What is this, a ghost boarding house?
"It's temporary, Sidney just needs a place to crash until the actual incarnation of satan living in the high school is dealt with," Danny sighs from where he sits at the desk in his room, red marker in hand and crumpled loose leaf paper littering every surface in reach.
Sidney hovers on his left, watching as Danny uses reference images on his phone and Sidney's verbal descriptions to draw his own messy Wards. So far, only one of them has worked and even then, it was only strong enough to give Sidney and Alvin a tiny static shock when touched. He'd been wanting to crumple it up and throw it out like he'd done with every other failed Ward, but after Sidney's insistent suggestion that he should keep it, Danny now has it taped to the wall in front of his desk.
Is it really safe to bring him here, though? Your family hunts the paranormal. Alvin asks bluntly, crossing his arms from where he hovers a good four feet above Danny's head, close enough to touch the ceiling if he so wished.
WIthout looking up, Danny starts drawing another Ward with a new set of hieroglyphs (Sidney said hieroglyphics seemed to work the best) and mumbles, "You've been hanging around here for over a week and nothing's happened. I'm sure it's fine."
Yeah, but that's different. I'm a dead adult. Sidney is a dead kid.
Hey, I died in 1952. I'm older than you by a long shot, Sidney argues, head snapping up from where he'd been watching Danny draw.
I died with a valid driver's license. I also died closer to the release date of Star Wars: A New Hope.
What the heck is a Star Wars?
Oh my god, you poor sheltered baby.
Danny stops drawing with a heavy sigh. "If you're gonna be bickering like this all night, I'm sleeping in the backyard."
Shit, sorry kid, Alvin hurriedly apologizes.
Sorry, Danny, Sidney adds, and Danny goes back to drawing.
"It's fine. I just want you two to stop arguing," he mumbles, finishing the last few lines on his Ward and holding it up.
He glances over his shoulder at Sidney, holding the paper out for the ghost to see. "How's this one?"
Sidney hovers closer, adjusting his glasses so they sit more firmly on the bridge of his nose and squinting intensely at the page. After a minute or so, Sidney hums thoughtfully and gives Danny a thumbs-up. That's the nicest one yet! Time to test it!
Danny nods and watches with bated breath as Sidney extends his index finger to touch the paper. The room is completely silent right up until his finger actually connects with the paper.
There's a sound like lightning striking a tree, ominous and crackling, moments before there's a bright flash and immense force erupts from the paper. The shockwave pushes Danny's rolling chair all the way back across his room to smack into the footboard of his bed, Sidney goes careening into the opposite wall, and Alvin screams in alarm as he's launched through the ceiling. All of Danny's papers, crumpled or not, are now scattered in every single corner of his room and fluttering noisily down from the air. One falls perfectly on Danny's head.
None of them says anything for a long time.
Then, Sidney picks himself up from where he landed on the floor, scoops up his glasses, and returns to a floating position with a bucktoothed grin. Wowzers, that was a doozy! You did it!
"I… I guess I did?" Danny stammers, staring down incredulously at the paper still intact in his hand, crackling with silver-green energy. "Are you okay?"
Yup! Just pushed my intangibility out of whack, I'll be right as rain in no time! That's a super good Ward!
Danny can't help the grin that finds its way to his face and reaches up to push his ruffled black hair out of his eyes. "That was crazy."
Right? Sidney chirps moments before Alvin floats back down through the ceiling, form flickering wildly.
Jesus Christ, kid, give a guy some warning. You almost gave me a heart attack. As Sidney and Danny open their mouths to shoot back a sassy reply, Alvin glares and points a finger at them. Not a word about me already being dead or I'll kill the both of you a second time.
"Is that even a thing?"
I'll make it a thing, Alvin threatens, but it just makes Sidney laugh and Danny grin cheekily.
Danny starts rolling himself back towards his desk, wincing at the lingering ache in his injured leg, when there's a knock at the door that makes him seize up. Before he can open his mouth though, the knob turns and Jazz appears in the doorway, yawning and rubbing at her eyes.
"Danny? What was that big crash- whoa." she notices the sea of paper covering the entire room, blinks as if she can't believe her eyes, then gives Danny an odd look. "What's all this about?"
His eyes flick briefly to the right at Alvin and Sidney, who immediately shoot out suggestions. Danny, feeling the threat of panic starting to creep up his throat, doesn't quite process them as two different responses and mixes them.
"I'm studying hieroglyphs and practicing calligraphy. At… the same time."
Jazz stares at him a while longer before she bends over to pick up one of the crumpled wards lying on the floor in front of her. She un-crumples it to inspect the image, then shoots a long-suffering look at her brother. "This looks like the stuff that mom and dad draw. Please tell me their crazy hasn't rubbed off on you."
"Me? No, no, no," Danny laughs, waving his hands dismissively, "Sam, uh, showed me some stuff on hieroglyphs and Kemetic symbols, and I thought it was cool. And I decided I wanted to… also do some… calligraphy. Yeah."
Jazz cocks an eyebrow at the marker in his hand. "Calligraphy?"
"Uh-huh."
"With a washable Crayola marker."
"I don't exactly have money to buy actual calligraphy stuff, Jazz, stop judging me."
She looks like she wants to argue, but instead just lets out an exasperated sigh and pushes some stray hairs away from her face. "What was that noise earlier, though? It sounded like an explosion, almost."
"I was leaning too far back in my chair and fell over backwards. I'll be fine," Danny lies, surprised at how smoothly the words leave his mouth.
Guess this is a part of my life now.
Jazz shakes her head. "I keep telling you to sit with proper posture, and you never listen. Maybe that fall will teach you a thing or two."
"Sure, Mom." Danny shoots back with a roll of his eyes, "I'll go to bed soon, don't worry."
"It's a Friday night, I don't care what time you go to sleep at. Just keep it down, I work in the morning," she replies with a yawn before turning to leave. "Night, Danny."
"Night."
Danny waits until he hears her door click shut across the hall before letting out an anxious breath and rising from his chair to start picking up the papers scattered through the room. "This is stressful."
What? Sidney asks with a tilt of his head as Alvin floats closer to the floor and begins helping pick up the papers.
"Having to keep all this paranormal stuff a secret. I mean, I know why I need to keep my mouth shut, but people are gonna think I'm nuts anyways." Before Sidney can respond, however, Danny's suddenly hit with a spark of realization and snaps his head around to stare at Alvin. "Alvin?"
What's up, kid?
"Yeah, um, how the hell are you doing that?"
Doing what?
"Picking stuff up! You used to not be able to touch anything, but then you pulled that whole poltergeist thing at Sam's place and now you're just cleaning my room like it's no big deal. So yeah, how the frick is this even-?!" Danny trails off with an inarticulate noise of confusion, and Alvin's eyes slowly grow wider.
The ghost looks down at the messy stack of papers in his hands, then to Danny and back again. A childlike grin of wonder spreads across his face and he lets out an incredulous laugh. Shit, you're right!
Huh, Sidney hums before attempting to pick up a crumpled paper ball from where it lies on the floor. It doesn't phase through his fingers like it should have, and the kid's eyes fly wide open. Gee whiz!
"Are you telling me that neither of you have any idea why this is happening?" Danny groans, to which Sidney shakes his head and looks in his direction.
Actually, now that I think about it, I remember hearing from a spirit a few decades ago that being in the presence of a Halfa strengthens your Essence so we can interact with the first plane. I thought it was just a rumor. But that probably explains why your friend Sam was able to see the Flesh Eater so clearly! Spirits can interact with the first plane to a degree, but without the presence of a Halfa, a human wouldn't be able to see a detailed image of them.
Wandering around as he collects the scattered papers, Danny mutters, "You're just telling me this now?"
Sidney tosses the paper ball at Danny, which bounces harmlessly off his head. Well, smartass, it didn't cross my mind until now.
Alvin lets out a wheezing laugh. Oh my god, he CAN swear.
Yeah, I just don't like to. Sidney says. It's improper and crass.
"Feel free to swear around us if you need to. We really don't care about being proper." Danny sighs.
Alvin floats over and places his stack of papers on Danny's, turning to admire the once again tidy room as the latter makes his way over to the desk to rest the papers on its surface. With a deep stretch and a yawn, Danny decides it's about time to turn in for the night. He reaches across the desk to flick off his lamp with one hand and powers on his computer with the other. Alvin and Sidney hover over his shoulder, their curiosity palpable.
Whatcha doing? Alvin asks.
Danny types in his password. "Sidney hasn't seen Star Wars. And you guys don't really sleep, so if I leave my computer running, you guys can just watch Star Wars while I sleep."
Huh. That's definitely better than wandering aimlessly around the neighbourhood every night.
"Is that really what you do at night?" he remarks with a surprised glance over his shoulder at the ghost in question.
Alvin shrugs. I mean, what else am I gonna do? Set off all the sensors and shit in your parents' lab?
"Fair point." Danny finally finds the folder he's looking for and boots up the first Star Wars movie. "Well, there you guys go. Have fun."
Thank you, Danny. You're a really swell guy, y'know that? Sidney says with something like reverence under the grateful tone, which Danny isn't sure how to take.
So he just does what he knows best and gives the ghost a disarming- yet tired- smile. "Uh, thanks."
From there, he slips into his closet to change into pyjamas out of the ghosts' sight, tosses his dirty clothes in the laundry basket across the room, and rolls into bed with a heavy sigh. Sidney and Alvin stay incredibly quiet, which is nice. If they'd been chattering away the entire night, Danny's not sure he'd be able to keep his shit together. Instead, he lets himself relax into his pillow and closes his eyes to the quiet rumble of his computer audio.
As it always does, his mind begins wandering aimlessly once his eyes close, focusing on nonsensical things, questions he has, and a few of the day's events. And it's just this edge-of-wakefulness, odd train of thought that suddenly knocks him wide awake.
Alvin turns around as Danny sits bolt upright with wide eyes. Kid?
Danny's mind is racing at incredible speed, theories and strategies bouncing around his head like a bouncy ball in a small room… until it makes sense and everything grows still. He blinks a few times to bring himself back into the waking world, then glances at Alvin. A grin spreads across his face.
"I know how to get rid of the Flesh Eater."
The following morning, Danny sits on the grass next to an unused sports equipment shed at the far end of the football field. The first frost of the year has set in, and Danny tucks his head into the grey fall jacket he wears, rubbing his chilly hands together in an attempt to warm them. Once again, he's joined by Sidney and Alvin, who can't shut up about Star Wars.
Danny checks his phone. 8:22 AM. Sam and Tucker should be here any minute.
And just like clockwork, Danny's two friends appear at the far end of school grounds. Both of them look exhausted and miserable, coffee cups in hand and dark bags under their eyes. Danny kind of wants to apologize, but that'll have to wait. They only have a short window of opportunity to do this, and if they don't do it now, they might not get another chance for a while.
When Sam and Tucker get within a safe distance, they both shoot him mutinous glares. Sam takes an aggressive swig of her coffee before muttering, "Why can't we do this at a reasonable time of day."
"Yeah, what she said." Tucker yawns.
Danny rises to his feet, testing his leg again and trying to ignore the way a sharp ache lances up his spine when he puts too much weight on it. It had healed completely by the time Sam brought him some spare gym shorts to wear in place of his shredded jeans the day before, but apparently something's still messed up under the skin. He shakes that thought away.
"Okay, I'm really sorry. I didn't wanna get up either, but-" the vague sound of tires crunching on gravel reaches his ears and he glances at the school to see the janitor's van pulling up to the back doors, "-this is our one shot. I swear if I get out of this alive, I'll buy you guys lunch at the Nasty Burger for a whole month. Sound good?"
Sam and Tucker exchange a glance, then nod. With a cocky smirk, Tucker snickers, "Sounds good. What about if you die? Can I have your computer?"
"Funny," Danny deadpans before pulling up the hood of his jacket and tucking his hair into the black beanie he'd brought along. He reaches into his pocket, withdraws two folded pieces of white paper, and hands one to each of his friends. "You guys clear on what to do?"
"Hell yeah," Sam says with an impish grin.
"Clear as mud," Tucker jokes, and Danny supposes that'll have to do.
With one last wave to Danny, Sam and Tucker slink around behind the shed to crouch down in the shadows and Danny starts for the school with Sidney and Alvin in tow. His heart's threatening to burst from his chest and anxious adrenaline already courses through his veins like liquid lightning. Even so, he takes a deep breath and pulls a disposable medical mask up over his face with a determined scowl.
You sure about this, kiddo? Alvin asks with a hint of worry in his tone.
With a brief sideways glance at his friend, Danny nods. "Yeah. This way, I can get rid of the spirit and I also won't be identified on the school's security cams."
This is pretty cool! Sidney chirps, It's like we're action movie heroes or something!
Yeah, except that we're already dead before the movie even started airing and our only solace is a scrawny teenager who doesn't know what he's doing.
The comment is meant to ease the moment's tension, and it does just a little, but Danny still shoots a mock scowl in Alvin's direction. Thankfully, the ghost takes it the way it's meant and chuckles.
The janitor appears from around the corner of the school, yawning and fumbling with his keys, and Danny ducks behind a picnic table, out of sight. Thankfully, the tired old man doesn't notice and unlocks the back doors. As soon as he pushes them open and starts entering, Danny nods to Alvin, who rockets across the schoolyard at ridiculous speed. Just before the door bangs shut, Alvin grabs it and holds it open.
A few moments pass before Danny hears the ghost's voice in his head. Coast's clear, kid!
Sidney follows Danny like an afterimage as he jogs across the open stretch of grass towards the door. Once he's there, he peers through the doors' thick windows just to make double certain that all's well. He sees the janitorial closet at the far end of the hall with its door wide open, and hears the janitor rummaging around to do the weekend's cleaning and floor polishing, and takes the door from Alvin.
Keeping low to the floor, Danny slinks through the doors and slips around the nearest corner. Sidney stays by his side as Alvin remains stationed at the door, poised and ready for the next phase of their plan.
It's eerie, being in the school on a weekend. Almost like being transported to another dimension entirely. It's the same feeling Danny gets when he walks into a 24-hour convenience store at 2am, walking into a Target on a slow day, or… or like the feeling he got when he stood inside his parents' portal.
He shakes his head to clear it before the paranoia can sink its teeth into him. He has a job to do, and he can't let himself be distracted.
He's almost made it to the cafeteria when an ominous chuckle rumbles in his skull, You've come alone. You must have a death wish, my dear.
Before him, the air shimmers and swirls with paranormal energy, making a sound like the groaning of thin ice on a lake. And then, the Flesh Eater appears in front of them, this time in her humanoid form. Her face splits in a hungry grin. Your blood may burn the dwellers of the second plane, but I imagine the effect will wear off when you're dead.
Danny takes a breath and puts on his best brave face. "You're gonna have to catch me first if you wanna kill me. And, I mean," he lets out an insolent huff of laughter, "The only reason you caught me and Sam in the first place was because we got trapped in a dead end."
Animosity radiates off of her, hitting Danny like a sledgehammer and nearly knocking the wind out of him. Her eyes burn like neon blood as they pass over him and his ghost companion. You've forsaken your own kind, ghost.
No, I haven't. Sidney says in a quavering voice, but holds his head high as he retorts, I just found someone who gave me the courage to get rid of you.
If it were a less precarious situation, Danny would probably feel incredibly flattered and awkward at the same time. But as it is, the Flesh Eater is stalking closer, the floor temporarily warping wherever she places her feet. I'll kill you both.
"I'd like to see you try," Danny snaps, reaching into his pocket and grabbing the small ziploc bag of salt he'd brought along.
In one swift motion, he throws salt in the Flesh Eater's direction, then spins on his heel and tears away down the hall. The spirit's enraged howl rattles his teeth and echoes in his chest, but Danny doesn't slow. Behind him, Sidney knocks over whatever he can in the hallway, hindering the Flesh Eater's pursuit.
Lungs burning, leg screaming in protest, sweat rolling down his skin, Danny only pushes himself faster, faster, faster! His entire being wills it, and as if by some divine intervention, Danny feels his legs tingle. He doesn't have a chance to think about why he's suddenly running at a speed Usain Bolt would only hope to reach. He just keeps running.
He rounds the last corner before the door and lets out a shout, "ALVIN!"
Ready!
The janitor is standing in the hallway with a floor scrubber when Danny rockets towards the door, and is too shocked to say anything at all. As he- somehow- manages to vault over the floor scrubber and out into the chilly morning air, Danny calls to the janitor, "SORRY IN ADVANCE FOR THE MESS! YOU MIGHT WANNA GET OUT OF THE WAY!"
"Wha-?" Danny hears the janitor choke out moments before there's a crash as the Flesh Eater rampages through the floor scrubber. The janitor lets out a scream of alarm- I'll have to go back and make sure he's okay- but Danny doesn't look back. He keeps his eyes fixated on the rickety old supply shed at the far end of school grounds.
Behind him, he can hear the huffing breaths of the Flesh Eater in her true form as she gains on him. Danny can smell the rotting-meat stink from her mouth, she's so close. His leg is threatening to give out, but the shed is right there, just a bit further, come ON!
When he reaches it, he skids to an ungraceful halt, smacks into the door, and hastily wrenches it open before turning to face the spirit. He waits until she's almost upon him before ducking to the side. She hurtles into the shed, claws scraping on the cement floor as she bellows and whirls around to escape. Before she can, though, Danny's slammed the door shut and Sam and Tucker leap out of their hiding spots to slap the wards against the shed door.
Even with the three of them holding it shut, the Flesh Eater still has much greater strength. And Danny's getting worried that this isn't going to work.
"Come on, come on, come on, work, work, WORK-!" Danny hisses under his breath like a mantra, hoping for some kind of miracle.
As Danny's starting to consider telling Sam and Tucker to run, however, a strange feeling courses through his veins like liquid energy. Just as it had happened at Sam's house, Danny's veins light up with a white-green glow. The energy seeps from his fingers and into the wood door, creeping through the fibres until they hit the paper wards that Sam and Tucker hold tight. The symbols on the wards light up with the same energy leaking from Danny's hands.
Then, in the blink of an eye, there's an odd, otherworldly noise, the Flesh Eater howls in rage and terror, and a bright flash of light blinds them momentarily before all is silent once more.
Even so, Danny, Sam, and Tucker still press the door shut for a minute or so more before shakily backing away. The papers that the wards had been drawn on have disappeared into thin air, but the symbols Danny had drawn on them are now burned into the shed door, flickering with a faint silver glow. The three of them stare in disbelief at the door.
"We… we did it," Tucker finally breathes, and as if a spell is broken, the three of them collapse backwards into the wet grass.
Sam rubs at her face with a groan. "Please tell me this is a one-time thing."
"I wish it was," Danny replies as the tingling energy recedes and he feels like himself again.
"You know," Tucker says then, knocking his closed fist lightly against Danny's shoulder, "you dealt with that shit like a pro. You don't owe us anything at the Nasty Burger."
Danny lets out a pathetic huff of laughter, "If you say so. But I could really go for a coffee and an unholy number of pancakes right now. Think we can make it there in time to beat the lunch rush?"
Sam checks her watch. "It's only nine. If we go now, we'll be good."
They lie there on the chilly grass for a few minutes longer, waiting for their racing hearts to slow and their adrenaline to slip away enough for them to get out of the anxiety danger zone. As Danny sits up, he feels Sidney and Alvin's presence prodding tentatively at his head and glances over his shoulder to see them drawing near with relieved grins on their faces. Danny returns the expression.
I'm impressed. You're shaping up to be a proper action hero. Alvin teases with a wink.
Sidney nods so fast his glasses fall from his face and Alvin has to catch them, She's really gone! You banished her to the spirit realm!
Danny's not sure how to take that, so he just gives them a curt nod in response. A sudden thought crosses his mind.
"Hey, Sam? Tucker?"
"Hm?"
"Yeah?"
Danny pulls the medical mask back up over his face and rises to his feet. "I'll meet you guys at the Nasty Burger. I've just gotta do something first."
Dale isn't paid enough for this.
His weekends usually consist of long, boring day shifts and exhausting night shifts, and he's seen a lot of crazy stuff in his thirty-some years of working dead-end jobs. But this? This takes the damn cake.
Seeing some absolutely feral teenager hidden under layers and layers of clothes obviously meant to hide his identity, legs glowing greenish-white, come tearing out of the supposedly empty school was a shock. Having a massive, shadowy silhouette of some monstrous creature destroy his floor scrubber and inadvertently trapping him under its heavy remains is absolutely unbelievable. Except that it actually happened.
He's still trapped under the destroyed floor scrubber, shoving hopelessly at twisted fibreglass and metal. Curse his refusal to use that gym membership!
Dale's almost at the point of giving up and hoping some kind passerby notices the school's gaping door, when there's the sound of frosted grass crunching under slowly approaching feet. He wants to call out… but something keeps his mouth shut. Call it a hunch, but whatever's coming closer seems to give off an ominous, otherworldly energy not unlike that which the shadow beast had given off. So he stays silent.
Then the stranger steps through the dented steel doors, navigating gingerly around the shattered glass from the windows. It's the boy who'd somehow gotten into the school! Dale still doesn't say anything, merely glaring at the kid with distrust.
The boy, however, raises his head to look at the man with wide blue eyes that glow when the dim light in the hallway hits his face. "Oh, thank God. You're not dead."
Even then, Dale keeps his lips pursed as the strange boy giving off that equally strange energy approaches. He stops in front of the floor scrubber pinning him to the floor, inspecting it for a second before meeting Dale's eyes worriedly. "Are you okay?"
Finally, Dale responds with a grunt, "D'you think I'm alright?"
"I mean, are you seriously hurt?"
Dale shifts his legs at the slightly snarky retort and winces at the pain, but seeing as they do still move, he's not in need of an ambulance. He lets out a short, dismissive grunt. The kid seems to understand, letting out an exasperated sigh before grabbing part of the destroyed scrubber and tugging it away.
This goes on for a few more minutes, during which Dale gives himself adequate time to puzzle over the strange boy.
He's a scrawny, lanky teenager, no different from the average student at this school. He acts like one, talks like one, and to be honest, Dale would consider him to actually be a normal teenager. That is, if not for the way his eyes reflect light like those of a wild animal and the weird, unnamed air that seems to hover around him like a bubble.
This is neither a human nor a monster. This is something halfway between.
"There. You're free now." The boy sighs as he drags the last heavy chunk away and drops it on the gouged linoleum.
Dale blinks rapidly to bring himself back to the present. When he's aware of his surroundings once more, he glances down and moves his legs, ensuring that they really are alright. They move just fine, albeit with quite a bit of soreness, but other than that he's perfectly fine. The boy offers a hand to help him up, but the janitor narrows his eyes and refuses in favor of using the wall to get back on his feet.
There's no way in hell he's going to trust this… enigma… without adequate reason.
Sure, he helped get Dale out from under the wreckage, but that could be a means of lowering his guard. He could strike at any moment-
"Well, uh, I guess I'll be going now," The boy says, wringing his fingers and turning to leave, "Oh, I know you probably won't listen to me, but if you could keep this whole thing a secret or make up a story about the messed up scrubber and floors, that'd be great. I'm just figuring this whole thing out, y'know?"
Before Dale even has time to shoot back a reply, the boy's gone back out the doors. He's left standing alone in the wrecked back entrance of Casper High, speechless and surrounded by glass and twisted metal. After he takes a minute or two to regain his composure, he reaches a shaking hand into his back pocket.
His phone screen is cracked something fierce, but it still works enough for him to make a call.
"Amity Park Police Department."
Dale lets out a breath, then speaks in a low tone, "I'm a janitor at Casper High, and I have an incident to report."
Hey there! I'm Hita, the author of this story! I hope you like it so far- I'm having a ton of fun writing it! If you want to see more crap from me, I go by hitamory on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and DeviantArt! I post chapter illustrations there!
Thanks for reading so far and I hope you'll stick with me! 3