A/N: Greetings All! After a long vacation, I've returned to submit to you "Medal of Horror", a sequel to "Haunted Forest".

This is another Thatch x Mantha story. Please Read and Review. I appreciate feedback.

CHAPTER 1

Lunch Time

"Hey guys, look what I have!" Mantha eagerly set down her lunch tray and reached for the red ribbon around her neck. At the end, an eyeball shaped pendant glistened beautifully with age and polish.

"Wow what is it, Mantha?" Casper admired. "It looks really old."

"It is," Mantha smiled and held it close to her cheek. In the palms of her hands she cradled it. "It's my great great grandfather's war medal. He earned it in the great Fleshie – Zombie War." She held it up to her face by the ribbon and watched it slowly twirl. The glittering surface reflected most from the pupil of the eye.

"That's awesome! What for?"

"My grandpap lost most of his limbs and an eye."

"What do you mean? They never found them?"

"Worse. They were destroyed." Mantha frowned. "It was given to me by my grandmom because she said I have the same fire like him." The zombie's expression softened and she smiled at her friends. Casper nodded in understanding. Ra had a small gaping expression on his face. Never before had they seen such a thing and there it was for them to appreciate.

Meanwhile across the room, a noisy vampire and his group ran about –making an awful racket—throwing food and lunch trays in a frenzy. The vampire, Thatch dodged a snowball-sized assault and dove behind a table. "Try again, loser!" He grinned with his sharp fangs. A green haired imp laughed hysterically, licking the bits of gelatin mush on his face. It was disgusting, but the backwoods creature could have cared less.

"You won't miss this one, Thatch!" Mosshead flung a tray of sharp knives in his friend's direction. When Thatch slipped – from whatever unidenfiable foodstuff lay on the floor –he landed hard on his tailbone. The boy wailed loudly, complaining and grumbling curses under his breath. That was it. No one shot down this vampire and got away with it. Thatch lowly growled, and with a predatory aim, prepared to take his revenge. It was then he heard someone shriek in agony.

Over at the other table, zombie girl spoke frantically. Thatch saw something gripped tightly in her right hand, it looked like another one of her useless pro-zombie pendants now broken like the cheap piece of crap it was.

Also, Mantha had been hit by the tray.

There was that to his delight.

Out of his corner vision, he could see that girl covered in filth but unfortunately, all the knives had missed. Short sheet and bandage boy were hovering around her –hogging all of her attention—as usual. Yet, how they could bear to mind all her talk was beyond Thatch because that pain-in-the-fangs-zombie would talk their ear off now. Oh, she would need to vent.

Thatch turned away, wiping his pants clean with a simple flick when he noted the collection of creatures gathering about. What now?

Mantha shook her arms free of the food, coughing. The smell of mixed edibles was almost unbearable. She knelt down, moving her delicate hands through the mess. Lines of dread began to form under her eyes as she searched until someone roughly grabbed hold of her shoulders and pulled her up. They spun her around violently and chuckled. "Well, look at that." Thatch laughed. "Hey, thanks for being my meat shield, zombie girl." He snorted and smugly shook his head at her.

"Oh no!" Mantha breathed. She pushed Thatch away—resuming her work—as in not paying attention to him.

Thatch nonchalantly pulled at his dress shirt, fixing his sleeve. That's right. Ignore him, silly girl. He looked on as she flung herself down to the floor again. "Hey, that disgusting color matches you better anyway."

"No!" She shouted.

Casper and Ra looked at each other, unsure of what to say.

"My grandpap's medal," she gasped hoarsely, "it's broken." Indeed it was, snapped in half, one side lay on the floor, the other held protectively in her hand. "I can't believe this." Casper stepped forward, reaching for her hand only to be turned away. She didn't want to be touched. A few coughs and mutters erupted from the other students, which made her head turn up. When Mantha looked around her, at all the starting eyes, she fussed with her dirty outfit. It was embarrassing and the attention was becoming unbearable. Not wanting to be seen, she turned her back to everyone, arms linked around her body in comfort.

That zombie was a mess, Thatch grimaced. Now what? She's either going to act proud and storm off or they're going to get lecture. He wasn't sticking around. Without a word, he turned away and left her to wallow.

Nearly everyone had stopped to eavesdrop. When the vampire was half way to his seat, he spun around feeling the hair raise on his neck. There were quite a few eyes on him, some glares, others frightened looks. "What? I didn't do it on purpose." He fumed. When only a few students lowered their gaze, he hastily walked up to Mantha's backside and growled. "Hey, Zombie Girl, whatever it is, if it's that important, why didn't you just leave it in your room?" He crossed his arms glaring at everyone to get back to their business.

"Thatch…" Casper approached him.

"No, I want to hear it from her. If it's that big of a deal she should take better care of her things." Surely, he was going to get it now. Mantha didn't like being told what to do especially if she was in one of her self righteous moods. Oddly, her back remained to him. That was fine with him; he huffed and dismissed her waving a hand. Without so much as an apology, he turned back his seat. No skin off his nose. He wasn't about to pander to anyone's pouting. Yet, before he could sit, a quiet noise stopped him dead in his tracks.

Mantha sobbed.

Thatch whirled around. Another small sound escaped from the girl and he flinched.

He took a cautious step toward her. "What's the matter?" His voice laced with seriousness and unmistakable cruelty as he inched closer. With that, his expression changed. The look of shock on his face would have made the girl feel victorious, but not today. She couldn't be bothered to have a prideful ego, even a fake one as Mantha began to visibly shake, the streams of tears dripping off her cheeks. Taken off guard, the vampire quickly got in front of her, ignoring Ra and Casper in haste. "Please don't that." He breathed. He had the most pleading look as he recalled his father had taught him, 'never make a woman cry – she will remember it.' Thatch waited with a halted breath, lips covering his fangs in anxiety.

"It's broken." Mantha's throat felt tight. She didn't want to cry in front of everyone, especially Thatch, but it was just too much.

"Just please stop that…"

"What will my family think?" She managed to choke out, sinking deeper into her own embrace. Purple hair fell forward, the lovely strands soaking up some of the tears. She sobbed quietly, falling to one knee with every intent to grab the other half, but couldn't bring herself to look. She held it close to her chest, more of the slop clinging to her flower shirt.

He couldn't believe it. Thatch's expression grew softly disgusted until he couldn't take it anymore. Someone was going to pay for this.

"Mosshead!" The vampire roared, his teeth barring fiercely. The green haired imp tripped over his own feet. "You idiot! You've got the worst aim!"

"I'm sorry Thatch." The imp moped, shamefully looking away.

"It's not his fault, Thatch." Mantha sniffed, quietly defending his simpleton minion. "You are right. I should have kept it in my room."

Pressing his brow together, he studied her closely. She was recovering. This was good. Good for him because he had a reputation to hold up. Returning to his normal persona, the boy forced the concern off his face and glared. "Why'd you bring it out here anyway?"

"I was going to give a short lecture in history class." Her eyes weld up again, but not a tear fell from her soft cheek. Her reason was perfectly legitimate. Most of them, including Thatch, had the class after lunch. The vampire winced unable to bring himself to comfort her. He held his hands in front of her shoulders, not sure if he should touch her.

"Uh…" His expression widened again. Okay. He could fix this. Who did he know that could fix this?

Ra stepped to Mantha's side and grinned reassuringly. "Don't forget, we have an entire library to work with, Mantha. We can fix this." At that the girl smiled. Good ol' Ra. If she had a prayer to see the light at the end of a tunnel, Ra was it –and if she could have a brother in that after life, it would be him.

"And maybe we could ask Professor Burns how to repair it." Casper suggested. He studied the pieces between her hands. The edges seemed clean, it couldn't be that hard to repair, could it? Maybe they were right. The three of them could put their heads together and come up with something. With her thumb, she traced away the remaining moisture under her eyes.

"Oh really?" A gruff voice replied and a violent arm reached out – grabbing the ghost by the ectoplasm –hanging him in the air – and nearly early face to face with Casper's innocent expression. His blue eyes widened. "Casper, why don't you just mind your own business?" Thatch's voice had grown hauntingly low with each word. Always had an answer, that ghost. Obviously he had meant that as an insult. Turning paler, Casper released himself from the vampire's grip and floated from his reach. "I'm about done with this." Thatch's snarky tone had returned, and he glared at Mantha.

"No one is asking you stay." She shot back, lowly.

"Look, let's all just calm down," Casper interrupted, unfazed by Thatch's assault.

"Mr. Burns is our best bet for now." The ghost softened his voice and put an arm around Mantha's shoulder, patting it softly. She noticed. The touch welcomed this time, and few strands of hair shyly fell over her face and she nodded gently.

Thatch scowled.

"Let's put the medal back in your room and we'll explain it to Miss Hopper before class."

The girl's face looked deep in thought and then suddenly fell. "I still have the photograph with him receiving it, but what am I going to tell my parents?"

"Nothing for now. Let's just see first, okay?" Casper smiled. Mantha summoned some composure and shook her head in agreement.

After some more conversation, little of which Thatch paid attention to, Ra, Casper and Mantha made for the exit and the left bewildered vampire to himself.

There was a dead silence in the lunchroom, save for the humming steam tables.

Thatch surveyed the mess he made and cursed. It was just a medal. Just a very important medal, he thought. One that probably would have been passed down generation after generation. Anger grew hot in his center by the second.

Why was this getting to him? Well, it was Mantha. She did aggravate him along with that nauseatingly affectionate ghost friend of hers, which by the way, needed a lesson in personal space or else.

Running a hand through his hair, the vampire grumbled. Those two together made his insides hurt. Why did they have to look at each other like that? In fact, they made too good of a team along with that simple mummy. Mantha, Casper, and Ra: when the three of them were together, that always spelled trouble for him.

Mantha alone was something else entirely. That zombie girl, his zombie girl, fraternized with that ghost far too much. She'd get soft because of him. It wasn't the Mantha he saw suffering beautifully with him when they were stranded together. She had kissed him and he hadn't forgotten. And although things had gone back to normal for the most part, something inside him was growing for her. He'd never show it however, he'd be a laughing stock. If anyone found out he had soft feelings for someone, a girl, a zombie at that, much like his prized collection of ducks, well let's just say it wouldn't earn him points on the tough, loner, bad guy department.

No matter. If anything, maybe this experience would toughen her up. Thatch thought about this in his head until he believed it to be true, but something still pained him: the thought of a disappointed family.

The future leader of the Carpathians, Thatch knew all too well what would happen to the girl. Last year, he recalled, the hypnotic organ that put its victims to sleep had been smashed to bits. Even though it had since been repaired, Thatch was not welcomed when he returned home. Having consequences himself and breaking the family heirloom –well it wasn't pretty—it wasn't torture, but it wasn't pretty.

No, he wouldn't allow it. He didn't want the trouble of getting blamed for it. He didn't need that weight on his shoulders. And besides, his hand flexed, still cramped from writing section, paragraph, and line of the rules for an earlier incident, his hand was sore.

If Thatch could help it, Mantha wouldn't have to tell her parents anything.