.
"You're doing fine," Mr Lancer reassured Danny before twisting in his seat and glaring at the three students huddled in the back. "Shut up so we can concentrate!" he hollered, turning back to the road just in time to tug the steering wheel and prevent them from mounting the kerb.
In the rear-vision mirror, the creature was crouching in preparation to leap again.
"Get off me," Valerie hissed, prying Kwan's fingers one at a time from where they were fastened around her arm.
"We're gunna die," he whimpered, fingernails scratching her skin and leaving stinging red welts.
One of the marks began to bleed, and Valerie elbowed him in the gut. "I said get off!"
Star, who had mercifully stopped screaming at Lancer's outburst, squealed through her fingers as Danny once again slammed his foot into the clutch and jerked the little car around the corner while their unfortunate teacher handled the gears.
"Easy, Mr Fenton," he said. "Just keep calm, and everything will be fine."
Danny's knuckles were white as he grasped the steering wheel. "Can't I pull over?" he begged, breathing hitching in near-panic. "We could make a run for it. The ghost'll be too distracted by the car-"
"Watch it!" Lancer shouted, yanking on the wheel and narrowly avoiding collision with a vehicle parked on the side of the road.
"Is it still following us?" Star whimpered. Her hands had crept upwards from her mouth, and were now pressed against her eyes.
The car they had swerved around a moment ago sailed through the air, landing upside-down in the middle of the road just ahead of them.
"Brake!" Lancer screamed, clutching the handbrake.
The car shuddered as Danny slammed his foot down, throwing the passengers forwards. Valerie yelped as her seatbelt cut into her shoulder, and Kwan clutched her arm again, his nails breaking through her skin instantly.
Their little car skidded along the wet road, stopping less than a metre from the upturned obstacle in their path.
Everything was quiet except for the rain beating against the roof and the passengers' strained breathing. Valerie thought that she heard Star sob.
Danny seemed to recover the fastest. "Everybody out!" he shouted, practically launching himself out of the car. "Out, out, out!" He pulled open Valerie's door, tugging her from the car before she even had a chance to struggle with her seatbelt. By then, their teacher had managed to exit the vehicle as well, and was dragging Star out through the other side. Valerie sank to the ground as her classmate released her arm, legs refusing to cooperate after the recent shock of a sudden stop. Her shoulder ached already, and all she could think of was that upturned wreck of a car in the middle of the road, and what would have happened if they'd hit it.
"Come on, Kwan!" Danny shouted, turning back to the car as the last passenger shook his head, dazed.
Something thudded behind them, and the rain stopped hitting them, though it continued to fall only a few metres away. Valerie frowned, looking up as the massive ghost the size of a two-storey house loomed over their little group. It quivered, tentacles writhing and the lump-shaped mass moving and morphing until something rested at the top that approximated a head. Two pinpoints of red appeared, piggy eyes that darted from one person to the next with malicious intent.
Valerie looked at those eyes, and saw death. She reached for the band on her wrist – screw her secret identity. Lives were at stake here, and she didn't have the luxury of hiding her ghost hunting habits in such a dire situation. Her shoulder throbbed from where the seatbelt had bruised and possibly sprained it, and her legs were shaking so much that she'd never be able to stand up on her own in time, but that hardly mattered when her suit would do all the work for her. Her suit… which didn't appear when the pressed the call button on her wristband.
Her suit, which was resting snugly inside the backpack that she had been forced to leave at school while she had her driving lesson.
Danny wriggled out of the car again, pulling a trembling Kwan with him. "We have to go, quickly, before it gets-"
The slight boy stopped moving, and slowly, in an action that was almost comical, he tilted his head back and met those murderous eyes.
The creature quivered more enthusiastically, its face tearing open to reveal a mouth glistening with sharp implements – knives, shorn-off poles, garden equipment, bones, and even what looked like a sword jutted from the ectoplasm in a gross approximation of teeth.
"Don't move."
Danny stayed frozen, staring at the ghost, and it took Valerie a moment to realise that the order had come from him.
On the other side of the car, Star whimpered, and that small sound was enough. With a terrible scream that echoed with the sound of uncounted tormented souls, the ghost leaned even further down so that its face was close enough for Danny to touch should the boy simply reach upwards. Kwan sagged onto the asphalt with a horrified moan, but Danny didn't even flinch. A rake poorly embedded in the ghost's gums sagged, its multi-fingered tip hovering just above Danny's head. Ectoplasm dripped from the tool in viscous salivary strands, landing in the boy's hair and sliding down the side of his face.
Valerie flinched sympathetically, moving her hand as quickly as she dared. An ectopistol was tucked inside her boot, if only she could reach it without the monster noticing…
The unmistakeable sirens of the Fenton's Ghost Assault Vehicle started somewhere far away, and as Valerie's fingers inched closer to the top of her boot, she could only pray that they could get here fast enough to stop their son from becoming lunch.
Danny visibly swallowed in nervousness, one eye shut against the spectral salvia that continued to dribble onto him. Everything seemed frozen, and as the human continued to glare at the ghost with his single open eye, Valerie frowned. What the hell was going on?
The ghost snorted, its breath ruffling Danny's slime-covered hair. At the sound, Kwan shrieked, breaking away from their group and sprinting towards the cover of the trees.
The ghost was upon him in an instant, lifting the screaming, thrashing footballer high into the air.
"Kwan!" Valerie cried, tearing the pistol from its holster and pointing it at the ghost as Danny launched himself towards the spectre. Her shot sped towards him, and Valerie gasped as it was halted before it could hit her intended target, colliding instead with Danny's shoulder.
The youth was thrown to the ground by the force of the blast with a yelp, and it was Valerie's turn to freeze. She had shota human!
Groaning, he sat up, shoulder smoking and sleeve discoloured with something dark that seeped across the fabric. Above them, the creature's mouth was open wide, Kwan struggling helplessly from the tentacle that wrapped around his chest, letterman jacket slimy and already torn as he hung above the gaping maw. Tears streamed down his face as he screamed at the top of his lungs.
Valerie aimed again – if she could just hit the ghost, it'd hopefully drop Kwan and pay attention to her instead. Her finger tightened on the trigger as Danny shakily got to his feet, hand clasped over his injured shoulder and face contorted in pain.
This time, her aim was true, the blast connecting with the creature's torso. Instead of falling over, staggering, or even flinching, the ghost's gelatinous flesh simply wobbled with the impact. No smoke. No burn mark. Nothing.
The resulting ripple sent several items falling from their precarious positions in the ghost's mouth, landing around Danny like some bizarre snowfall. For what it was worth, the ghost didn't even notice.
With a final screech from Kwan, the tentacle around his torso slid away, dropping him straight past the jagged utensils and directly down the creature's gullet. That horrid mouth shut with a wet squelch, curving into the approximation of a smile.
Valerie's gut twisted. It had just… it had eaten…
This couldn't be real…
"Hey!" Danny shouted, suddenly far more animated than he had been a moment ago. He hopped from foot to foot like a madman, waving his arms above his head. His good arm, the one without the bloody, smoking shoulder, clutched the sword that had fallen from the ghost's mouth. "Don't you eat my humans!"
The creature growled, swinging for the prancing teen. Danny ducked under its clumsy swipe, his sword opening up the monster's belly with a simple slash. Ectoplasm gushed from the wound as the ghost screamed once more with the cries of the souls of the damned, Valerie's ears popping at the sound. Something wet and warmer than the rain slipped over her lips, and she realised that her nose had begun to bleed.
Danny grimly danced around the creature with a fleetness of foot that he had never shown in gym class. With every movement, he cut again and again at the ghost's gut until something far more substantial than the liquid ectoplasm began to slip through the widening gash. The creature tried repeatedly to capture or crush this strange assailant, but Danny skipped out of the way every time, his sword slick and green.
With another couple of cuts, the ghost wobbled, howling as a gelatinous mess of intestines spilled through the gap that Danny had sliced. It swung at Danny yet again but instead of dodging, the teen slashed with the sword, and the ghost's tentacle fell to the ground. "You spit him out, or I keep cutting!" he screamed, brandishing the sword. The entire bizarre battle had taken just over a minute, and Valerie had stared uncomprehendingly as scrawny Danny Fenton faced down and practically eviscerated a ghost as big as his own house.
The ghost's slimy lips quivered, its first intelligible words slipping through them in a deep, sonorous voice accompanied by a large amount of ectoplasm-stained spittle. "You'll let me go?"
Valerie growled as Danny nodded. "Just spit him out for me," he coaxed, "and I'll let you fly away."
"Danny!" Valerie shouted.
"Val, shut up! Kwan's dying in there right now!"
She shrank back at his outburst, looking up at the ghost as it quivered. "And if I don't?" it asked.
Although Danny faced their attacker, Valerie knew that his face hardened as she saw his shoulders square. "If Kwan dies, I'll tear you apart piece by piece, and feed you into my parents' inventions so that you have no hope of re-forming."
The authority in his voice was something that Valerie had never heard from him, and before her very eyes the ghost visibly flinched. It opened its mouth with no further attempt at conversation, strands of fluid connecting the lips long after they had parted. One of its remaining tentacles slipped down its own throat, emerging a moment later with a limp, slimy person in its grasp. It laid Kwan on the ground, and the ghost groaned before shimmering into invisibility. Valerie could hear it moaning and squelching as it passed her, and a shiny trail of ectoplasm was left in the fleeing creature's wake that was already being washed away by rainwater; there would be nothing left in a few minutes but an oil-slick of residue.
Danny knelt at Kwan's side, wiping the ectoplasm off his face. "He's not breathing!" he shouted, fingers immediately pressing into the fold of flesh between Kwan's lolling head and shoulders. The unconscious boy's skin was red and raw, damaged and already bleeding in places thanks to the acidic ectoplasm of the ghost's internal structure. "Call an ambulance!" Danny looked up at them, eyes wild. "Val, you do the rescue breathing, I'll do the compressions. He needs CPR!"
Immediately bending over the body, Danny placed his hands in the proper place and began to rock with compressions, his breathing fast and hitching. Valerie forced herself to her feet, moving towards the bleeding, lifeless figure, but a larger body brushed past her, pushing a phone into her hand. "That's my responsibility," Mr Lancer said. "Miss Thunder is hysterical, so could you please call the ambulance, Miss Gray?"
Valerie nodded numbly as her teacher knelt opposite Danny, speaking quietly to remind the boy of their rhythm before leaning closer to Kwan.
She glanced at Star, who sat trembling on the ground with loud, hiccupping sobs, and then at the phone in her hand.
Don't think about being swallowed by that ghost. Don't think about the short drop into its stinking, gaping maw, or the dark, slimy journey down its throat. Don't think about choking, screaming, passing out in the acidic fluid and pungent fumes…
She needed to call the ambulance. Swallowing back the bile threatening to rise in her throat as her stomach clenched, Valerie thumbed in the emergency number and shakily brought the phone to her ear.
The rain was falling harder now, in big, fat drops that plastered Valerie's hair to her shoulders and neck. The Fentons' van finally rounded the corner, lights flashing and sirens screaming, and as the operator asked what the emergency was, everything blurred into the softness of tears.