My deepest thanks to my regular Beta Reader, Obi-Quiet, and my guest Beta Reader for this chapter, Zero Enigma. Beware!
Chapter 4: The Box Ghost
I was fishing around in my pocket for my keys when I heard a crashing sound coming from the general direction of the back yard. At the same moment, a wave of congealing condensation started to work its way up my windpipe. I groaned as I breathed a stream of icy mist into the night air, then slung Val's bulging Thermos across my back as I sprinted toward the back gate, transforming as soon as I was out of sight of the street. So much for my peaceful evening. "Sorry, guys," I muttered to the creatures thrashing around inside the Thermos, "but it looks like you're going to have some company."
I floated silently across the lawn, listening carefully to the chorus of groans, curses, bumps and clatters emanating from the shed. The closer I came, the more certain I was who I was going to find inside—and the less urgency I felt.
He was pulling old storage boxes off the top shelf in the back of the shed, dumping tools, electronic components and other flotsam and jetsam of Fenton family life on the floor and setting the empty containers to spinning through the air. Focused intently on his work, he didn't seem to hear me or sense my presence as I pulled up behind him and struck a casual but menacing pose, arms folded across my chest, spectral tail flicking slowly from side to side.
"Box. . . Box. . . Box. . . ." I sighed with infinite patience. This was an old, old dance between us. Bravado on his part, resigned irritation on mine. "What happened to our agreement?"
He spun around and raised his arms in threat. "Beware!"
I sighed. Talking with the Box Ghost was often like trying to carry on a conversation with an assertive toddler. "Yeah. 'Beware' back at you. I asked you a question, Box: What was our agreement?"
"I am the—"
"—the Box Ghost, right. I'm Danny Phantom; we've met. And we agreed that you can have the boxes, as long as they are. . . ?"
". . . empty! I am the master of all things cardboard and square and empty!" His booming voice somehow managed to sound pompous and apologetic at the same time.
"Right. In exchange for which, I don't go kicking your sorry butt all over town, and I don't use this on you." I tugged on the strap that lay across my chest, letting one corner of Valerie's Thermos peek over my shoulder as a reminder. The ghosts inside were still squirming, making the pouch bounce merrily against my back. "So. . . do you care to explain what you're doing in my shed?"
"There are no more empty boxes!" he cried, and with a wave of his hand sent a half-dozen cartons flying through the air toward me. I quickly reached back and slapped my left hand against the wall, turning both it and myself intangible so they would sail through and fall harmlessly on the grass outside. At the same time I raised my right hand, cupping a small, pulsing sphere of ectoplasmic energy. I was fully prepared to fight him, if it came to that, but Box just sank dispiritedly to the floor and sat there miserably with his head in his hands. "All my beautiful, empty boxes have been cut apart and torn into pieces and trapped in huge metal prisons!"
Huge metal prisons? What in the world. . . ?
Of course, the city's new mandatory recycling program! My agreement with the Box Ghost allowed him take discarded boxes back to his lair in the Ghost Zone, but Sam's recently enacted recycling initiative required that all businesses in Amity Park recycle cardboard along with glass, metal, plastics and paper. In just the last week, dozens of oversize green dumpsters for broken-down corrugated cardboard boxes had been installed throughout the city. I could easily imagine Box searching all his usual haunts in vain for empty boxes—he probably trashed the shed just to get my attention the only way he knew how. He could have just asked!
I settled down on the floor beside him and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. "It's a recycling program, Box. People are breaking down the boxes so they can be recycled. They're still boxes, they've just been. . . flattened."
"But I am not the master of all things cardboard and flat!" he wailed.
He was the very picture of despair. I couldn't bear to leave him like that, and I knew that he'd quickly revert to his old destructive habits if he couldn't secure a reliable supply of empty boxes. I could imagine the chaos in store for Amity Park if I couldn't get him refocused. An idea crossed my mind. "Wait here a minute, I'll be right back."
"Will you bring more boxes?"
"I'll bring something even better. Just. . . stay there, and don't touch anything!" I slipped through the wall and flew toward the house.
About seven years ago I finally realized that the Box Ghost hadn't been using the Fenton Portal at all; he had created his own private portal, as so many ghosts do, tearing a tiny bolt-hole in the fabric of reality after months of agonizing and exhausting effort. His little portal, located in a shadowed corner of the warehouse on the docks where I had first fought him, was more than fifty years old, a source of much pride of ownership.
Eventually I came to grudgingly admit that I had no right to prevent him from using it. So we struck our agreement: he would stick to exercising mastery over empty boxes, and I would leave him alone. Oh, there had been a bit of backsliding from time to time, and I had cheerfully kicked his butt whenever he truly deserved it, but for the last two or three years he had been the very model of ghostly decorum. He had even been willing to provide me a nugget of information from time to time, in exchange for a roll of bubble wrap or a bag of plastic packing peanuts. Valerie had heartily approved: Danny Fenton, Private Eye had his own ghostly snitch.
I phased through the wall into my home office and dug around in my desk until I found a wide roll of strapping tape in the back of a drawer, underneath a pile of nine-by-twelve mailers and empty file folders. I also emptied a file-storage box, quickly broke it down and folded it flat, and headed back outside.
I found him out on the lawn, cradling one of the empty boxes he had thrown at me earlier. I quickly demonstrated how he could use the strapping tape to repair a flattened box, cutting off lengths of tape with a light application of ectoplasmic power. He watched me intently, fascinated, his eyes bright with excitement at the prospect of rescuing all the poor captive boxes from their huge metal prisons of do-o-o-o-om!
In a flash, comprehension kicked in and he snatched the roll of tape away from me and shot up into the air. That caught me off-guard—frankly, I didn't realize he could move that fast. With just one apologetic glance at the disaster spread out across the back yard, not to mention the mess on the floor of the shed, I set off in pursuit. Tracking him was simplicity itself: I just followed the flock of flattened cardboard boxes that were soon circling the air over the Nasty Burger.
I found him standing on top of a dumpster, tossing more flattened boxes up into the air to join their fellows. After a few minutes he settled down on the restaurant's roof to begin the work of restoring the boxes to their cubical perfection. Beaming with joy, he looked over at me and bellowed, "I am the Box Ghost! I am the master of all things cardboard and in need of repair!"
Seemed like a good idea to me. I settled down on the top of the restaurant's air-conditioning unit and just watched him work. I could see that he was going to require a steady supply of strapping tape—I made a mental note to stock up—and I wondered how Sam was going to explain the sudden drop-off in recycled cardboard to her boss.
Suddenly, without warning, the double-vision kicked in again. I was still watching the Box Ghost cheerfully celebrate the repair of his beloved boxes, but I was also seeing the Box Ghost of my nightmare: Taller, stronger, more menacing, a deep, rasping whisper echoing in my ear. "Beware. . . ." And I couldn't escape the knowledge that I was to blame for it. For all of it. For Johnny 13's wheelchair, for Ember's ruined voice, for Box's amputated right arm. What I had never been able to figure out was how my evil future self had managed to cause such a profound change in Box's personality. How could that menacing specter and this cheerful, childlike ghost be one and the same?
I shook my head sharply to dispel the illusion. There was only Box, my old adversary and recent associate, glancing up at me, grinning with unbridled pride. "I will have so many beautiful boxes to take home to my lair!" he bellowed.
Something clicked.
His lair. His home.
Home. My beautiful Sam, waiting for me, and our child to be. . . and. . . and his. . . .
"Box?"
"What do you want of me?"
"Can I ask you a. . . a personal question?"
I think he sensed something in the way I asked, perhaps in the way I spoke to him—as a peer instead of as a simpleton. I had asked his permission. Apparently intrigued, he let the cloud of repaired boxes settle down onto the roof and floated over to sit beside me on the air conditioner. He answered with almost gracious dignity: "Yes! You may ask me a personal question!"
I couldn't think of any way to phrase it except bluntly. "Do you have a daughter?"
He paused for a moment, eying me warily. "Yes. I have a daughter. She's a sweet little ghost, she's only two. . . ."
"Only two?" That was a shock. Apparently my encounter with Box Lunch was still many years in her future, even as it was ten years in my past. And we'd fought more than a day before the C.A.T., so it seemed unlikely that our fight had been wiped out when Clockwork reset time. I felt a moment of sharp resentment toward the ghost of time and his manipulative ways. That was just his style: bring in an innocent bystander and put her in a situation where she didn't stand a chance, just to set the desired course of events in motion. I sometimes think he enjoys his view of the "parade" a little too much. Why did he have to go and use Box Lunch as cannon fodder in the battle for my soul?
Two years old. I tried to imagine what a two-year-old ghost would be like. Never mind that—how about a two-year-old ghost throwing a tantrum? With a feeling of dread I tried to imagine Sam attempting to discipline a two-year-old human child with ghost powers. Would it have to fall to me to be the family disciplinarian? Would we have to turn to the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady for parenting advice? Where in the world would we ever be able to find a baby-sitter?
"I bet she's a handful," I ventured.
Without warning, something primal awoke in the Box Ghost. He had been staring at me with uncertainty and caution, but then roared protectively, "How do you know that? Who told you about her? She has not ventured into this plane, she has done nothing to you! You will never capture her in your terrible, formless trap!"
I suddenly realized I wasn't just talking to a silly ghost with a weird obsession for boxes. I was talking to a father, a father who was very protective about his little girl. And I couldn't very well promise him I'd never harm her. I already had! The explosive power of one packet of Nasty Sauce wasn't enough to cause a ghost any permanent damage, but it must have hurt. I'd meant it to hurt. And I couldn't blame this one on my "jerky older self," as Sam called him; I had done that as a fourteen-year-old with my humanity still intact.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Take it easy, Box." Cautiously, I reached out and patted the agitated ghost on the shoulder. "I don't have any quarrel with Box Lunch. I wish you, and your whole family all the best. I just wondered, that's all. My wife and I are going to have our first child soon, and. . . well, I just wondered."
"Your. . . your wife?" That caught him off-guard. "You have a wife? Oh no, not that spooky girl with the black hair and the attitude!"
"Um. . . yeah?" Seriously: how do you answer a question like that? I hoped Sam would never hear about it, although for all I know she might take Box's description of her as a compliment.
He wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Ew!"
"Hey! That was uncalled for."
"But. . . she is a human!"
I had to work very hard to not laugh at him. "Yeah? Uh. . . News Flash for you: so am I!" Well, technically. . . most of the time.
"Well, both of you should leave me and my daughter alo-o-o-one!" He shot into the sky and flew off in the direction of his portal on the wharf, a comet-tail of cardboard boxes trailing behind him.
As I watched him vanish in the distance, I wondered how I was going to explain things to Box (and the Lunch Lady) on that day in the future when their little girl would suddenly appear, dazed, bruised and covered in superheated Nasty Sauce.
Belatedly, I realized that Clockwork's time reset might have changed things after all; the Box Lunch I remembered was the daughter of a very different Box Ghost. Perhaps her own existence had been changed by the same alteration in the time stream that had made a mild-mannered father-to-be out of me.
Just thinking about it made my head hurt. I headed home.