I do not own Percy Jackson, Scooby Doo or any of the characters mentioned in this chapter.

Chapter 2 Ghost stories

After a couple of years rumors had started going around that the house down the partly deserted street was haunted. Some have sworn that they have seen a ghostly figure in the upper windows now and then. Others claim to have seen a face peering out of one of the windows. While others have only seen the curtains move when all the windows are closed and the only person living in the house has been away.

There is never any sign of anyone else living in the home, no one else comes and goes no matter what part of the day, no lights are ever on late at night when the home owner is away, aside from the rumored sightings in the upper windows there has never been any sign of there being anyone else in the home so most people brush the rumors aside as fabricated stories meant to scare away nosey neighbors.

Despite the many doubts the rumors become an urban legend among the local kids and teens that all try to catch a glimpse of the mysterious figure in the upper floor windows but rare few ever do.

Since the home owner leaves for up to a few days at a time now and then, a group of friends living nearby have taken it upon themselves to watch the home whenever he leaves to see if they can see the figure for themselves. They watch the house each day to see if the man has left and each time get a little closer to the house to see what they can see.

One day when the man isn't home the group of friends test each other to see who is brave enough to go close enough to get a good look if the figure does appear.

"Percy you're the oldest you should go!" a blond boy with light blue eyes says to a boy with short black hair and sea green eyes.

"Why do I always have to go? What's stopping any of you guys from going?" Percy turns and looks at the others.

"Hey don't look at me; this whole Scooby Doo thing was Leo's idea remember?" the blond boy who had spoken first said turning to the boy next to him, he had curly dark brown hair and was fiddling around with random things he had pulled out of his pocket as he seemed prone to doing.

"Hey if we're the gang from Scooby Doo I call not being a girl!" Leo said not looking up from whatever it was he was doing.

Percy just looks at him like he's crazy. "Jason tell me again why we brought him?" the blond boy, Jason just shrugs his shoulders. "He's my best friend and one of the only ones dumb enough to sneak over here with us to spy on the supposedly haunted house."

Percy nods and turns to the forth member of their group. "And what about him?" he gestures to the other blond haired blue eyed boy with slightly darker coloring and freckles dusting his face.

"Will is my next door neighbor and wanted to see if there's really a ghost here so I let him tag along." Leo supplied still working on whatever he had going there.

Percy and Jason just look at him. "Well back to the matter at hand before we got all sidetracked like usual, why do I always have to go first?" Percy said getting their focus again.

"I'll go; I'm not afraid of ghosts." Will said, he was the youngest of the group of four by a year or two.

"Hey who said anything about being scared of ghosts?" Percy asked.

"Come on gang lets go catch us a ghost!" Leo said as they headed from their stakeout spot on an empty lot down the street from the house.

"You know this is probably just some stupid scam or something to scare the local kid's right?" Jason said.

"I'm thinking the guy probably started the rumors himself to keep people away." Leo added as they drew closer to the house.

"Hey Shaggy, Scooby, if you're too chicken to actually go up to the house I'm not pulling out any Scooby snacks for you." Percy said.

"HEY!" the two said indignantly and Leo paused to think about it for a moment "Wait who's who?"

Percy rolled his eyes. "It doesn't matter just keep going."

Leo nudges Jason with his elbow. "I'm Shaggy, you can be the dog. And Will's Daphne, the one that always gets caught by the ghosts and monsters."

There were no protests from Will though; he was too busy watching the house as they got closer to see if he could catch any sign of movement on the top floor like he was always hearing about. He had always wanted to see a ghost for himself, and when rumors of a haunted house nearby started up he felt like his chance had finally come.

They stopped at the edge of the yard in front of the house next to the one from the rumors. So far they hadn't seen anything.

"I'm telling you guys it's all just some big hoax, let's just go to the arcade or something." Leo said as he pulled what looked like pipe cleaners out of his pocket.

"Wait what's that?" Percy asked pointing to a window along the side of the house.

All four looked up and saw part of what seemed to be a pale face peeking out from behind a curtain in one of the dark rooms upstairs but it was gone too quickly to make out any real features.

"Oh God there really is something up there, did you guys see it?!" Jason said.

"Um yeah, what was that? Do you think this place is really haunted? What if it's like some evil spirit and it wants to put a curse on us or something?" Leo asked; whatever he had in his hands had been completely forgotten by now.

"I don't know about you guys but I'm not sticking around to find out." Percy said as he quickly turned and headed back the way they had come, the other two following right behind him. None of them bothering to check to make sure that the fourth member of their group was with them.

Will was still standing in place watching the spot that the face had been, he was too curious to be scared off by the thought of some evil spirit, so he decided to get a better look.

Will looks around to make sure that no one was looking and then heads into the yard and around the house to where a tree is close to the upper windows and begins to climb. Once he reaches a branch that is almost level with the far window he looks toward it only to nearly fall out of the tree when he sees someone looking back at him. It's a boy, maybe about his age, with dark hair like Percy but with dark eye's set into a pale face.

Will can't help but stare at the boy, if this was the ghost from the stories, he was probably the first person to get such a close look at it and he wanted to see it as well as he could so he moved a little closer to the window that he then noticed was partly open.

"Are you a ghost?" he hears himself ask, still staring at the boy in the window.

The boy shakes his head. "No, who are you?" he asked staring back at Will just as equally astonished like he'd never seen another kid this close before, although he probably didn't see many kids sitting in a tree outside his window on the third floor so it was understandable.

"Will, my name is Will, what's yours?" he said bringing himself out of his thoughts, Percy was right about the getting sidetracked thing.

There was a long pause as the boy continued to stare at Will like he was an alien or some weird creature, but he supposed that was how he was probably looking at him too, he had thought he was a ghost after all.

"Nico." he said at last. "You shouldn't be here, dad wouldn't like it. I'm not even supposed to be near the window or talk to people."

Will blinked in surprise. "Why not?"

Nico looked down slightly like he felt bad for doing something wrong. "Because I get sick easily and have to stay inside all the time."

He was sick? Well that and that he was always inside with the windows closed might explain why he looked like a ghost Will thought. "Can I help? My dad's a doctor and I kind of know how to take care of sick people."

But Nico just shakes his head. "You shouldn't be up here; I shouldn't be talking to you."

"Awe come on don't be that way, I thought we could be friends! You know now that I know that you're not a ghost, although being friends with a ghost might be cool too." Will gave Nico a friendly smile.

There was another pause as Nico seemed to think that over. "I've never had any friends before."

Will's smile turns to a look of complete shock. "What how can that be?" Will asked, unable to believe someone could go through life without ever making a single friend.

Nico bites his lip before replying. "Well I don't really know. I hurt my head when I was younger and lost all of my memories. But my dad takes care of me. I can't leave because I'm so weak and get sick easily so I haven't been able to make any friends."

Will didn't know it was possible to be anymore shocked than he already was after hearing that Nico had never had any friends but he came close to almost falling out of the tree again when Nico said he had lost all of his memories.

"Wow, did you really lose all of your memories?" he finally managed to ask when he could find his voice again.

Nico nodded. "Everything but my name 'Nico'." he said.

"Well then!" Will said with a big smile on his face, "I'll be your first friend!" his smile only grew when he saw a small smile on Nico's face.

"Okay."

And that's chapter two! Yay me! Okay I really don't know what's coming next just yet and its a few minutes away from 3am. Random rant here but what do spelling/ grammar checks have against the name Will? I keep having to retype things or hit the ignore option when it says I'm wrong. So annoying!

Also sorry if the characters are well, out of character, I'm just trying to get the story going, so don't be mad.

I keep watching the word counter as I type this and it makes me happy to see so many words, this is only two chapters so far and already longer than most of my others, again yay me! And another happy moment, there's no errors according to Word, though I did need to hit the ignore button for a few things to get it to say what I wanted it to but still I'll take what I can get.