Chapter 10: The Kids Aren't Alright
Vlad looked up from his phone as Dan entered the kitchen.
"You're up early. Don't you have first period free this year?" Vlad commented casually before going back to his phone to read up on the morning news.
"Couldn't sleep," Dan muttered as he grabbed the pot of coffee and poured himself a cup.
"Is something troubling you, my boy?" Vlad asked, looking up with a frown.
Dan stopped and glanced at Vlad over his shoulder. After a pause, he simply shrugged and said, "The usual I guess, school, girls, life in general…."
"Anything in specific you want to talk about?" Vlad asked.
Dan was quiet for another moment, before he turned and leaned slightly on the doorframe. "I…." he began to say, but trailed off with a sigh. "Nothing."
"Are you sure?"
Dan suddenly frowned. "What's with the sudden interest in me?" he snapped.
Vlad stood up, but stayed by the island bar in the kitchen. "Because you're my son, of course."
Dan turned away. "Whatever."
Vlad sighed and straightened his tie, mostly for the need to do something with his hands. "Well, I'm off to the office. Have a good day at school," Vlad said.
Dan made a noncommittal grunt and walked out of the kitchen.
Vlad watched him leave with a growing frown. He shook his head and pocketed his phone. Knocking back the last of his coffee and putting the empty mug in the sink, he made his way out the door.
Several miles down the road, he came to an intersection, but instead of going down the road he usually went to get to his office, he turned down a small two lane county road that didn't even take him in the direction of Green Bay.
The scenery around him became increasingly rural as he drove another two miles down the county road until turning off onto a private driveway. Down the driveway a bit, he stopped at a gate that he had to get out and manually unlock and push open.
The dirt driveway snaked and slithered along until it finally came to an end at a modest two story farmhouse. There was still snow piled on the roof, signaling no warmth within. It's siding was painted a pale blue a few shades lighter than the sky, bleached somewhat from the sun, and pealing in a few places. Overall, it held a feeling of abandonment and vacancy.
Vlad parked the car and pulled the key out of the ignition. He got out and walked up the creaking wood steps of the house. Inside, it looked even more un-lived in than the outside suggested. It was completely unfurnished. There was a thin layer of dust on every surface, and a cobweb or two hung in the corners of the ceiling.
Vlad disregarded his drab surroundings and walked straight to the basement door. The un-oiled hinges creaked as the door opened. Vlad walked down a short flight of stairs before he came to another door. This one was more fortified, more akin to a what you might find on a bank vault rather than the door to a basement in some old nearly abandoned farmhouse.
He put in the pass code and the door unlocked with a quiet clank. On the westward side of the room there used to be a door leading out of the cellar straight to the outside of the house as most cellars did, but it had been filled in long ago and the wall had been fortified. Against the wall that was once open to the elements, was a table covered in various scraps of machinery, that had gone abandoned and had only just been picked up again and brought back into the interest of their creator. The centerpiece of the room however were the large doors in an octagonal frame at the back of the room. It was a ghost portal, nearly identical to the one the Fentons had developed.
...
Dan leaned on the faded bricks of Madison Preparatory School. There was a blind spot behind the school where he and other "delinquents" often hid in, but today it was just him.
"Skipping again, Mr. Masters?"
Dan was suddenly startled out of his reverie. His head shot to his left, but instead of a teacher like he half expected, he saw Karen Blackwood.
She was a senior like him, but unlike him, she wore a faded cobbled together uniform that almost didn't fit. Vlad paid her mother, Renata, enough to afford tuition to the private school, but not quite enough for new school uniforms every year.
She was looking at him with a feigned expression of disapproval and shook her head. "And smoking on campus as well? For shame."
"You're out here too," he pointed out calmly.
She raised an eyebrow. "I have free period, moron."
He looked away. "Right."
"How did you know I was out here?" he asked.
She blew a lock of her mismatched fringe out of her face, a clump of orange, formerly black hair, raised up for a second before falling back in nearly the exact place it had been before. "I know you, duh," she answered flippantly. "Do you ever get in trouble for skipping, or does the world just bend around you?"
"You think Baldwin gives a shit? He never takes attendance," Dan answered, taking a drag. "I'm making an 'A' in his class anyway, so what does it matter?" Smoke billowed out of his mouth with each word.
Karen simply shrugged.
"You're not just here to talk are you?" he said after a small pause.
"How could you tell?" she said with a small smile.
"I'm a people person," Dan answered dryly.
Karen laughed at that. "Sure you are. Anyway, I need you take Pricilla home. I'm working this afternoon, and Mom has to do something."
Dan cocked an eyebrow. "What does she have to do?"
Her lips thinned and she averted her eyes. "She has to pick my dad up from jail."
Dan looked away and took a drag from his cigarette, giving her a small bit of privacy. Karen didn't often talk about her father. She was a child of divorce like Dan, and thus, unfortunately for her, she was forced to carry her father's name. However, it was mostly thanks to her parents divorce that she and him were friends. If Renata hadn't left her husband, she wouldn't have been forced to take her two daughters to work with her, and Karen and Dan likely would have never met.
"What was it? DUI again?" he heard himself ask.
"No," Karen said, "disorderly conduct. He got into a bar fight."
"Alright, I'll drive Pricilla home."
"Thanks. She'll probably be pretty glad she doesn't have to take the buss. Also," she continued, "It's Friday, and we haven't hung out in a while."
"Won't you be tired after work?"
She shoved her hands into her cardigan pockets. "Nah, it's only from three to eight, and it's pretty slow going at the diner even on Fridays. Why do you ask?"
He lifted a shoulder in a lopsided shrug. "I'm not really feeling up to it tonight."
Karen made a face. "What is it? A prior engagement with your new fling," she teased, "or Alex and his pack of dogs?"
"Neither," he said. "I have homework and a paper to write."
"I thought you'd have some poor nerd do that stuff for you."
It was Dan's turn to make a face. "I'm a dick, but I'm not that kind of dick."
She looked at him more closely, tilting her head to one side and narrowing her eyes. "Are you alright? You've been acting weirder than usual lately."
"Weird how?"
She merely shrugged.
Suddenly, the bell for eighth period rang. Karen cursed under her breath. "I'm gonna be late for work," she grumbled.
"That's what you get for lolly gagging around," Dan said dryly.
"Yeah, alright, Mr. I-skip-class-every-other-day. See you Monday—or whenever," she said, lightly punching his arm before walking off.
...
Pricilla was just about the exact opposite of Karen. She was quiet, and skittish, but properly trimmed and clean. She wore the same frayed and old clothes that Karen wore, but somehow made them look more...reputable. Dan didn't know much about her even though he had known her for most of his life. He didn't know if anyone knew much about her. He couldn't say he ever saw her with any friends.
However, he did know that she had gotten in on a partial scholarship. It was a good thing too, seeing as their mother likely couldn't have afforded for them to both go to the prep school at the same time otherwise.
As she got in the passenger seat, he said, "Plug in your music if you want."
He was pretty sure that she wouldn't appreciate any of his music, so he gave her this chance to save herself.
"I'm alright, thank you," she said quietly.
"Are you sure?" he tried again.
She nodded silently.
Still he checked to see what CD he had in. Butchered at Birth slid out. He internally cringed. Thank fuck he had checked first. He was pretty sure Pricilla would straight up die like a frightened bird if she was ever exposed to Cannibal Corpse. He tried to find something that would be the least offensive out of the small collection of CDs he kept in his car, finally settling on Leviathan, one of the two albums he had from Mastodon. He put it in the slot and started up the car.
They drove in relative silence, Pricilla staring silently ahead with her backpack clutched to her chest, and Dan quietly tapping his fingers against the steering wheel to the music.
After about a ten minute drive, they arrived at her house.
It was a small one story brick house. The bricks were a dingy beige, making the bright red front door stand out starkly.
At the side of the house, visible through the chain link fence, was a small raised spice garden. Of all the time he had known the De La Cruze family, Dan had never really thought to ask who the spice garden was for. Whether it was Renata, or Karen, or even Pricilla who kept it up and lovingly tended to the plants, was a mystery.
He could ask Pricilla now, but he didn't think either of them would enjoy the stiff conversation.
She got out of the car. A mutt that resembled a mix of mastiff, Rottweiler, and perhaps pit bull rushed the fence, yipping in greeting, but as it spotted Dan its barks became hostile. It had never liked him in the first place, but this seemed a bit excessive.
Dan watched Pricilla for a moment longer, making sure she got into her house alright, before shifting his car into gear again and pealing out of the driveway.
...
He didn't go home. Instead he drove to a remote wooded area. Up a small drive there was what seemed to be a long abandoned church. He and Alex and his dog pack hung out in the parking lot on occasion doing whatever the fuck they wanted. Besides that, it was an excellent place to park his car that wasn't visible from the road.
Dan floated above the ground just under the barren canopy. Sometimes when he went out there he would test his powers in a very loud and destructive way, others he would simply lounge in mid air, gazing up at the sky between the bare tree branches. It depended on his mood. At the moment, he wasn't feeling much of anything, so he wasn't doing much of anything.
At one point he thought he heard footsteps and turned invisible. A moment later a deer crept into view. He stayed invisible, simply watching it as it foraged for leaf litter underneath the snow. It meandered toward him, stopping only when it was about a meter away. It raised its head, and starred right at him where he floated in the air for a second before turning tail and running back into the trees.
"Huh, interesting," Dan mused to himself as he became visible again. Maybe that whole animals can sense ghosts trope had some merit.
In fact, animals didn't seem to like him at all in his ghost form. Birds didn't chirp around him and dogs when crazy—actually dogs just didn't seem to like him at all if the De La Cruze's mutt was anything to go by. His cat didn't seem to care, but that could be just that she knew him. He was pretty sure that just about any other animal would freak out around him. It almost excited him that he held such a presence.
He summoned an ectoblast, as he had named it, and juggled it between his hands just so they had something to do. It was just a softball sized orb of red energy, not even hot or cold, just bright and inert—until he threw it.
He flung it at a small tree that was little more than a sapling. The blast exploded on impact, transforming into a red sunburst and throwing splinters all over the snowy ground. The now severed crown of the tree fell with a soft crash.
He smirked and threw another ectoblast at the ground, making a small crater, letting the leaves and dirt show underneath the few feet of snow that remained after the last storm.
He had learned the new power a few weeks ago on accident—an accident that had almost destroyed the fountain in the garden. ectoblasts weren't the only thing he could make. About a week after the fountain incident when he had started practicing in the woods, he found out that he could also make fire balls. He had nearly started a forest fire. It seemed to be a kind of trend that he always found some new power in the worst possible way.
He threw another ectoblast, trying to hit the same spot on the ground he had before, when the blast suddenly froze in midair. It turned form red to green and slowly expanded until it was a vertical disk in the air.
Dan's eyebrows shot up and his mouth fell open. It looked unmistakably like a ghost portal.
He approached it slowly, stretching out a hand towards it. His fingers where only just an inch away from the swirling vortex when it vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.
Dan growled and summoned another ectoblast. It exploded against another tree. He frowned. Not what he wanted.
Dan drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes. How did he do it? He had no fucking clue. The fact that he couldn't instantly recreate it was strange. All he had to do with both ectoblasts and fireballs was think about making them and that was it. It seemed like this was a little different.
Maybe it was about energy? He had to put more energy into it. Fireballs seemed to use a little more energy ectoblasts, so this, as the next logical step, would use even more energy.
He summoned a blast and threw it as he opened his eyes. Instead of creating another portal or even another ectoblast, he had accidentally created a more vigorous that usual fireball. Steam from melting snow mingled with the gray smoke of several trees that had been unlucky enough to be caught in the blast.
Dan cursed a blue streak as he flew back to his car. He pulled out a fire extinguisher he had bought for this exact fucking occasion from his trunk and flew back to the quickly spreading flames.
…
It was another few hours before he finally came home. As he pulled up, he noticed that Vlad's car wasn't in the driveway. Dan reasoned that he must had pulled it into the garage.
He walked through the foyer and down the hall, peeking into Vlad's study. It was empty. He was either not home from the office, which was almost ridiculous, or he had already gone up to bed. Vlad often worked late into the night, but in the comfort of his own home. In fact, he usually only went in to his main office only once a week. He seemed to be going in almost every day now.
Dan frowned and backed away from the room, closing the door with a quiet click.
Suddenly a heat blossomed in his chest and red smoke billowed from his nose. Instead of the surprise and panic he had felt the first time it had happened, a sense of annoyance filled its place.
He turned and glared around the hall. "I know you're there," he said, raising his voice slightly.
The Dairy King became visible and gave a cheerful wave as if he wasn't on the receiving end of a cold glare right then. "If you're looking for your dad, he's still not home," the ghost said helpfully.
Dan crossed his arms. "Then were is he?"
The ghost fiddled with the cartoonish ice-cream cone ornament on the top of his scepter. "Oh, well, I imagine he's still at the office. You know how hard he works."
Dan scoffed. "Right."
He leaned against the wall and his expression became thoughtful. "You know, I've been wondering, does my dad know about you?"
The Dairy King started. "Know about me? Of course not! Only ghosts can know about each other. Now some ghosts can get away with revealing themselves if they do it carefully, but that's only for the spooks. They can't formally go up to a person and shake their hand and say they're a ghost."
Dan narrowed his eyes at the way the ghost kept talking, almost babbling as if to cover for something, but he decided to humor the ghost. "Why can't they reveal themselves? What's stopping them from making it known to the world that ghosts are real?"
"Well, they'd get in trouble. There are authorities, like the Observants, that make sure ghosts don't cause too much trouble for humans," the ghost explained. "We don't really belong in this plane of existence anyway, doncha' know."
Dan snorted. So there really was some sort of ghost bureaucracy. "Why didn't you just tell me that last time, instead of running off?"
"Ah, well," the ghost said a little sheepishly, "I didn't know if it was okay to share with just a half ghost."
Dan narrowed his eyes again, but again didn't push the ghost. "Alright then," he said, abruptly pushing off the wall. "Thank's for the lesson in Ghost 101."
He brushed past the pudgy ghost and headed for the stairs.
...
Dan pulled back his arm again, a green ball of energy charging in his palm.
He had waisted the entirety of Saturday trying to get his stupid new power to work, and now it looked like it would claim Sunday, as well, which was rather unfortunate. He wasn't lying when he said he had homework and a paper to write. He had gotten about half the stack taken care of Friday night, but the rest of it and his paper still needed doing.
Fuck it. Just fuck it all.
He wasn't going to stop until he figured out how to summon portals.
He released the blast. Steam and flaming leaf litter shot up. Dan let out a frustrated growl and shot an ectoblast into the snow. The sludge splashed over the small fires and quickly snuffed them out.
He waited a beat then drew in a deep breath and summoned more energy into his palm. Dan waited another second and closed his eyes. He tried to picture the Ghost Portal in the Fenton's basement, how it felt, how it had called to him and pulled on his...soul for a lack of a better word.
"Come on," he whispered under his breath almost like he was talking to a scared animal.
Something suddenly felt different as he let the energy go. He opened his eyes and saw a swirling green vortex in front of him.