By Monday, news of the park had spread through the entire teenage population of Amity Park and a good portion of the young adult population as well. Someone had managed to snap a photo of a weird blur of light in the sky and it had been shared hundreds of times through text, IMs, chatrooms, MySpace, a disgustingly long email chain, and half a dozen conspiracy blogs. As the photo spread, so, too, did stories from people who lived near the park who were awoken by the sounds of unearthly neighing and, later, howling. One person claimed to have seen multiple little lights zipping around the park.
It wasn't quite the talk of the school but none of the half-ghosts could go an hour without hearing at least something about it. They weren't concerned, exactly. They had no intention of keeping their existence a secret and they knew word would get out eventually, but it was still strange hearing people talk and speculate. Even more so since one was even close to being right.
Aliens was were? a popular theory. Government involvement was another. Apparently, one email chain was dead set on convincing everyone the lights were angels and the noises were demons they had defeated. Not one mention of ghosts except an offhand comment that maybe the park was haunted. Then there were the skeptics. Many were inclined to believe in rational explanations like flashlights, loudspeakers, and teenagers out past curfew. And some people just thought the whole thing was just a hoax and none of it happened period.
Danny and Jazz decided individually that they weren't going to so much as hint about it to their parents, which they thought would decrease their odds of finding out as neither Fenton parent really used the internet. Or had many friends. But apparently they had underestimated their parents' connections to the paranormal community because come Tuesday afternoon, not only did they Know About Friday but they were gearing up to go stake out the park. Danny sent a quick text to Sam and Tucker warning them to stay inside tonight.
His parents were at breakfast the next morning, groggy and discontent, lamenting how long it had taken them to find out about the sightings. All they'd managed to get were faint ectoplasmic readings on the playground, where the confrontation with Skulker had taken place.
"We'll need to be more aware of what's happening ourselves," Maddie resolved.
"And how are you going to do that, Mom?" Jazz asked, for once not sounding totally exasperated. "I didn't even know until Monday."
Jack nearly dropped his spoon. "You knew and you didn't tell us?!"
"Why would we?" Danny asked, speaking for the first time since he'd sat down. "It just sounded like some people being weird on a Friday night a few weeks before Halloween. Even Sam didn't think it sounded interesting or spooky."
Maddie sighed heavily. "I understand, kids, but things are different now. You have to realize that."
Jazz rolled her eyes and started to return to her cereal but Maddie snapped her fingers in front of her face and she startled.
"Jasmine. I know you aren't very…enthusiastic about our work, but like it or not, you can't pretend this isn't happening. If you hear of anything strange, even if it's just rumors, you need to tell us!"
"Exactly!" Jack agreed with his usual aplomb. "How else am I going to test out all our new inventions?"
Danny met Jazz's gaze from across the table and he saw some of his own concerns reflected back at him. Their family was…tolerated by the community. Eccentric but harmless enough and given a wide berth when possible. He and Jazz had managed to skate by thus far but if their parents started making spectacles of themselves, that would all be over. Well, Jazz's insufferably sunny disposition and intellect would probably be enough to earn her a 'pass' so to speak, at least long enough for her to graduate and get the hell out of dodge. But Danny? No chance in hell. Elementary school had taught him that.
On the other hand, if enough people became convinced that there actually were ghosts on the loose, his parents might actually be taken seriously. But the only way to convince people of that would be a big ghost fight or something and he didn't see that going well.
Either way, he was screwed.
He unenthusiastically delivered his report to his best friends on their way to homeroom. Sam's response was difficult to gauge, but Tucker seemed unbothered and Danny had to agree. Them detecting traces of ectoplasm was hardly newsworthy. But they would need to be careful from now on. Danny in particular would have to be prepared to let them know immediately if his parents decided to go out hunting or whatever. They suspected ghosts were loose in Amity Park but, for now, they had no solid evidence of anything.
After school, they headed to the Nasty Burger to eat and do the homework for their shared classes.
Tucker took a long swig of his Coke and set the cup down on the table. "So, do you think it's safe to go out tonight?"
Nibbling on the tip of his eraser, Danny stared at the question on his assignment. He knew this, he knew he did, he remembered Mr. Lancer saying the answer in class…but what—? Right, Tucker had asked a question. "Um…I'm not sure?" He glanced between them. "They were pretty tired this morning so I don't think they'll try going out two nights in a row. I'll have to check when I get home."
"You do that," Sam muttered then exhaled loudly. "I really don't like the idea of your parents just…being able to lock us down like that."
"Hey, better safe than sorry," Danny pointed out. "If there had been time we could've come up with a plan or something but it was so last minute."
"We should, actually," said Tucker.
"Should what?"
"Come up with a plan. That won't be the last time your folks go out like that and there's no guarantee you'll be able to warn us before they do. Like, what's the protocol if we run into them while they're out?"
Sam cleared her throat and looked around pointedly. "Maybe we don't talk about this here?"
Danny twisted around in his seat, checking the nearby booths. No one was sitting directly behind or beside them yet—the perks of being social outcasts—but that didn't mean they wouldn't be overheard.
Tucker glanced around, too, then nodded. "Good point."
Sam merely inclined her head then stabbed at her salad with her fork. She said nothing as she took a bite and Danny turned his attention back to his homework.
"So," Sam said and Danny sighed but set his pencil down. "I know it's only Wednesday, but what are we doing this weekend?"
Tucker shrugged. "I don't know, does it matter?"
"It's probably going to be the last warm weekend of the year," she pointed out. "We should do something fun." She grinned at them, waiting for approval, but Danny merely reached for his drink.
Tucker took the bait. "Such as?"
"We never got around to hitting the amusement park's new roller coaster. I heard it has a free fall that'll take three years off your life expectancy!"
Danny rolled his eyes, swallowed a mouthful of soda, and replied, "Uh, Sam, aren't you forgetting something? Something we are very capable of doing ourselves any day of the week without paying admission or waiting in line?"
"Well, yeah, but, I don't know." She shrugged. "It's a different feeling and I bet it could still be fun."
Tucker shook his head. "No thanks. It costs forty bucks just to get in there, not to mention food and stuff." Leaning back in his seat, he rested his elbows on the back of it. "I'm not wasting that kind of money on the off-chance it doesn't even do it for us anymore."
"Hey, if you're tapped out, I can lend you the cash," she offered.
"Lend means 'repay' and repay is out of my reach. Right, Danny?"
"Uh…" Danny glanced between his friends nervously. He could probably get the money from his parents no problem but he stood by what he'd said before. "I don't really think—"
A cry rose up from a gathering of Casper High students on the other side of the restaurant and spared Danny from having to answer. The three of them turned to see what the commotion was and spotted Dash Baxter handing out light purple cards to every member of the crowd. Danny groaned in realization and slumped forward, propping his chin up on his fist. In the wake of everything that had been going on, he'd completely forgotten the annual parties Dash had been throwing since seventh grade. Though he'd never been invited to one, he'd always heard they were such a hit that even high schoolers turned up, and when you were in middle school, that was about as big of a deal as being invited to a high schooler's party yourself.
Sam twisted around in her seat with a look of disgust, which softened a little when she spotted Danny. "C'mon, Danny, it's not that big of a deal."
"Debatable."
"Why don't we get invited to the really cool parties?" Tucker asked as if either of them had an answer. "We've got style, charm, good looks—at least I do, anyway."
Sam scoffed. "Dream on. On the social circuit, we're completely invisible."
Sensing an opportunity, Danny sat straight up. "You might say we're—"
"No."
"—like ghosts."
"Danny, no."
"Danny, yes."
Tucker sighed dramatically. "Ten bucks says that's the reason we don't get invited to parties."
"Hey!"
Tucker opened his mouth to reply but then his eyes widened in surprise and he cleared his throat significantly. Danny and Sam turned to seewhat he was looking at, only to realize that Dash was coming their way. And looking right at them. Sam turned away, hands curling into fists on the table, and gave Danny a pointed glare, but he didn't look away from Dash. There had to be a reason he was coming over with invitations still in his hands. And sure enough, Dash stopped at their table.
"Uh, hey, Dash," Danny said hesitantly.
"Yeah, whatever," the jock replied and shoved an invitation into Danny's face. His hands shot up to grip the piece of paper before he even fully processed what was happening. "Make sure your sister gets that."
Danny blinked down at the little piece of paper which declared itself to be an invite to Da Dash Bash. His brain caught up to him after a moment. "M-my sister? Wha—"
"Couldn't catch her before she left after school. Make sure she gets it and nobody gets hurt."
"Wait, you're inviting Jazz? To a party?"
"Duh, Fenturd." With that, Dash spun on his heel and started to walk away.
"What about us?" Danny blurted out.
Dash threw them a withering look over his shoulder. "My house has a strict policy against twinks, geeks, and freaks."
"Gotta be hard considering you live there," Sam commented dryly.
He whipped around. "The hell'd you say?"
Anyone else might have been intimidated, but Sam's answering smirk was borderline predatory. "You heard me."
Tucker made a quiet noise in the back of his throat and began gathering up his homework. Danny was inclined to agree with his assessment of the situation but it wasn't like they could make a break for it now. Even if he somehow could make it out of the booth and past Dash without getting snatched up, he couldn't leave Sam to her fate. She was tough as nails in her own right, but Dash had at least fifty pounds of pure muscle on her and her powers wouldn't do her much good here.
Dash slammed his hand on their table so hard the whole thing rattled ominously. The chatter around them died as heads swiveled towards the commotion. Tucker jumped in his seat and began shoving papers, books, and napkins indiscriminately into his bag, but Danny remained frozen in his seat. Sam leaned forward, every inch of her absolutely oozing a challenge, daring Dash to make a move.
"You wanna say that to my face, Manson?" Dash growled and, oh hell, Sam wasn't backing down.
Danny had to do something. Now. "Dash—"
"HEY!" came a furious shout from behind the counter. "If you kids got a problem or something, you go on and take that shit outside, we ain't doing this on my shift!"
"Yeah, Dash," Sam drawled. "You're making a scene."
"Listen you little—"
"Outside!" shouted the manager. "Or I'll call the cops!"
The threat of police seemed to snap Sam out of…whatever that was. The moment Dash turned away, her eyes flicked to Danny and Tucker and she jerked her head towards the door. Without a word, she snatched up her backpack, shoved her pencil into her textbook and slammed it shut. Danny grabbed his backpack, their tray, and the three of them quickly exited their booth. Dash watched them go with gritted teeth but he made no move to stop them.
"What the hell, Sam!?" Tucker demanded the moment the door shut behind them. "What in the actual hell?"
Sam sputtered something unintelligible, frantically tugging on the zipper of her backpack.
Whether it was some sort of ghost instinct or just a good ol' human gut feeling, something told Danny to look over his shoulder. Dash had gathered a few of his buddies and they were marching towards the door, and even from this distance Danny could see they were coming for blood. "Crud." He grabbed both his friends by their elbows and began pulling them around the back of the building. "Time to go!"
"Oh, no, I am not running from Dash!" Sam objected, tugging against his hold.
But Danny wouldn't budge and continued hauling her and Tucker towards safety. If they could just get behind the dumpsters, they could turn invisible without anyone seeing. "And you're also not about to fight half the football team in the Nasty Burger parking lot! Now let's. GO."
Sam's only further protest was something that sounded like a growl in her throat and she let herself be pulled away. Dash shouted their names as they were ducking around the corner but they didn't stop. They ducked behind the dumpsters to turn invisible but Danny didn't wait around to watch the jocks arrival. He jumped into the air and, to his immense relief, Sam lifted off the ground as well. The three of them flew away, leaving the football players to stew in their fury and confusion. There would be a reckoning for this, of that Danny was certain.
They landed in an alley a few blocks away from the Nasty Burger, turned visible, then strolled out onto the sidewalk. Apart from a few cars going up and down the street, they were alone.
"Are you out of your mind, Sam?!" Tucker exploded. "Why'd you goad Dash like that? There's no way he's gonna forget this by tomorrow."
"Probably not," she agreed, nowhere near concerned enough for the situation, in Danny's opinion. "But Dash doesn't scare me."
"Yeah, 'cos you're not the one he's gonna wail on for this," Danny snapped.
Sam at least had the decency to look contrite. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't think—I didn't mean—"
Danny shook his head. It wasn't fine but she couldn't control what Dash did. "But seriously, Sam, what was that? You've clapped back before but that was weird."
"I don't know what came over me, honestly, I was just…" she trailed off, frowning, and lifted her eyes skyward. "I got pissed off."
"You were practically daring him to pick a fight," Tucker retorted. "I'd say that's a little more than 'pissed off'."
Sam could only shrug. "He could've given Jazz the invitation tomorrow. He just wanted to be a jerk and rub it in. I saw an opportunity and I took it. And you know what? Fuck Dash, okay?"
Both boys' heads swiveled towards her in surprise.
"No really!" Sam insisted, incensed. Maybe it was a trick of the evening light, but her ponytail almost seemed to flicker like a flame. "Fuck him and his stupid party! There's nothing we could do at his house that we can't do at mine. Nothing worth doing, anyway. And we'd have more fun because it'd be just us."
Danny felt his jaw drop in surprise. "Your…house?"
Sam darted in front of them, arms folded across her chest, stopping their procession dead in its tracks. "Yeah. My house. This Saturday, you're both coming to my house. My parents won't be home and my grandma won't bother us. We're gonna watch movies, have snacks, dance, paint our nails, and whatever the hell else you guys wanna do."
Tucker and Danny exchanged baffled looks. They'd never been to Sam's before. Any time they'd broached the subject, she'd outright refused to let them over, for one reason or another.
"Was that an invitation or an order?" Tucker asked.
"Absolutely."
Assuming they could even make it to Saturday.
Danny felt nothing but dread as he approached Casper High on Thursday morning. He didn't see Dash or any of his cronies but it was only a matter of time. By now he had surely rationalized going after Danny in place of Sam, but even if he hadn't, Danny wouldn't sit by and let him do something horrible to her. He just really wasn't looking forward to what came after.
First period passed without incident, as did second, and the butterflies in Danny's stomach grew more agitated when he and Sam were forced to part ways with Tucker for third period. But it, too, passed without incident. After the bell, they regrouped with Tucker near his classroom, then made their way towards the doors which lead out to the lawn where they liked to spend their free period before or after lunch. Soon the weather would turn miserable and the lawn would be off limits until next spring, as no teacher wanted to sit outside and supervise them in the bitter cold.
They headed down freshman hall to deposit their books in their lockers on their way outside…only to find Dash leaning against his locker, waiting for them, if the predatory grin which crossed his face was anything to go by. Danny took a deep breath, and his eyes flicked across the students in the hall. He counted one, two, three, four members of the football team. Star and Valerie were nearby, too, but who knew if they intended to get involved or were simply there for the show?
"Keep walking," Sam muttered to them. Danny gulped and clutched his supplies tighter to his side.
Dash waited until they were only a few feet away before sneering, "Hey, Manson."
"Yeah no," Sam replied flatly, her usual scowl firmly in place.
He pushed off from the lockers and sauntered directly into their path. For a moment, Danny considered simply turning intangible and going through him. Sam's stride didn't even falter, and she walked around him like he was little more than an obstacle in her path and not, say, a viper poised to strike. And strike he did.
When Sam walked around Dash, Danny chose to follow her rather than breaking ranks. Dash's hand whipped out between them so fast that only his inhuman reflexes saved Danny from crashing face-first into solid muscle. With a sharp inhale, he jerked his chin up and stopped dead in his tracks. Dash's arm hovered less than an inch below his chin, and the jock sneered at him. Sam whirled around at the sound.
"Goin somewhere, Fenton-y?" Dash taunted. Danny sputtered.
"Dash!" Sam snapped, drawing his attention from Danny. "While I'd love to see whatever stupid shit you're planning on pulling, let me make one thing clear: if you lay so much as a finger on me, Danny, or Tucker, I will make you regret it."
Dash, Danny, and, well, everyone within hearing distance, really, gawked at her like she'd grown a second head. Or gone ghost.
"What the hell?" one of the jocks muttered.
Dash stared at her for a moment longer then burst out laughing, withdrawing his arm. Danny darted past Dash. Tucker followed after, flanking Sam on either side. She wasn't stupid and it wasn't like her to bluff with no way to back it up. Somehow, she had something on Dash.
Around them, some of Dash's friends were laughing along with him.
"Oh," Dash guffawed, "that's a good one." He opened his eyes, saw them standing in formation, and his smile turned ugly. He turned around, folding his arms across his chest, and leaned down towards Sam. "And how are you gonna do that, Manson?"
Danny risked a glance at Sam and had to press his lips together to stop himself from gasping. It was faint, maybe not even visible to humans yet, but her eyes had begun to take on a yellow hue. Dash was an idiot but there was no way he'd miss her eyes changing colors if this went on much longer.
Sam smirked and began to hum a tune Danny did not recognize but Dash…oh, Dash did. His eyes widened and to the utter shock of every single student watching, he took a step back. Tucker snickered. Whispering started up around them.
Glancing around quickly, Dash cleared his throat and his expression morphed into a scowl. "Yeah, right. As if anyone would believe that."
Her answering grin was all teeth and absolutely wicked. "Good thing I have pictures."
Dash's jaw clenched but he said nothing, nor did he make any move towards them, clearly trying to decide whether or not he wanted to call her bluff. After a moment, Sam took a step back, then another, and finally she turned and walked away. Danny and Tucker followed, and, to Danny's amazement, Dash let them go. The whispers followed them down the hall, fading only once they'd rounded the corner out of sight.
At that exact moment, Tucker burst out laughing. "Holy crap! How? How did you know?!"
Sam seemed to be trying to hold back her own laughter, though her eyes shone deviously. (And, thankfully, entirely in their natural shade.) "Dash isn't as subtle as he thinks he is."
Danny looked between them, utterly mystified. "I don't understand. What exactly do you have on Dash?"
"That song she hummed back there?" Tucker jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "It was the My Rainbow Bears theme song."
Danny's eyes widened. "No."
"Yes," Sam hissed.
"How did you know? More importantly, how long have you been sitting on this?"
"Since summer. I caught Dash buying one of the bears at the store. Must've been limited edition or something because he forked over quite a bit of cash for it. He was trying to be all incognito, but I recognized him and snapped a few pictures when he wasn't looking. He never even knew I was there."
Danny was amazed and more than a little impressed. No wonder Dash had backed down. If something like that got out, it'd be like throwing a bucket of chum into shark-infested waters. Even if he managed to somehow disprove it, the blow to his reputation wouldn't soon fade.
"I've been saving them for something like this," she went on smugly. "I know it won't last forever, but I figure we'll get at least a week off."
Hmm. Yeah, better add terrified to the list as well. Who knew what other deep dark secrets Sam was just waiting to expose?
"Glad you're on our side," Danny said.
They pushed the doors open and stepped outside into the warm midday sun. A handful of students were already seated at the picnic tables or on the lawn. The teacher on watch, a woman in her thirties that none of them had a class with, glanced at them as they walked down the stairs then turned her attention back to the lawn.
"Y'know," Tucker drawled as soon as they were far enough away, "Now that we've got powers, it'd be really easy for us to get dirt on that whole crowd. Think about it. We can go invisible, intangible, and we can fly! All we'd have to do is pick our targets and I bet you within a day we'd have something on 'em."
"Uh, I don't know, Tuck," Danny said slowly. He glanced at Sam, who looked about as uncomfortable as he felt at the idea. "That doesn't seem…right."
Tucker frowned. "What do you mean? Those guys have been horrible to us for years. We should be allowed to haunt them."
Arriving at their preferred table, Tucker took a seat at the bench closest to them. Danny walked around the table to the other side and Sam followed.
"It just seems like a really shady thing to do," Danny explained as he sat down. "It's basically stalking, no matter what you call it. We're trying to be heroes, right?"
"All things considered, I know I don't really have a leg to stand on here," Sam said, "but I'm gonna have to agree with Danny on this one."
"Oh, come on Sam. If the roles had been reversed, Dash wouldn't have hesitated to out you to the entire school that day. We wouldn't be doing it to be mean, we'd be…." He paused, lips twisting thoughtfully as he sought a way to justify it. "Acquiring insurance." Danny frowned and Tucker let out an exasperated sigh. "Come on, Danny. You can't tell me you don't like the idea of getting Dash off your back for the rest of high school."
"You mean until people figure out there's no way for us to know the things we know without literally stalking them or breaking and entering," Sam pointed out.
Tucker folded his arms with a loud sigh and scowled. "I still think they'd deserve it," he muttered but didn't argue further.
She might not have thrown the chum to the sharks, but Sam sure as hell poked the hornet's nest with her little stunt. By the time lunch was over, every single kid who'd been invited to Dash's party seemed to be aware that they hadn't been. Oh, no one came at them directly, and Dash certainly didn't make a reappearance, but suddenly they were being jostled a little more than usual during passing period. Accidental bumps, normally unavoidable in school halls, were too frequent to be anything but deliberate. Popular kids, or anyone who might be considered on the fringes of the group, were making a point of looking at them while whispering behind hands or laughing loudly.
And it continued on Friday, as well.
Danny could ignore the jeering, the pointed looks, and the elbowing. He'd dealt with worse. But what he couldn't stand was the whispering. Everywhere they went, alone or together, the whispering seemed to follow in the background. It was annoying. The last thing he wanted though was for people to realize they were getting to him, so he kept his head down and purposefully avoided searching for the source of the whispering.
On the way to third period, Kwan decided to barrel past Danny so fast that he lost his grip on his supplies and they went tumbling to the floor. Sam stopped to help him gather his things and Danny's ears fair burned from embarrassment under the whispering, which had swelled in intensity. As a result of the whole thing, they were almost late to class. The teacher was engrossed in a conversation with a pair of students at the front of the room and didn't even notice Danny and Sam slip in mere seconds before the bell. They took their seats in the second to last row and unpacked their supplies. Sam tore out a blank page from her notebook, scribbled a message, and slipped it to Danny just as their teacher called the class to order.
When we were picking your stuff up, there were only two people still in the hallway. Who was whispering? Where's it coming from?
Danny's jaw nearly hit the floor. He glanced at Sam's intense expression and pressed his lips together. Thinking back on it, she was right. The whispers might've died down as they left the scene of the crime, so to speak, but they hadn't truly stopped until they entered the classroom. The only people out there had been fellow stragglers, certainly not anyone who would bother to stop and gossip. That really only left one option, didn't it?
How is it, he thought to himself, as he scribbled down his reply to Sam, that my life has gotten to the point where 'ghosts' is actually a valid answer?
He slipped her the note when their teacher was writing on the board and out of the corner of his eye, he saw her nod minutely.
When they met up with Tucker after class, they filled him in on their realizations as they made their way towards the lawn. Like yesterday, they headed for freshman hall to drop off their stuff, hopefully without any interruptions this time. As they rounded the corner, the whispering swelled once more.
"You hear that, right?" Danny asked his best friends. They nodded. He looked up and down the hallway. Most of the kids were busy at their lockers or chatting with friends like everything was normal and there weren't voices whispering loud enough to be audible even over the din.
Wait…no. Danny grabbed his friends by their arms and stopped dead in his tracks. He frowned, squeezing his eyes shut, and strained his ears. Not voices, plural. A single voice, whispering the same word over and over, echoing and overlapping endlessly with itself.
Bullies…bullies…bullies…!
Danny sucked in a sharp breath, eyes flying open to see Sam and Tucker staring at him with identical concerned expressions. "I think," he muttered, letting go of them, "it's saying 'bullies.'"
Sam furrowed her brow and then closed her eyes. After a few, long moments, her eyes snapped open once more. "I hear it, too."
Tucker folded his arms, seeming to take their word for it. "A ghostly disembodied voice, audible only in the halls, especially this one, talking about bullies…." His eyes suddenly widened and he gasped. "Holy—you don't think the legend of Locker 724 is real do you?"
Sam gasped, too, but Danny merely frowned. "The what now?"
Tucker threw him a withering look. "Hello? Locker 724? How do you not know the legend of Locker 724?"
"Uh. What?"
He heaved a sigh, grabbed Danny by the bicep, and pulled him down the row of lockers until they reached 724. He recognized it immediately, of course. Casper High's lockers were hardly immaculate but 724 was weathered and rusty, its paint job faded and heavily chipped. No one had bothered to maintain this singular locker in a very long time, never mind actually used it. He'd noticed it on the first day but considering everything else that had been going on at the time, he hadn't really bothered to learn why. Or care.
Danny glanced between the locker and his friends, who were eyeing it like it had teeth, and he almost might've thought they were crazy if he couldn't hear the voice clearer than ever before.
"Bullshit," Sam whispered.
"C-can we get out of here?" Danny stammered. "This is freaking me out."
"How have we never heard this before?"
Tucker shrugged and made a noise of confusion. "How should I know? Maybe because he's never spoken before?"
"Whoa whoa wait." Danny held up his free hand. "He?"
Tucker heaved a sigh. "Seriously. Danny. How do you not know? Locker 724 used to be owned by a kid named Sydney Poindexter back in the '50s. Dude was the victim of more cruel pranks than anyone in the history of Casper High School. Apparently, picking on him was a graduation requirement."
As he spoke, Danny's eyes flicked to the dilapidated locker in front of them. If he didn't know any better, he'd say the whispering had quieted. Like it knew what Tucker was talking about.
Tucker followed his gaze and frowned at the locker. "He got stuffed into his locker so many times, it's believed his spirit still inhabits it to this very day. Or so the story says."
They regarded the locker in silence for a long moment. The whispering continued around them but the words had begun to change. Danny furrowed his brow as he strained to make out what the whispers were saying, but all he could catch were snatches of words, except for one, which seemed clear as day.
Hello?
Danny shuddered. Oh god. Was there really the ghost of some poor dead kid trapped inside? What kind of hell had his high school years been for him to end up here of all places? God, had he died in there?
"Uh, Tucker?"
Danny blinked, coming back to himself at Sam's worried tone. Tucker had taken a step forward and his hand gripped the dial on Locker 724, like he was about to try unlocking it.
"Hey, guys, get to where you're going!" a teacher's voice called down the hall. "Bell's in one minute."
Danny let out a huff and tugged on Tucker's arm. "Come on," he muttered, jerking his head in the opposite direction of the teacher. "Let's get out of here."
"Can't you hear him?" Tucker asked.
"Not really," Sam replied at the same time Danny said, "Sort of."
Sam glanced between them and frowned.
"He kept repeating three numbers, 20-9-15. I think it's the combination. He wants to be let out."
Danny shook his head. "Tuck, I don't think—"
"Get a move on!" the teacher called.
Danny sighed and raised his hand at the teacher in acknowledgement. "Come on, guys," he hissed. "We can hide in the bathrooms and go invisible."
With an acknowledging wave at the teacher watching them, the three headed down the hall like they were heading for the lawn. Luckily for them, a pair of bathrooms were situated just around the corner from the outside door, and they slipped inside their respective ones without a word. Danny glanced around to make sure no one was in there then turned invisible. Tucker followed suit. The bell rang not long after and Tucker and Danny exchanged glances before slipping out of the bathroom to join Sam. The teacher was already gone when they made it back to freshman hall and each quickly returned to their lockers to stow their stuff. The whispering continued all the while.
They met back up in front of Locker 724 and Sam, ever the pragmatic one, had brought her Thermos along. They stood invisibly a few feet from the locker, eyeing it with varying levels of wariness.
"I don't know about this," Danny muttered. "Sure, he's trapped, but what if someone did it purposefully? If this kid was bullied to death or something, he's probably a vengeful spirit."
"Or he's a tormented soul that's been stuck in a locker for fifty years," Tucker retorted. "Either way, there's three of us and one of him, and Sam has a thermos."
"Maybe we should wait until school's out," Sam suggested.
Tucker scoffed. "Come on, Sam. I don't think just opening the door is gonna do anything. Kids probably break in all the time. If the door was the only thing keeping him in there, he'd have been out years ago."
Without waiting for permission, Tucker turned visible and reached for the dial once more. Still invisible, Danny and Sam exchanged nervous looks and Sam uncapped her thermos. They turned visible as Tucker tried the latch. It creaked far too loudly in the empty hallway and the whispering abruptly ceased. Danny heard Tucker suck in a breath before pulling the door open. It groaned as it opened, the hatches rusty and warped from years of disrepair.
Danny and Sam crowded up behind Tucker to peer inside over his shoulders. The inside of Locker 724 was just as worn as the outside. Faded, dirty, and there was even a spiderweb in one of the corners. Ick. But the real oddity was the mirror affixed to the back of the locker. How long had it been there? Had it been Sidney Poindexter's?
"Whoa," Sam murmured.
Wordlessly, Danny reached over Tucker's shoulder and pressed his fingers to the mirror's surface. His fingers tingled, and he pulled away with a hiss of surprise.
"Danny?"
"I felt something…."
Tucker reached out to touch the mirror himself and Danny felt him shiver. Sam's arm snaked in alongside his to touch it, too, and she gasped.
"Something's definitely going on here," she declared. "It feels…alive."
"Or something," Tucker muttered with an expression of intense concentration directed at the mirror. "Are you, uh, are you in there, Sidney?"
Nothing. Not even the barest hint of a whisper. Danny frowned and leaned away from Tucker. This was sketchy as hell.
"Sidney?" Tucker tried again. "Or, uh, somebody else? Hello? We're here to help. I-if you want it, I mean."
"Annnd of course nothing's happening," Sam drawled, taking a step back, and folding her arms. "I swear, Tucker, if you let him out just by opening the locker…."
"I didn't," Tucker replied, sounding less sure of himself than before. He tapped his finger against the mirror. "Come on, Sidney, dude, if you're there, give us a sign or something."
He tried to wedge his fingers beneath the mirror, as if intending to remove it, but the mirror didn't even so much as twitch. Frowning, Tucker reached in with both hands and tried to pull the mirror out. It didn't budge, but a quiet hiss whipped through the air.
"Okay. Weird tingly mirror, fused to the wall, and hissing. That's normal," Danny deadpanned. Then he heard the footsteps. He turned his head towards the sound. Multiple people, heavy footfalls, walking fast. "Someone's coming!" he hissed.
Tucker leaned around the locker door to look. "What do we do?!" he whispered frantically.
"Hide!" Sam replied at the same volume then turned invisible, Danny followed. Tucker eased the door closed but didn't shut it all the way and disappeared as well.
Seconds later, a group of three boys in letter jackets rounded the corner. In the front was an upperclassman that Danny couldn't name. The other two were Dash and Kwan. The upperclassman lead them right to Locker 724 and Danny promptly turned intangible, floating into the air. He could see the vague forms of Sam and Tucker follow suit.
"This one here," the upperclassman said, pointing at the locker, then stuffed his hands in his pockets.
"Oh, yeah, this piece of shit," Dash drawled. "They were staring at it?"
"Yeah," the upperclassman replied. "Looked kind of freaked, too."
Dash let out a quiet 'huh' then peered closer. Without a word, he stepped around the other jocks, reached for the door Tucker had left slightly ajar, and pulled it open. His eyes flitted around the empty locker intently before settling on the mirror in the back.
"Weird," he declared after a moment.
"Hey so, uh," Kwan began nervously, "but isn't this locker supposed to be haunted?"
Dash let out a derisive snort. "You actually believe that crap?"
"No! But y'know, Fenton might. O-or Manson."
Dash didn't look convinced. He reached inside the locker and tapped his finger against the mirror. The whispering resumed, louder than ever, with a decidedly aggressive undertone, but Dash gave no indication that he could hear it. None of them did. But the hairs on the back of Danny's neck bristled. Something was about to happen. He could feel it.
"Well, they're not here," the upperclassman drawled, pulling his hands from his pockets. "I'm going to lunch. Later, guys."
"Later, man," Dash replied with a wave, not looking away from the locker.
"Later, thanks," Kwan added as the upperclassman walked away, leaving the two freshman alone with the three invisible half-ghosts and a pissed off locker spirit. Kwan nudged him. "Dude, c'mon. There's nothing here."
Dash frowned and his arm moved. Danny couldn't see what he was doing from the angle he was floating at but then suddenly the voice, which had only ever whispered before, swelled into a roar.
NO!
It may have not reached Dash and Kwan's ears but the startled gasp which burst from Danny's mouth sure did. They startled then whipped their heads toward the sound, eyes darting around the empty hallway first in alarm and then confusion.
"You heard that, right?" Kwan asked.
"Yeah," Dash replied, taking a step back from the locker, clutching the mirror in his hand.
One moment Tucker's faint form was hovering in Danny's peripheral vision and the next he was down at Dash's level and tugging on the mirror out of his grip.
"Hey what the fuck!?" Dash yelped as the mirror was yanked out of his hands by an invisible force. Kwan swore and literally leaped backwards. They gawked at the mirror with mounting horror for a few tense seconds and then Tucker turned it invisible.
Kwan let out a scream of terror and was halfway down the hall before the sound faded. Dash bolted after him, screeching, "WHAT THE FUUUUCK!?"
A door up the hallway flew open and a teacher darted out into the hallway. Another door opened half a second later and then another and another, all seeking the source of the screaming.
"Guys," Sam hissed, "time to go!"
She did not have to tell them twice. They shot through the ceiling, up through the second floor, then the third. Sam must have transformed somewhere between floors because when they returned to visibility outside, she was Wraith. Danny and Tucker landed on the ground but Sam remained hovering in the air.
"That was stupid," Sam said without preamble.
"You're one to talk," Tucker retorted. "Besides, who's gonna know? Everyone's just gonna think it was the locker ghost. And did you see their faces?! Totally worth it!"
Danny was inclined to agree but before he could voice his opinions on the matter, the mirror in Tucker's hands began to glow a vicious green. The whispers resumed with a vengeance, rising in volume as the glow swelled in size, coalescing into a single, nasally shout.
"BULLY!"
Tucker let go of the mirror with a startled cry but rather than plummeting to the ground, it remained floating in midair. An explosion of light erupted from the mirror and the three teenagers threw their hands up to shield their eyes. When the light faded, they were not alone.
He was their age, maybe a little older, skinny as a board, with a long, narrow face, and glasses. He looked like he had just stepped out of a TV show from the fifties in more ways than one. His clothing style was dated and, for a word, nerdy…and he was entirely monochrome. No hint of the ectoplasmic green which had comprised at least one aspect of every ghost they had seen thus far, not even in his eyes. But he was very much a ghost, his transparent, floating form could attest to that. As could the mirror which he held firmly in his hands.
All four teenagers exchanged shocked looks but it was Sidney who found his voice first. His head whipped from side to side and his lips parted in a wide, buck-toothed grin. "Hey! I'm free! Finally, I—" He paused then his head swiveled towards them and his eyes narrowed. "You. You were messing with those poor kids."
"S-Sidney…Poindexter?" Tucker asked tentatively.
"Yeah, that's me. What's it to ya?"
"Holy shit," Sam whispered.
"Wait a minute." Sidney rose higher into the air so he was eye-level with Sam. "You're a ghost, too. Why are you helping them bully kids?!"
"We weren't!" Danny argued, drawing the ghost's gaze. "Those guys are the bullies. They were after us when they showed up at your locker."
"They're the bullies?" Sidney repeated with a doubtful frown. "Then how come they were the ones who ran screaming?"
"Because we scared them off." Sam retorted, folding her arms. "Listen, I don't know how much you were able to see or whatever from your locker, but if you'd been paying attention at all during the school year so far, you'd know Dash and Kwan are assholes. I might not agree with what Tucker did—" she shot Tucker a pointed look "—but they definitely deserved it."
Sidney turned his attention to Tucker, looking him up and down pointedly, but said nothing.
"Look," Danny said, holding his hands up in front of him in a placating gesture. "We don't want to fight."
"Fight?" Sidney repeated, blinking in surprise. "Who said anything about fighting?"
"Pretty much every ghost we've ever met has picked a fight," Sam replied.
"But you're just a kid, like us," Tucker pressed. "And we know a lot of bad stuff happened to you when you were alive, and that you've been stuck in that locker a long time."
Sidney cocked his head. "I wasn't in my locker, it's just where the doorway is. Or…was." He looked down at the mirror in his hands. "What year is it?" he asked suddenly.
"2004," Sam said.
"Two-thousa—" Sidney stopped mid-word, eyes wide, and then abruptly let out a long, loud sigh, deflating. He drifted towards the ground. "So long. I can't believe after all this time no one ever threw it away."
"There's a whole legend-slash-ghost story thing with your locker," Tucker explained. "No one uses it. I don't think anyone had even opened it in years before we did."
"No," Sidney agreed, "it's been a long time. I knew time was passing but, gosh, fifty years…."
Sensing that they were no longer in any danger, Sam lowered herself next to the boys and transformed back. The flash of light startled Sidney and he had to do a double-take then gasped. "HOLY SOCKS!" He let go of his mirror with one hand to point at them. "Y-you! You're halfas!"
Danny stood up straighter. "What-as?"
"Halfas! Everybody in the Ghost Zone has been talking about you! You're half-humans, half-ghosts! Halfas! You have all our powers on the human plane and—and you…" He looked down at his mirror again.
Halfas, Danny thought. There's a name for us.
"And you let me out," Sidney finished. "Why would you let me out when all you do is throw ghosts back in?"
Tucker and Sam seemed to be reeling from the revelation just as much as Danny was. A few moments passed before Tucker shook his head and replied, "We just wanted to help you, dude."
"We're only throwing ghosts back because they've all been trying to hurt people," Danny added then tilted his head, trying to make eye-contact with Sidney. The ghost met his gaze and raised his head. "If you're going to do that, you have to go back to the Ghost Zone. One way or another."
"I…" Sidney looked down at his mirror again. Licked his lips. Looked at them, then at the sky, clear and blue, dotted with fluffy white clouds. The wind blew around them, rustling a few leaves which littered the roof, and the clothes of the three…halfas. Voices drifted up from the lawn where students passed their free period in idle conversations. "I don't…want to hurt anybody. But I don't want to go back. Not yet, anyway. There's not really…anything good for me in the Ghost Zone, you dig?"
Tucker let out a tiny, almost imperceptible laugh, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Word."
Sidney cocked his head. "W-word?"
"We dig."
The ghost's shoulders slumped in relief, and he grinned at them, showing off his too-large front teeth. He drifted down to stand on the rooftop in front of them. Tucking his mirror under one arm, he held out his other hand. "I'm Sidney," he said.
Tucker accepted the offer and shook the ghost's hand. "Tucker."
Sidney turned to Sam who shrugged lightly and said her name as she shook his hand. He turned to Danny last, offering his hand and a hopeful, expectant smile. Danny returned it and, for the first time in his life, shook a ghost's hand.
It was cold.