AN: Heads up. Mildly disturbing stuff ahead.

A little shorter, but dialogue and background-heavy. Enjoy!

-Crow


"Wait, seriously?!"

"Yep! Told ya the internet had everything!"

Sam, Tucker, and Danny had reconvened at Tucker's room after Tucker practically dragged them by the heels after school. Then he dropped the bombshell that he'd found a lead.

"So, get this, you know that TV company? Ringo?"

"The one with the weird dog mascot?" Danny interrupted.

Tucker nodded, "Yep. So, back in the 70s they had this guy in their staff who got in serious trouble for producing shows with 'disturbing content' behind the exec's backs. The show that finally brought him down? Candle Cove."

"But that doesn't explain why nothing showed up on the Internet." Sam pointed out, "I mean, you can YouTube ancient episodes of obscure cartoons, easy. What's different?"

"Because Ringo had a lot of pull legally. Anyone who posted anything about Candle Cove was taken down. And the legal loopholes and hurdles they made basically wiped the users out flat about posting again. Nobody could put anything on a forum without them knowing. Any copies of the show were destroyed. Candle Cove 'never happened'."

"Aaaand you got this information… how?"

"Through a forum and with pure luck. Ringo shuttered three years ago. The damage was already done, and nobody thought to bring it up again since. Copies were still destroyed and Ringo basically took the show's secret to its grave, so it just… faded out of people's minds probably like they'd hoped. When I posted online, it was pure luck that my post was seen by somebody who knew somebody else. I got fifteen people talking last night all saying the same things; Candle Cove existed, 'They' didn't want you to know it did, and somehow it didn't go away."

"Wait 'didn't go away'?" Danny frowned.

"Yep. Candle Cove was officially wiped off the network, but it kept playing. I was talking to people younger than 20 who said they saw actual episodes on the air. It was reported as 'sporadic re-runs' that weren't authorized if anyone's parents complained, but it was always in remote towns or on remote channels. Everyone else would get 'Jeremy Greene's Garden Adventures' and some small town in Connecticut got Candle Cove for a half-hour. And Amity got hit a few times too and it was also one of the original broadcast locations back in 1973."

"So, that's why it sounded familiar." Danny nodded, "I was probably one of the kids who originally watched it. Tucker, you probably saw it during a 'rerun'. What about you, Sam?"

The goth shrugged, "My parents didn't let me watch a lot of public TV."

Tucker continued, "So, anyway, some guy I talked to was just a little older than us and said he used to watch Candle Cove late at night as a kid. His town got it regularly. Then, he asks his mom about it years later; she said he was only watching static the whole time."

Danny shuddered, "Sounds like we're on the right track."

"But if that was the ghost we've got now, how did he do it?" Sam interjected, "Danny said all the ghost kids knew he was in the Zone and before your parents' portal, nobody could get in or out. I mean, Danny, can ghosts normally still affect the human world?"

Danny shook his head, "Not that I've ever heard of. Then again, Youngblood said he was different. So, we're probably looking at the ghost of the show creator, himself."

"Maybe," Tucker admitted, "That brings up the real meat of this story. I got a private message through the forum from a guy who actually used to work with Ringo during the 70s. He said the creator 'disappeared' after he ran off."

Sam raised an eyebrow, "Wait, 'ran off'? Not 'fired'?"

"Nope," the tech-wiz replied grimly, "Let me explain; the guy I talked to was another show creator, but he worked in the same studio area as the Candle Cove guy. Everyone else on the forum were random people who watched reruns or posted stuff about the show and were taken off. This guy was the real deal."

He reached in his bag and pulled out a few printouts that looked like crappy old photocopy scans, like the ones schools used to hand out. On it was a lot of blocky type-writer text. "Summing these up, they're expense reports and private notes from Ringo back in 1970."

"Are these… legal?" Sam asked, glancing over them.

"… Eh," Tucker admitted, making a so-so gesture, "Ringo's gone and this guy printed them out when they started hushing stuff up, so some of it got redacted pretty heavily before they destroyed them entirely. Plus, when you hear about what's on this, you'll think again."

Danny's eyebrows furrowed at a particular page labeled 'Police Report' with the name and county redacted in black marker prior to the photocopy job. "Criminy, Tuck, what the Hell?"

"This is just the tip of the rabbit hole, guys," Tucker replied seriously, "This guy was a producer and writer for a bunch of shows on the channel. Several of these expense reports showed money vanishing in the programs he was involved with. Eventually, it was enough that somebody took notice, but this was going on for years.

"Turns out, most of the 'actors' for Candle Cove weren't actually on Ringo payroll or contracts. They were just random people he paid himself to operate the puppets or provide the voices. The props and constructs were sets he commissioned off Ringo's departments, disguising them as props for the other shows that were eventually swapped out for a different concept.

"And lastly, there was a little girl in the show that turned out to be his niece. Her parents had no clue he was using her as the 'star' for Candle Cove. There were several times he signed her out of her kindergarten for these things."

"… That's seriously messed up." Sam exclaimed softly.

"… Did he hurt her?" Danny growled, eyes flashing a toxic green.

Tucker sighed, "Thankfully, no. To everyone on-set she was just another child actor on a low-budget children's puppet show but the reports afterwards did say she was scared with some of the scripts. It spooked some of the others, too, but everyone he picked had some kind of leverage he used to keep them quiet for the most part.

"So, eventually a parent finds out about this show her kid watched and threatens to sue Ringo for broadcasting that content. That gets the company's attention and it's all hushed up because to everyone else that show doesn't exist. Cops get involved, the niece's parents get involved, the execs get involved, basically everything comes to a head… and the guy bails." He pulled out a police poster depicting a guy with greasy black hair slightly slicked back and an overly large, overly-whitened smile posing for the camera for a company photo or driver ID, but the name was redacted with more black ink.

"He just… ran away?" Danny's eyebrows raised.

"Yeah… with over $3 million of the stolen budgets." Danny whistled appreciatively. "Mm-hm. So, the guy I talked to said the company was pretty much on a man-hunt for him until one day he just vanished. Like, no more paper trail, no more expenses, nothing. He was just gone and most of the money was gone with him.

"The company covered it up. They didn't want it getting out. Any of it. The employees in the company were either warned they'd get fired if a leak traced back to them. The producer's family never heard from him again and moved on. Essentially, that was that."

He spread out the sheets of reports, records, and mugshots, "So, this is the guy we're after. No name, no real history, just a ghost story and a ghost to back it up."

"Like an Un-Person," Sam muttered, frustrated. "Does Corporate greed know no bounds?"

"Community effort, actually. Everyone wanted to forget this guy. Not just the company." Tucker tossed back.

"Well, regardless, this was a great lead, Tuck." Danny said. "Now all we gotta do is find him."

"Any ideas? I'm thinking somewhere big. Like the News TV station downtown." Tucker suggested.

The halfa shook his head firmly, "No, no, too obvious. There's been no major activity, at least any that I've noticed, since the Static. Maybe he's weak. Maybe he's hiding. Maybe he's just gathering strength for another Event. I dunno."

His eyes glowed faintly, "We won't know for sure until he decides to actually do something."


AN: Fun fact, about 80% of this chapter was written up on a work computer. I caught up on my assignments and had triple-checked there was nothing else in the roster, so I just plugged in a flashdrive with some of my fanfiction reference files and a spare Word Doc and looked real busy typing away for an hour or two.

Heads Up! I got another chapter coming soon (this one was 100% written on a work computer, same reasons as previous, on Friday the lab was practically dead).