Chapter 13

I would love to say we came to some kind of conclusion last night, but life had other plans. Before we could even utter a word after capturing the Box Ghost, or talk about the recordings, Sam's grandma came in and told us it was getting late. Not having much of a choice, Tucker and I said our goodnights and headed back home. I decided to take the long way around while making sure to stay under the lampposts (purely out of reflex… my mom planted that seed in me long before I could walk).

Fishing out my mp3 player and earphones, I plugged it in and decided that this was enough 'thinking' for one night. I pressed on shuffle and allowed my mind to wander to different topics, until my ghost sense went off.

I watched the icy breath leave my lips then rolled my eyes.

"These guys will never learn…" I grumbled to myself.

Looking around to make sure no one was there to witness; I changed to my Phantom form and scanned the area. I heard a rustle coming from an alley behind two big trash bins. I levitated up the ground and slowly made my way to the noise. It became louder, and the rustle turned into scratching. Was it a, bag? A plastic bag, maybe. I heard it rip and tear open making the contents roll across the damp concrete ground. If this place wasn't messy and stinky enough, this late night culprit unquestionably made it worse.

"Whose there!" I called out as I readied a ball of ectoplasm in my right hand.

It was still dark, so I couldn't see, but I could definitely hear, and what I heard was a low growl. From the back of its throat, it became more audible as the figure shifted out of the shadows and grew as much as it's bark. I raised my hand to throw a blast, but thankfully stopped as soon as I recognized its face.

"Cujo!" I said happily. I've always wanted a puppy, but my parents never allowed it. They said it took too much work and care. I tried to persuade them, and I think it's probably obvious how that turned out. I changed back into Fenton and held my arms out.

The ghost dog stopped growling as soon as it heard its name and turned back into a cute puppy. He barked, happy to see me as well, and jumped into my waiting arms not hesitating a second to start slobbering my face with saliva.

"Okay, okay. Down boy." I chuckled at his enthusiasm. I scratched his ear and laughed some more at his positive reaction. "It's good to see you too buddy. But how did you get out of the ghost zone?"

The dog cocked its head to the side then went back to rummaging through the trash. Right, he can't really answer that.I shook my head, still smiling and went to follow him.

"You're making a mess Cujo." I told him. This got his attention and he stopped to look at me. "C'mon, let's get you back home."

He barked then wagged his tail. I guess that meant 'Okay!'

Then my ghost sense went off, again.

I sighed now really irritated. Changing back into Phantom I looked around again, then when seeing nothing out of the ordinary I began to fly up for a better view, only to be stopped by Cujo's growl. It was dangerously deep and menacing, like at any given moment he wouldn't think twice to just pound on whatever's gotten him agitated and rip them apart. A little exaggerated, yes, but he was giving off some really bad vibes.

"What's wrong buddy?" I asked as I crouched lower.

He didn't look at me. He just continued to growl fiercely staring at one spot. I followed his line of sight to a dark corner at the end of the alley.

"What is it? Do you see something?" The air around me suddenly grew deathly cold.

I looked back at Cujo to find him ten times bigger than he was originally. I backed away a few steps surprised at his growing aggression. He narrowed his eyes into slits then opened his mouth releasing a large bark. The fur on his back spiked up and his razor sharp claws grew out digging into the ground. He bared his pointy teeth and barked some more.

I looked around a little panicked. "Shh, Cujo. Down boy. Quiet. Please, someone might hear you." I pleaded, but he grew only bigger.

A movement in the dark area caught my attention.

Then everything became silent. Eerily silent…

I looked at Cujo and found him still barking, but there wasn't a sound. I stared at him in confusion, then my eyes grew wide; I realized I couldn't hear anything by my racing heartbeat and my ragged breaths. Now I really started to panic!

What's going on?

My palms started to become moist.

What's happening?

Cold sweat trickled down the back of my neck. I tried to listen… tried to hear… anything! But there wasn't a sound. Suddenly my stomach dropped, I didn't know exactly why, but I had a very bad feeling of what was going to happen next. My eyes darted across the darkened alley way desperately, searching for a way out. There must be a way out!

Then just as my gut had foreseen, I heard a soft static whispering sound. Barely audible, but it was there. And then I knew exactly what would happen next. My breath got caught up in my throat as I tried to swallow the fear down.

Oh no…

The funny thing about thinking you're losing your mind, is that you cling to sanity like a snake to its prey. Hugging and squeezing the life out of it till it falls limp. Sticking to it so much, that sooner or later it's hard to tell hallucinations from reality. Without realizing till it's too late, it was your clinginess that caused your brain to go haywire in the first place.

I called Sam and Tucker right after I finally heard sounds in my ears. I never thought I would be this happy to hear the almost deafening barks of Cujo, and the annoying chirps of the crickets. A light flashed behind us, crap! And a few civilians came out to see what the racket was about. I didn't realize I was screaming till I tried to swallow and felt the soreness of my throat. Cujo noticed them too and growled one last time before turning invisible. I followed his lead and flew back home.

Shortly after arriving, I rummaged for my phone in my backpack and dialed Sam and Tucker. It brought me straight to voicemail of course considering the time, but I gushed out anyways, hoping they would understand me even though my sentences were broken. In the end I just asked them to come over to my place first thing in the morning. No school tomorrow, so it was alright.

After that all I could do was wait.

I tried sleeping, I really did, but then I would dream about those horrible shrieks and groans of those children screaming 'NO'. I didn't even know why the hell they kept repeating the same damn word! First in the changing room, then the stage, and now in the alley way… Why was this happening? Was I really going mad? I strained not to think about it. At least not until Sam and Tucker were here.

.

.

.

It was 8 am in the morning when my friends arrived, both looking a little out of breath. Sam gave me a quick head to toe look before relaxing a little. Tucker sighed a little sigh of relief also relaxing his tense features.

"What the hell dude?" Tucker shot me a look making me wince slightly, before plopping onto my chair. "I wake up the next morning with you on my voice mail acting like a mad man."

Sam on the other hand sat next to me on the bed and frowned at the small dark circles under my eyes. "You look like something the cat dragged in."

"I couldn't sleep." I told her.

Tucker was studying the both of us. Clearly he knew something was up; that Sam and I both knew something he didn't. With our eyes alone we could somehow relay messages to each other.

"Okay, someone needs to start explaining." Tucker said.

I wondered for a minute how I was going to explain, where I should begin and such. But I thought it would be better to just lay it out there plain and simple. So I did. I sucked in some air before I gushed out with what happened last night, what happened in the dressing rooms and when the backdrop was about to hit Sam. I watched the different emotions run through their facial expressions.

When I was done there was a pregnant pause before Tucker broke it with a cough.

"So what I'm getting is… Danny's hearing voices in his head."

"That's the main idea of it." Sam said.

"And it's…" He started, but I didn't let him continue.

"It's abnormal!" I yelled. "It's weird, it's crazy, and it is not at all, not in the least bit normal."

"Dude!" Tucker shook me hard on the shoulders. "Calm down!"

"Maybe there's a reason these weird things are happening to you." Sam suggested. "Like they're trying to communicate to you or something."

Tucker let me go and pulled a hand to his chin. "Yeah," he agreed. "Maybe it's some kind of message."

"With them constantly repeating 'No'? You don't say." Sam remarked sarcastically making Tucker shoot her a dirty look.

"A lot of people, well, ghosts… have been saying 'no' lately." I sighed glumly. "Like Skulker and Box Ghost going all cryptic like saying something about not doing the play."

"Yeah, what's up with that?" Tucker pointed out. "What's up with all the ghosts acting like Clockwork?"

"Not to mention, avoiding it like it was a plague." Sam added.

Again, another question we didn't know the answer to. Every time we find something out, a new set of puzzles appear before us. It's like we're in some kind of carousel that won't stop. Just keeps going round and round…

"We still have two leads guys." Sam urged. "The nurse and Technus."

"Right." I nodded trying to feel better. "So when do we visit our technology-crazed-ghost?" Since we'll be meeting Ms. G at school anyways.

Then as if right on cue, Jazz knocked on my door. She opened it slightly, enough to poke her head in. She acknowledged Sam and Tucker's presence with a small smile before turning to me.

"Mom wants us to head to the store." She said then looked back at Sam and Tucker. "You guys want to tag along?"

Tucker was all too eager, for some unknown reason. Sam shrugged and followed us down the stairs.

The trip to the supermarket was comfortable; we walked in case you're wondering. It was a really short distance to the market. Listing out items we needed to buy took my mind off things, who knew shopping would cause such a distraction? I was really thankful for it. We finished our list just as we were nearing the building. The smell of cardboard boxes and air conditioning hit me as the automatic sliding doors opened swiftly. We walked a little further in till we reached the shopping carts and basket section. Jazz took two baskets and handed one to me.

"We'll split up, I'll take whatever needs to be in the fridge and you can take whatever needs to be in the cupboards." She said with authority.

"I'll come with you." Tucker volunteered. "I can carry the basket."

Jazz smiled, a little rosy color dusting her cheeks, as she handed him the basket. Then the two were off.

With Jazz and Tucker gone, then that means…

"So where to first Danny?" Sam asked as she curiously scanned the grocery store.

"Uh, cans. We can work our way from there to the breads." Heavy ones at the bottom first right?

"Alright." She said taking her place beside me. "Let's go."

Sam and I started out on the canned soup section. She wrinkled her nose as I was putting some chicken and corn soup in the basket. I chuckled at her natural reaction, it was a good thing she was with me and not Jazz, or she'll have to give up her breakfast with all the meat she would be looking at.

Without hesitation she grabbed two cans of vegetable soup and tomato soup adding it to the basket. It was my turn to make a face. A bunch of girls ran past us when we turned to the next aisle, they all headed towards the cashier.

As we headed further down the aisle, we got some more dried goods, and a few tea boxes. Not that my family are big on tea, they prefer coffee (which I also took from the shelf), the tea was for Sam, when she would come over.

She smiled when I chose her favorite brand and flavor. I felt my face heat up a little before I returned the gesture with one of my own lopsided grins.

Another bunch of girls rushed past us again in the same direction as the first batch. I shot a questioning look at Sam who just shrugged and continued on. The last was the breads and pastries. We opted for one white loaf and one brown. A long French bread was next to go into the basket, followed by a box of almond rolls and Danish custard pastries. Sam picked out an all-vegan box of ginger cookies. I looked at it doubtfully. She rolled her eyes and promised it tasted good. But that didn't stop me from giving it an odd look, so she said she would be the one to pay.

We reached the counter with Jazz and Tucker waiting for us in one of the check out points. It was a slow day, so there weren't many people, but majority of the ones that were there were all queued up in one check out. And all of them were girls.

"Weren't those the girls who ran past us a while ago?" I asked Sam.

"Yeah, I think they're… here for the check out boy." She answered.

"Oh you mean that Alex guy?" Jazz chirped in, which Sam only nodded in response.

"Alex?" I raised a skeptical brow.

"He's this really cute check out boy who became famous over night!" My sister grinned as our items were being bagged.

"Yeah." Sam fished out her money to pay for the ginger cookies. "He was in the news and all."

"You're kidding." Tucker looked at her dumbfounded.

"So how did he become famous?" I distributed the load among us, heavier ones for the boys, and the lighter ones for the girls.

"Someone took a picture of him bagging groceries and tweeted it. It became viral." She gestured her head towards the check out we were passing by.

I turned and took a look at the guy behind the counter. Chestnut brown hair and sapphire blue eyes. He looked… very ordinary. I turned again to see my friends' reaction, Sam seemed a little glazed, my sister had a weird smile on her face, and Tucker looked just as confused as me.

"He looks normal." I voiced out.

"Yeah." Tucker grimaced. "What's so good about him?"

Sam and Jazz rolled their eyes.

"I'm just saying, if he could get on the news for his… average… looks, then I have a chance too!" Tucker beamed.

"Dream on Tuck." Sam snorted.

Jazz and I tried to stifle a laughter threatening to burst out.

"I think you have the potential to be famous someday Tucker." Jazz comforted.

"Just not today." I added.

We all laughed at that, not Tucker of course. Not really looking at where we were heading, we bumped into something, or rather, someone.

"Oof!" The voice sounded as the owners' belongings hit the ground.

"Oh," Jazz bent down almost immediately and started to pick up the stuff. "We're so sorry."

Sam and Tucker followed her, but I stood motionless.

It couldn't be.

"Mrs. Nettle?"

A/N: Yes, #Alexfromtarget is a cameo here. :-)) I just thought it would be funny. *shrugs*