Chapter 9: I'd rather die

Maddie Fenton was untouchable. She was strong, independent and very much in charge. Nothing seemed to touch her, any news, good or bad, seemed to slide off of her. She worked day and night, hardly taking the time to sleep or to eat, to keep the ghost shield up. Fenton Works had been partially rebuilt, although the top floor and the ops center had been too badly damaged to be restored. She slept in the basement, next to her equipment, and she only left the house to work on the ghost shield generator in the backyard, made out of the original ghost shield generator and equipment raided from Axion Labs.

Surrounding her were a few trusted people who helped her find supplies – mostly gasoline to keep the generator going -, food, things to make weapons with. Damon Gray was one of them, as was Valerie, Dash Baxter, the former mayor Mr Montez and Mr Brown, our former neighbor who had lost his wife and son during the earthquake. George was responsible for repairing houses under the ghost shield, together with a team of men and women he raided houses that were too damaged to repair, took out anything they could use to fix houses for people to live in under the ghost shield.

The ghost shield. First put up two years ago, after the people had been living mostly underground for a year, trying, and failing, to avoid the ghosts that were raiding the town. The only thing that saved them was that ghosts were in essence not a very organized lot. They raided randomly, doing their own thing, chasing and possessing people whenever they felt like it, not when they were commanded to do so. Vlad's hold on the army seemed tenuous at best. Still, he was all powerful, unapproachable. They had considered attacking him, but only in their most desperate moments.

The people of Amity Park, the few hundred that were left, in general tried to make the best of it. They didn't know what the situation was elsewhere, they didn't know what had happened to the GIW or the army or the government. For all they knew, Amity Park was the sole surviving community on earth. And they were struggling. The ghost shield failed on a regular basis, and usually the ghosts noticed something like that immediately. There were too few Specter Deflectors to protect everybody, and usually, when the ghosts attacked, it was a race against time to get the shield up again. They were on constant vigil.

And they all looked to Maddie.

The town was dark and quiet when I finally returned. I hovered above the town and looked down on the collapsed buildings, the rubble, the dust that was everywhere. I couldn't imagine anybody being alive down there. Yet near the center, where I knew the central police station to be, there was light, more obvious because of the lack of light anywhere else. I slowly descended and landed next to the building, in the dark shade between the brightly lit windows. As soon as I touched the ground, the two rings appeared around my waist all by themselves, as my body successfully rebelled my prolonged use of my ghost form in the most strenuous of ways. I staggered and leaned against the wall, fighting off the waves of fatigue washing over me. I was completely and utterly drained. And the night wasn't over yet.

I straightened. There were people inside the building, their presence, their life force more obvious now that the town around me was dead. I could feel them inside, a pulsating glow, a glow, I knew, would resuscitate me in an instant should I care to make use of it. I didn't. I wasn't a ghost. Mostly.

I stepped into the light and made my way to the door. I pushed it open and entered the brightly lit hallway of the police station, squinting. Voices behind a door on the other side. I crossed the reception area to the other side, pushed it open a little further and then leaned against the door frame, taking in the occupants of the room.

Two, judging from the stripes on their uniforms, high ranking police officers, two other men in suits I suspected were also police officers, a small, bald man I recognized as Mr Montez, the previous mayor of the town. In the back, Mr Gray, leaning over somebody sitting behind a computer, typing furiously. Next to them, curled up in a chair and looking battered and bruised, Valerie. My father, orange hazmat suit looking crumpled and dirty, looking both sullen and proud. Sullen because he obviously had been silenced. Proud because...

I looked at the center of the room, behind the table cluttered with papers and maps. In the middle of them all, a shining presence, having all eyes firmly trained on her as she was talking, gesturing, convincing, my mother.

My vision swam for a moment, but then it cleared again. They hadn't noticed me yet, which was fine by me because I needed a moment to pull myself together again, to get up and get moving and shake off the tiredness that threatened to bring me down all of a sudden.

The door on the other side of the room opened and a familiar figure pushed her way in backwards. Once inside, she turned around, holding a tray of steaming, multi colored mugs. I stared at her. Sam, getting coffee for the people in power? Then I smiled as I watched her pass them and make her way to Mr Gray and companions. She was just about to put down the tray next to the man behind the computer when she saw me.

"Danny!"

The tray was roughly put on the table, causing some of the coffee to spill, and she rushed through the room towards me. My mother stopped in mid-sentence and let out a cry of both joy and anguish. Then she pushed aside the people who surrounded her and closely followed Sam. Moments later I was almost crushed in a two way hug.

"Mom," I gasped, "Sam. Need. To. Breathe."

It took some doing to get them to let go of me, but finally both of them backed away a little and allowed me to sit down on one of the chairs. Sam looked embarrassed by her sudden display of affection and I grinned at her. She looked away, grabbed one of the coffee mugs and handed it to me. I accepted it gratefully.

"Danny are you alright?" my mother asked, totally ignoring the men who were pointedly studying a map on the table, obviously thinking they had more important things to do.

Which, in fact, I agreed with, but I was feeling a bit selfish at the time. I needed my parents, I needed to be assured that everything would be alright and I couldn't take the cool indifference they showed to Phantom.

"Yeah," I said, taking a sip of my coffee, "Just a bit tired."

My father joined us and slapped my shoulders rather forcefully. I winced as some of the hot coffee spilled over my fingers.

"I'm proud of you son, I heard you've been helping rescue workers digging for people trapped under buildings!" he said, oblivious.

I glanced at Sam, who nodded. We'd always been good at coordinating our stories with one glance. And we'd had a lot of practice at it. I nodded at the people at the table.

"What's with the war conference?"

Sam's face darkened. My mother looked over her shoulder.

"It is a war conference, of sorts," she said, "We're planning the defense of the town until the army and possibly the GIW get here." She gave me a scrutinizing look, the look she aways gave me when I was trying to skip school by pretending I was ill. "I should get back to them. Try and get some rest, Danny, you too, Sam. Plasmius gave Phantom until sunrise, we have to be ready before then."

She turned and walked back to her conference. I looked past Sam and now saw who was sitting behind the computer: Tucker.

"Tuck!" I said happily.

He glanced over his shoulder, grinned at me tiredly and returned to whatever he was doing. I looked at Sam questionably.

"He's programming... I'm not sure. They placed ghost detectors around the city perimeter, and they are signaling something. Tucker and Mr Gray are writing a program to interpret the data we're getting."

"Oh," I said. I looked at Valerie next, who seemed to be sleeping, incredible as it might seem, sitting there in that very uncomfortable position. "What happened to her?"

"She was at home when the earthquake happened. Building collapsed on her. She was very lucky."

Lucky indeed. I closed my eyes for a moment, remembering how I had searched building after collapsed building, looking for people who were still alive, finding preciously few of them. Too much death today. I swallowed.

"Where's Jazz?"

"I'm not sure." Sam sounded hesitant. I looked up. "Look," she said, "I know you hate talking about what happened to you, but... Jazz is on the counseling team, helping people who were injured, and the rescue workers who had to deal with... Well, you know. You've seen it. You've seen more than me, I think."

I shook my head. My hands were wrapped around the mug and I found it's warmth comforting. For some reason, I was cold. I shivered a little. Then, from out of nowhere, somebody dropped a blanket around my shoulders. I grabbed it with one hand.

"Thanks, dad," I said.

My father grinned at me and pointed to Valerie, who now also had a blanket placed carefully over her.

"Your mother said you should get some sleep," he said, "So off you go. And you too young lady," he added.

Somehow my father never quite managed to sound stern. I frowned and was about to shake my head, opening my mouth to start counting off the reasons I shouldn't, couldn't sleep, when Sam simply grabbed my arm and pulled me up. My father's grin widened. Sam pulled me out of the room, through a few doors into a small office which had a worn out couch next to the desk. She pushed me down on it and handed me the blanket, which had slipped off my shoulders.

"Get some sleep, Danny."

"But..."

She looked pained. "I know. I don't think I can sleep either, but you have to try, we have to try." She looked over her shoulder at the door, and then bend forward. "We need Danny Phantom tomorrow. We need to fight with all we've got, and we need you. Without you we don't stand a chance."

I thought about the ghosts that were out there, the magnitude of their numbers, and knew that we didn't stand a chance even with me fighting on their side. But we had to. We had to hold until the army, or the national guard, or the GIW came to our rescue. What exactly they could do once they arrived I didn't know, but I had to hold on to some sort of idea that everything would work out as long as we kept fighting. I sank back in the couch and padded my hand on the empty spot beside me.

"You need to sleep too," I said.

She glanced at the door, then at me and shrugged. She sat down next to me and I arranged the blanket so it covered us both. Within a minute, I fell into a dreamless sleep.

My throat felt like sandpaper and my words became more slurred by the minute. I stopped talking, and immediately the silence of the tunnel threatened to overwhelm me again. I coughed, which was a mistake as somewhere inside of me my ribs shifted. I resisted coughing then, and just sat for a while, trying to get my breathing under control. I wiped my mouth, telling myself that it was just saliva I was wiping off and that the copper taste I had in my mouth had nothing to do with it.

"Hey," George said, "Wait a minute. Did you say you can feel somebody's life force or something?"

I nodded, then realized that he wouldn't see that and let out a grunt in acknowledgment.

"So, can you feel me?"

Yes, I still could. My ghost form was extremely week, but it was still there. I was still a ghost, a freak, a freaky kid with freaky powers. Sensing people's so called life force was one of them. Sensing emotions was another, more unwanted one. I usually suppressed both. I wasn't a ghost, who fed of people's emotions.

"Yeah," I said, "A little bit. I can still... it's not completely gone." Talking about it automatically had me reach out. I was dismayed at what I sensed. "You don't... feel too good."

George let out a raspy laugh. "Tell me something new," he said.

He went silent again. Some time passed by in which neither of us spoke, until it started to really creep me out. I wanted to talk some more, but my throat hurt too much. I thought about the barrel full of water only about two hundred yards away from us. It might as well be on the moon.

"Danny?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't ghosts feed off other people's emotions?"

"Yeah."

"How about you?"

"No."

"Why not?"

I didn't know. It was just a feeling, a form of defying the ghosts that were keeping me prisoner here. Plus, it hadn't saved the other ghosts that had been thrown in here. They had tried it, but they fell apart faster than they could replenish themselves. I refused to be a ghost. I refused to fade away. Once I went down that road, there would be no going back.

"Because."

He was silent again. I wondered what he was thinking. It was very strange, sitting in this darkness, talking to somebody who was in essence just a voice.

"How about that 'life force' you mentioned. Could you feed from that?"

Cold fear grabbed me. The very notion of doing something like that was terrifying. It was bad enough that I could feel what other people felt, and that I could feel their hearts pulsating in their bodies, their blood flowing through their veins.

"No."

"You mean, you won't."

"I mean no. I can't... I've never... No ghost does that."

"Why not?"

"Because they wouldn't be able to take it. Ghosts are dead."

"You're not."

I was aware of that. What struck me how he was aware of it too, how he knew what I instinctively knew to be true.

"I... can't... won't. It would take some of the life force away from the person I took it from. It'd be stealing."

"Morally speaking," George said, his voice relentless, "About in the same category as stealing another person's shoes so he dies from an infection two weeks later?"

I grabbed a loose rock and threw it in the general direction of George's voice. It clattered against the wall. Missed.

"Shut up," I said.

"How about stealing bread from a woman who had managed to get in front of you, and then also taking your own ration so you had twice the amount? How about watching your friend die for you, never saying a word to save him?"

"I couldn't save him," I said, "He told me to look after myself and only myself. I just did what he told me to."

"How about pushing that man down the slope when you were sick?"

"Shut up," I said, "He was dying already. I did him a favor."

"How about..."

"Shut up!" I screamed.

He did. I was glad because I couldn't have uttered another sound after that. Breathing hurt, like there were razor blades cutting into my windpipe. I vaguely heard George move, groan, move again, dragging himself closer to me. I wanted to scoot away, to avoid him, but I didn't.

"I'm dying," he said. He placed a hand on my arm. "It's not the leg. I think I'm bleeding somewhere internally." His grip tightened around my arm. "If you.. could take my so called 'life force', could that restore your powers?"

Could it? Long enough for me to get out of the tunnel? Long enough to survive the black rock that would immediately start to drain it away again?

"No," I said. I tried to get out of his grip. "Leave me alone. I'm dying too."

"Danny." His voice sounded weak. "It's either the both of us die or just one of us dies."

"No."

I wasn't going down that road. Ever. Because it would turn me into something I didn't want to be. My evil future self. I'd rather die.