Dizgirl: This took way longer than I wanted-almost a whole year! Sorry for all of those who were hoping for something sooner! I have never been so busy in my life as I have been this last year and it just isn't slowing down!

On that note, I was wondering if I could get a feel for who is still interested in this story? I still want to finish it, but between my busy life and some other projects I'm considering taking on, I am trying to figure out my priorities. It'd help to know how wanted this story was 'cause if most of the people following this aren't interested/still active then it might slide down my list a little farther than it already has. I am not trying to fish for reviews but to get an honest feel for who out there would be bummed if I never finished this thing (I know I would...but I just can't seem to do everything I need to without risking my own sanity so I gotta make some choices)

Anyways, I hope you all enjoy and love this chapter! Thank you for all of the support you have given me so far, y'all are amazing!

Chapter 26: Meeting Her Ghost

Sam

The bus trundled along, stopping every mile or so to let passengers in and out. Each time it groaned to a stop, I felt a fresh prickle of adrenaline, wondering if this would be the stop when the woman would get up and we'd have to try to follow her inconspicuously. So far she had stayed firmly in her seat and my stomach would flip flop as the bus pushed on towards the next location. Tucker sat next to me, his shoulders stiff and brow furrowed, his head often starting to turn to look behind us before jerking forward again.

"This is intense," he muttered under his breath.

"I know, right? And all we're technically doing is riding the bus!"

He shook his head. "You are way too excited about this."

"Oh come on, don't tell me this isn't kinda cool," I replied, nudging his shoulder.

"Maybe," he admitted, "but it's also really stupid." The bus began slowing down at the next stop, the words 'Maple Street' flashing on the screen above the driver's head. We both braced ourselves against the seat in front of us to avoid being thrown forward.

"Yeah, pretty stupid," I smiled at him and he rolled his eyes. The nervous energy sparked in me again as people rose up around us and headed towards the front. I watched them as they passed us and felt Tucker stiffen as the woman we were following joined the line and exited through the door. We met each other's wide-eyed gaze before scrambling up and rushing off the bus. The door slapped shut right behind us and the bus roared as it moved on, leaving us on the corner of Maple Street and 12th.

The people around us were all walking away purposefully in different directions, including the woman who headed down Maple. I scanned the area, which appeared to be residential, and bit my lip. Only one other person was headed down the same way as the woman, an older man with bags of groceries in each hand who must live in one of the houses nearby. There was no hiding in crowds anymore.

"What're we going to do?" Tucker whispered to me.

"Follow her," I said in a tone that was far more confident than I felt. "Um…carefully."

He raised an eyebrow but followed me as I started down the street.

"We could pretend we live nearby," I said. "These are all houses, so that wouldn't be weird, right?"

"I guess."

"As long as we act like we know where we're going. I mean, if she turns off into some part where there aren't any houses I don't know what we'll do, but it looks like it's all neighborhood right here. I think we'll be okay." I was definitely babbling and I snapped my mouth shut to stop the flow of words. I glanced at Tucker who merely shrugged.

"Thanks," I muttered, rolling my eyes.

"What do you want me to say, huh?" He replied with a smirk, "Great plan, Sam. It's foolproof. No way she won't notice two random teenagers who were on the same bus following her on an empty street. No way, man."

I pushed him away from me so that he almost fell off the sidewalk, but I couldn't hold back a smile. "Yeah, that's exactly what you're supposed to say, Foley, 'cause this obviously is going to work!"

"Obviously," he repeated dryly.

"Darn right."

The moment of levity faded as I looked up to check on the woman and saw that the older man had turned into one of the houses on our right, leaving the three of us alone on the street. The woman didn't glance back but that could change at any moment and I felt my shoulders and neck tense up. We were about a hundred feet back from where she was, having moved at much slower pace than her brisk walk, but I slowed down even more. She carried on at the same speed, pulling farther away from us, and I sighed.

Tucker had matched my pace, but was glancing around with a frown on his face. "Where do you think she's going?"

"I dunno, she seems pretty set on going straight."

"Yeah, but this is all housing. Are they hiding in one of these?" he gestured at two story brick homes on both sides of the street.

I found my expression matching his. "Huh, I guess that'd be pretty weird. I mean, their last place was pretty secluded. They'd want something similar, right?"

"You'd think."

"Maybe some of these homes are abandoned?" I wondered, though I doubted it; all the houses appeared well-kept and many had cars parked out front.

Before I could speculate further, I saw the woman pause at a corner up ahead, cross the street we had been following, and then vanish behind a building on the opposite corner.

"Crap." I broke out into a jog, moving as quickly as I could towards the intersection with my eyes pinned at the place where she had disappeared. "Come on, Tuck!"

We made it to the corner, a sign showing that we were at Maple and 9th, and I immediately scanned the street to our left only to find it empty.

"No!" I groaned, my eyes darting from house to house on our left and then to the sidewalk across the street which was lined with a tall fence. There was no movement, no sign of blue, no indication where she could have gone.

"Hey Sam," Tucker called. I twisted around, hoping he had seen something I hadn't and found him not looking at the street but towards our right beyond the fence. I followed his gaze, my eyes widening at the sight.

Just behind the wooden fence, the ground rose dramatically into a steep hill that was easily twice the height of the surrounding buildings. Halfway up the slope another fence ringed the width of the hill, this one appearing to be made of brick and iron bars. Beyond that, at the peak, sat a large house whose age and disuse were painfully obvious in the afternoon sunlight. The paint was graying, several of the window frames appeared broken, the yard was dead, and…wait, was I seeing that right? Were there tombstones in the front yard?!

"What the heck?" I gasped.

"This…this is the Townsen Place," Tucker said.

"The what?"

"It's a local legend," he informed me. "It's supposed to be haunted 'cause the family that used to live there all died around the same time under mysterious circumstances. Or at least that's the story. I have no idea how much is truth and how much is legend." He shrugged, his teal eyes still pinned on the old building.

"Whoa, who lives in it now?"

"No one. The last few owners didn't stay very long, which really helped build up the haunted mansion reputation. Now it just sits empty."

I raised an eyebrow. An empty building that everyone considered haunted? That sounded like the perfect place for Phantom's people to use as their new hideout. "Do you think this—"

"—Is the place? Yeah, it'd make sense," he said, nodding.

I tore my gaze away from the house at the top and back down to the fence that surrounded the base of the hill. "So she must have snuck onto the property somehow. Is there a gate?" I scanned the length of fence in front of us and confirmed there was one part way down to the left. I crossed the street and made my way over to it, Tucker at my heels.

The gate was made of two doors that were as tall as the fence with a heavy padlock strung through the handles. A 'no trespassing' sign was nailed to both doors. I tugged at the lock but it didn't give. "Unless she has a key, I don't think she used these ones."

"Maybe she climbed over?" Tucker wondered.

"In a dress?" I grimaced. "I mean she could, but I wouldn't want to."

"I don't think she opened them. Look," he pointed at the base of the doors which were lined with a scattered mix of leaves and trash. "That should all be pushed away if she opened them."

I nodded. "So she probably used some other way to get in." I looked in the direction she had been heading. I didn't see another gate from here but there might be more on the sides or back of the property. "Let's go see if there are more entrances."

We moved our way around the fence, searching for alternative ways to get inside. We eventually found two more gates, one on the left side the same size as the front one and just as secure and the second at the back right corner of the property that was big enough to let a car in. This one appeared to be locked but when I pulled on the chain binding the gate to the fence, it came loose. Whatever lock had once been on it was gone now.

"Yes!" I held the chain out to Tucker triumphantly, who smiled briefly at my enthusiasm. "They must be using this gate to come in and out. Just wrap the chain back around and no one would know the gate wasn't locked."

He nodded, his eyes trailing up to the house. "Unless someone tested it out, but I doubt anyone would try," he said before saying, "Man, she's fast. She went around the whole property, up the hill, and into the house before we got here. I kinda wish we saw her—just to make sure she really went in there."

"Yeah, but it's also good we didn't. I don't want them to know we were following her," I replied, also looking up at the decrepit house. He had a point, though. This house seemed like the perfect candidate for their new meeting place even if we didn't technically have proof yet that they were using it. "Guess we'll just have to wait until tonight to find out."

Tucker didn't say anything but I could practically feel the disagreement radiating off of him after I said that. I raised an eyebrow when he didn't immediately voice his thoughts and then added, "I don't know when they leave but they're always gone when I come after the sun goes down. I guess they may have changed that but we won't know unless we stick around see what they do."

He remained quiet for a few moments before finally asking, "Where are we going to wait?"

Smiling, I started putting the chain back on the gate. "Somewhere nearby where we can see this."

That somewhere ended up being across the street, half a block down, and behind a car parked against the sidewalk. It had been late afternoon by the time we settled there and I anxiously awaited the last hour and half until sunset. Tucker was also antsy, often shifting positions and pulling out his new PDA only to shove it back into his pocket a few minutes later.

He started grumbling about hunger after a while and I finally told him to go find the nearest convenience store when all of his complaining became too much. He left and returned about a half an hour later with an assortment of treats and several hot dogs slathered in condiments. I turned quickly away at the sight until he bumped me in the arm with something hard which turned out to be a basic garden salad in a plastic container. I smiled at his thoughtfulness and we ate our respective foods happily while the sun began to sink below the horizon.

We continue our vigil as the sky turned orange, then pink and purple, and finally the deep blue of twilight. There was no sign of movement or people leaving as far as we could tell, though that became increasingly difficult with the sun gone. There were street lamps but the one closest to the gate was broken, leaving a pool of shadow right at the spot we were trying to watch. We debated back and forth about whether we had missed them or not but finally I decided it was time to act.

"If they're gone, then we're good. If they're not, we won't go inside and we'll leave," I told him. "It's not like it's going to be hard to see inside with all those windows. Besides, Phantom will see us and will let us know if it's safe to go inside or not."

Tucker grimaced and mumbled something about not trusting a ghost's opinion but did not argue with me further. We cleaned up our spot and returned to the large gate without the padlock. Loosening the chain, we both slipped through and then re-wrapped it back in place. The area inside the fence was much darker than the outside but we could still pick our way up the side of the hill.

We eventually reached the second fence that circled the house and found that the only opening was at the front of the property. The two doors of the gate were made of metal bars and were twisted back like something had forced its way through them. A chain was strung between them and was held together by another padlock, but the gap was big enough that we could easily slip under it. We did so and crept up the rest of the way, the climb surprisingly steep. Tucker struggled a little with the sharp incline but kept any complaints he had to himself. The only sign was his heavy breathing behind me.

We finally paused once we reached the stone steps that led onto the wide front porch and Tucker leaned over to catch his breath. The house reared over our heads, dark and foreboding. A cool breeze swept past us and the whole structure creaked and moaned. I stared up at the black windows, torn between feelings of uneasiness and anticipation. This place was definitely creepy and I couldn't decide if I should be afraid or excited by that. I bet this place looked awesome on the inside.

Let's hope we could go in without running into the people Phantom protected.

With that thought, I climbed up the steps onto the porch, intent on sneaking a peek through the windows flanking the double front doors to see if I could spot them.

"What are you doing?" Tucker hissed from behind me.

"Checking to see if anyone's there," I replied over my shoulder before turning to the window on the left. I pressed my forehead against the musty glass, trying to see into the room beyond. There didn't appear to be any kind of shutters, blinds, or curtains to block my view but everything was so dark I couldn't see much. As far as I could tell, it appeared to be empty.

"Do you see anything?" Tucker whispered next to me. I jumped a little, not expecting his proximity, and then shook my head.

"No, it looks empty."

"Not even your ghost?"

"I don't see him, but Phantom could be invisible." I studied the doors beside us. "Think we should try to get in?"

He frowned and then squeezed past me to look in the window himself. After a few moments of silent study he said, "Yeah, I guess."

I grabbed onto the handle of one of the double front doors and twisted it slowly. The knob reluctantly rotated in my grip but wasn't noisy. I then pushed on the door but the wood would not budge. Clenching my jaw, I pushed harder. The door creaked (causing me to hesitate for a moment to see if anything reacted though everything remained quiet) but still remained firm. Okay, maybe I was supposed to pull. I swung my weight back, tugging on the handle only to find it just as stuck.

"Well that didn't work," I muttered under my breath. Abandoning that one, I jumped to the other door and began pushing and pulling on it. Unfortunately, it was just as stubborn as its partner. "Okay, never mind."

Tucker had watched the inside of the house as I wrangled with the doors. Now he said, "There was another door around back. I saw it when we were climbing up."

"Okay, let's check that one."

We went back down the steps and began to circle the house, wading our way through the knee-high grass that crept up on that side of the building. We had made it halfway around when I thought I caught a hint of light from within a nearby window. I jerked to a stop and grabbed Tucker's arm, my heart jumping into a sprint as half a dozen explanations—none of them pleasant—filled my mind. I looked unwillingly towards it. The glassy surface was black and I didn't see any kind of glow in the immediate area. I breathed in slowly. It was probably just a reflection from a light down the hill…

"What?" Tucker asked.

"I thought I saw something but I think it was just a light reflecting off the glass."

"You sure?"

"I think so…"

He crept closer to the window and looked in it slowly, trying to keep most of himself out of sight. I waited, my body still and tense, for his judgment. Finally, he stood up and returned to where I was.

"I think we're okay. It's all dark in there."

I gave him a brief smile and we continued on. Tucker directed us to the back of the house where the other door stood. This one wouldn't be a problem to open if the mangled wood near the lock was any indication. We both studied the inside through the cracked glass of the door's window. There was no light or movement so I grabbed the handle and pulled. It swung open with a low creak.

Tucker

We both stood in the doorway for a long moment, our eyes roving over what appeared to be a kitchen. Then, Sam stepped into the room. I hesitated a moment longer but when nothing changed I followed her in, shutting the door behind us. This made the room even darker now that our only source of light was from a window over the sink to our left. Everything around us was silent.

I waited for Sam to do something since I couldn't move from where I was until she did. When she didn't, I whispered, "Now what?

Before she could answer, the room suddenly dropped in temperature and a fizzling static filled the air. I grimaced. The last time I had felt this sensation with this intensity had been two years ago in the Fenton's basement. It was the after effects of ectoplasmic energy being used, something that followed any ghostly entity or object that used ectoplasm as its power source. I always wondered if that was one of the reasons the Fenton's wore hazmat suits everywhere, so their weapons didn't constantly shock them…

"Phantom?" Sam called out. Her voice startled me back to the present. It sounded so loud in the silence. What was she doing? Yes, there was definitely a ghost nearby but we didn't know if it was hers. And we hadn't confirmed that those people her ghost protected had left yet!

"Shhh!" I hissed behind her. She waved a hand at me and repeated the call. I scowled. Was she trying to let the whole world know we were here?! She waited for a moment and we both listened to the quiet creaking of the house settling around us. At least nothing was immediately jumping out at us. Maybe the people were gone.

"Where are you? I can't see you." Sam moved forward towards a doorway in the opposite corner of the room.

"Are you sure it's your ghost? I whispered, taking a step closer to her.

"Why wouldn't it be?" she peered through the doorway, though she didn't move down it.

"Because there are dozens of them out there and any of them could make it feel like this!"

She shook her head. "No, I'm pretty sure it's him. It feels like him. At least I think so."

I sent her a look that she didn't see. All ghosts felt like this. The chilly air, the static cling, the stillness. But I kept that thought to myself and just said, "Then where is it?"

"I don't know..." She looked around the room and once again said, "Phantom? It's me, Sam. And I brought a friend, Tucker. Remember him? He wants to meet you." I folded my arms and raised an eyebrow. Sam caught that and smirked. She added, "He really, really wants to meet you."

"Seriously?" I muttered. Her smirk spread into a full grin and then she turned back to the darkened doorway.

"And, of course, I wanted to see you too! I went back to the warehouse and I couldn't find you!" Her tone had taken an abrupt turn from impish to pleading. "Some of the boxes were broken and then the people you protect came in, so I had to get out of there—"

A bright light burst to life in the doorway a few feet from Sam and a raspy voice cried out, "You saw them?!" We both jumped and I squinted at the glow. My eyes adjusted and I could see that it was a ghost—the same one I saw peeking in the windows at school a few days ago. Black skin-tight suit, white hair, toxic green eyes which were wide and pinned on Sam.

"You saw all of them? Did they see you? What did they do?!"

Sam leaned back as the ghost floated towards her. "I… I don't know if it was all of them—I think so. And they didn't see me. I hid."

"And you got away?" It moved even closer to her. Way too close. It needed to back off.

"Hey!" I shoved my way between it and Sam and faced it. "Don't get so close to her!"

The ghost jerked back and then stared at me, its brows furrowed.

"It's okay, Tuck," Sam said behind me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "He was just asking me questions."

"It was threatening you," I replied, still keeping my eye on the ghost.

"No, he was asking me questions. He was asking them a little intensely," she paused for a second, and then added, "but there's a reason why so it's fine." The ghost was watching Sam again and seemed to relax a little. I didn't.

"How did you get away?" the ghost asked.

"I waited until they went to the back and then I snuck out. I really don't think they saw me or heard me or anything. I was really careful." Not sure I'd count going to a warehouse alone at night as careful, but there was no point in bringing that up again.

The ghost accepted this with a nod.

"I'm glad I found you," Sam continued from behind me. "I was really worried something bad happened to you." It smiled a little until its eyes fell back on me. The smile disappeared. I felt a little proud of that. And yet kinda guilty too. I pushed the second feeling away.

Sam stepped to the side so all three of us were facing each other. "Phantom, this is Tucker. Tucker, this is Phantom." It met my gaze again and I stared back, daring it to break contact first. We kept this up for a minute until Sam drawled, "Do I need to play mom and remind you guys that you're supposed to say 'nice to meet you' now?"

The ghost looked away (ha!) and over to Sam with obvious confusion. Then its eyes were back on me and it said, "nice to…meet you…"

I frowned. Okay, that's weird. Ghosts weren't polite and ghosts didn't listen to a human that told them to be polite. The jumping in and demanding thing was totally normal, but now the ghost was calm and doing what Sam said. It was really weird.

I felt a sudden jab in my ribs. "Ow!" I looked over at Sam whose elbow was still up. She was giving me a look.

"Say it back!"

"What?"

"Say 'nice to meet you' back!"

"Why?!"

"'Cause it's polite!"

"What if I don't want to be polite?!"

She put her hands on her hips and leaned towards me. "Too bad. He's my friend and my friends are nice to my friends. Doesn't matter if they're alive or dead or whatever! Now be nice and say the dang words!"

I bent back and did my best to scowl though that was hard to do when you had someone like Sam angrily bearing down on you. I took a deep breath and then said in a rush, "nicetomeetyoutoo" with a quick glance towards the ghost. Sam rolled her eyes but turned back towards it.

"Are you alright?" she asked in a much kinder tone. "What happened at the warehouse? There were smashed boxes and then you guys obviously decided to change locations...?"

I straightened up and adjusted my glasses with a quiet huff.

"I'm fine," the ghost responded. "A ghost attacked me and I had to draw him away to keep them safe." He swung a hand through the air which I assumed was supposed to indicate that he flew away. "And then I went to the ho—" he suddenly stopped, looking panicked, and then hurriedly continued, "Um, I went somewhere to hide and get better and I did, so then I flew back. And then they wanted to go somewhere new because the warehouse wasn't safe anymore so we moved here."

What was that? Why did he cut himself off and suddenly change directions? He went to…somewhere. And apparently he didn't want to tell us where. Why? What was he hiding?

"'Hide and get better'?" Sam repeated. "You got hurt?" She was completely ignoring that weird jump?

"Yeah," the ghost held a gloved hand to its chest. "But I'm healed now. I heal pretty fast."

"Whoa, was it the other ghost that hurt you?" She really was. She wasn't going to ask about it.

"Yeah, Skulker."

"That's his name?"

The ghost nodded. "He was this big machine man thing with green flaming hair." That comment pulled me from my inner commentary. Green and machine…

"So it was you," I interrupted. "The two ghosts we saw on the news last week—that was you and the other ghost. It was gray and had green on its head"

It furrowed its brow. "On the news?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "They said there were two ghosts fighting in the sky and they showed this blurry picture. I thought it was you but it was hard to tell."

It wrapped its arms around itself. "This…this isn't good. What did they say? Did they know where we were? Did they know about them?!" The air around it charged up and I felt little prickles of shock against my skin. Uh oh, that triggered it.

Sam shook her head. "No, it's fine! They didn't know anything about the warehouse or you or anything. It was just a report about two ghosts fighting over the city. They had no idea where you came from. And the picture is really blurry! I only knew it might be you 'cause I know what you look like already."

The ghost seemed to hesitate as if it wasn't sure it believed Sam. Maybe if it did, it would calm down? I decided to jump in. "She's right. You really couldn't tell anything from the picture they grabbed. And the story had no details to it. They just thought it was weird to see two ghosts fighting each other so they wanted to talk about it."

Sam gave an emphatic nod. "Exactly!"

The chilly static died down and the ghost looked at the ground for a few moments. Then it gave a little nod. "Okay, that…that sounds okay. I just don't want anyone to find them. I have to keep them safe. If I accidentally helped people find them…" It shuddered.

And the ghost was calm again. Wow. That was a lot easier than I would expect. Usually once a ghost was hyped it would quickly get destructive and the only way to subdue it was by force! Then again, I guess I didn't know that for sure. I've never actually seen someone try to talk down a ghost before…

A low beeping came from Sam. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and grimaced. "That's my alarm…"

"Alarm for what?"

"To remind me to go home before curfew."

I pulled out my PDA to see what time it was. A little nervous jolt ran through me when I realized we were cutting it a little close. "Yeah, we definitely need to get going."

Sam looked back at her ghost, her expression turning apologetic. "We need to go."

It nodded solemnly. "Okay."

"I'll come back—for real this time." She smiled wryly. "No more groundings for me!" I started for the door and she reluctantly followed me. "I should be able to come tomorrow so I'll see you then, okay?"

"Okay," it repeated. It actually sounded a little forlorn. I caught a glimpse of its face as I opened the door and saw his expression looked the same. Then I was out in the backyard again, the glow of the city lights looking bright now that I had adjusted to the inside of the house. Sam said something else to the ghost that I couldn't hear and disappeared back inside for a moment. I was just about to follow her when she came back out and shut the door behind her. She turned to me and grinned.

"We found him!"

"Yeah."

"And he's okay and now we know where he is!"

"Yup."

She looked up at the house. "This is actually kinda, nice. It's closer to my house."

"Which is where we need to go if you're going to stay out of trouble, right?" I reminded her.

Oh yeah, right."

We made our way around the house so we could slip through the fence that surrounded it and then headed down the rest of the hill to the gate at the bottom. Though I didn't feel quite as nervous as I did on the way up, I was definitely not as carefree about the trip as Sam was. She was practically bouncing as we made our way down, cheerfully talking about the fact that she could visit him again and how cool it would be to explore the inside of that house.

I remained silent on my end, not bothering to warn her of the dangers of coming back. She wouldn't listen to me if I tried and I'll admit I was starting to see what Sam saw—not that I agreed with her viewpoint, but I could kinda see it now. If I hadn't seen all the destructive things that ghosts could do, if I hadn't been lectured by the Fenton's about the violent nature of ghosts, if I hadn't watched as Danny disappeared in a toxic blast of ectoplasmic energy….then maybe I could see how talking to a ghost like her "Phantom" wouldn't seem so bad.

It was one of the more, I guess, mild ghosts I had seen. It still amped up at the slightest hint of danger to its obsession but Sam talked it down super quick. I had never seen something like that before but, then again, I had never seen someone try to make a ghost their friend instead of running away or attacking it. I wouldn't say I trusted that to last, but I didn't have proof that her ghost was going to suddenly attack her. It had no concept of personal space and was demanding but it never actually tried to hurt her. It totally could and I bet it would if it thought Sam was a danger to the people it protected, but…

I mentally sighed as we made it back onto the street. I guess I wasn't sure what I thought. Her ghost was definitely weird, but it was still a ghost. I told her to stay away, but Sam refused. I wanted her to be safe but she wouldn't be so long as she wanted to be this ghost's "friend". And if I wanted to stay her friend too and hang out with her, then I had to be okay with all of that. I wasn't sure that I was. But maybe I could be…if things remained like they were tonight.