Chapter VIII

Kat cupped her hands around her mouth. "Caaaasper!" she called. "Wendy!"

"Kat?"

Kat looked around anxiously. Casper emerged from behind a magenta shrub.

"Casper!" cried Kat in relief. "I thought you were gone."

"I am, I think." Casper surveyed their surroundings. "Where's the opening we came through?" he wanted to know.

Kat pointed to a spot on top of a flourescent green rock. "I'm sure we came through somewhere up there," she said, "but there's nothing there now."

"So how are we supposed to get back?"

Kat shrugged wearily. "Sorry, I don't have a comm-badge."

"Now I'm glad Aunt Teri wouldn't let me decorate my room like Pandemonium," commented Wendy, wandering out of a pink fog. "It does get kinda annoying...real fast."

"Wendy?" said Casper, forgoing all happy reunions. "How do we get out of here?"

Now it was Wendy's turn to shrug. "I don't know if we can," she answered. "My aunts never let me go with them to the Outer Planes before."

"Well we'd better stay in this area then," suggested Kat. "I know we came through around here - Maybe...maybe a hole will open or something."

There was a muffled roar in the distance.

"Uh oh," said Casper, who really didn't want to know what had been angry enough to make that noise.

"Can we hide?" hissed Kat.

"Where?" was Wendy's question. They looked around. There was Casper's shrub, the green rock, and that was it. The clearing was surrounded by pink fog - and who knew what was in that.

As if to prove that point, the roar repeated itself. The three friends looked at eachother. They knew what had to be done.

They ran into the fog.

"Keep close," warned Casper, and took Kat's hand. Kat took Wendy's hand, and they slowed their pace as the fog become too dense to see more than five feet in any direction. The fog actually seemed to recede, making a path and allowing them to pass.

"Weird," murmered Kat, letting go of Casper and reaching out to touch the retreating fog. She succeeded in procuring a handful of the stuff, which was actually rather solid, like non-sticky cotton candy. Absently, she put it in a back pocket of her jeans.

"You guys, this is really freaky," said Wendy shakily, gripping Kat's hnd. "Hey - listen."

They stopped and listened. From directly ahead of them they could hear the sound of hurried footfalls. Someone was running right for them.

There was nothing they could do but stand still and hope it wasn't some horrible Outer Planes monster. A shape materiallized out of the fog and barrelled right into Kat, who lost her hold on Wendy's hand and fell, screaming, to the purple grass. The shape, a human man dressed in a Yankee Civil War uniform and carrying a bayonet (which luckily he hadn't been holding in front of him), yelled back and rolled off of the girl - managing to somehow cause his oversized hat to slip over his eyes. Blinded, he feebly thrust the wrong end of the bayonet at the air around him. "Stay back!" he warned. "I have a weapon!"

Casper and Wendy helped Kat up. "Who's that?" Wendy whispered curiously.

Casper frowned. Then he sniffed.

"Uncle Stinkie?" he remarked in shock.

Wendy blinked. "'Stinkie'?" she repeated in disbelief.

The soldier dropped the bayonet and pulled the hat off of his head (it took both hands) and blinked up at the friends through a shock of wild blond hair. "Casper?"

Kat gasped as she and Wendy helped Stinkie up (his whole uniform seemed too big for him). "Did Mrs. Laslowe do this to you?"

"Yeah." Stinkie put his hat back on and rested the barrel of his bayonet on one shoulder. "Then she pushed us through some mirror, and we wound up here." The former ghost looked nervously back the way he had come. "I think we got seperated when that thing started chasing us.

"Kat swallowed. "'Thing'?"

"What thing?" demanded Wendy.

"That thing," clarified Casper as another roar echoed through the fog.

"Let me guess," said Stinkie slowly. "There's no way outta here, right?"

Before anyone could answer him, a new sound came echoing through the dense pink haze. "Hurry hurry hurry!" shouted a megaphone-enhanced baritone. "Step right up and see the - "

"Will you gimme that?" snapped another voice in irritation. Then the second voice boomed over the megaphone: "Stinkie! Yo, Stinkie, where the hell are ya?"

"Ssst! Hey!" Stinkie hissed into the fog. "Are you guys sure you wanna be makin' all that noise?"

Kat stepped towards the voices. "We're over here, guys - keep it down!" she said in a low whisper. "We wouldn't want any more company - " She cut herself off at a gutteral rumble that seemed to roll over the very landscape.

Two figures, one fat and one tall, hurried out of the fog to join the others. "Man, wouldja lookit this place," marvelled Stretch, pushing back the brim of his black felt Stetson. "It looks like a carnival exploded."

Kat gasped.

"Gimmee back my bullhorn," growled Fatso, snatching his property out of Stretch's gloved hand. "And I'd like to point out that I've seen a hundred carnivals, and never has one exploded. At least - " he added as an afterthought - "not before Tax Day."

"Wow," said Wendy. "A real carnie hustler."

"Hey hey hey," protested Fatso. "I have never hustled in my life."

"That's for sure," agreed Stinkie.

Kat was still gaping. "You were a cowboy?" she asked Stretch in awe.

"Huh?" Stretch lookd down at his wardrobe, almost as if he had never seen it before. "Oh - Nah. I was a piano player."

"Then why are you dressed like a cowboy?"

"You kiddin'? You gotta dress like this - or you'll get shot."

"Hey Stretch," said Stinkie, stepping up beside his two companions, "How'd you die?"

Stretch thought hard, trying to remember. Then it came to him, and he frowned. "I - " he began, " - I got...shot." There was a moment of horrified silence, then suddenly Stretch broke out laughing, soon joined by his two buddies. "I knew I shouldn't have asked the guy in the black mask for a tip!" the tall man added, greatly amused by his own demise.

Casper rolled his eyes.

"Well, come on you guys - We'd better get moving. I have a feeling it isn't particularly safe to stay in one place for very long around here." Kat motioned the others to follow her into the fog.

Something very, very close by snarled viciously.

Properly persuaded, the group huddled together and ran in a random direction, since it was impossible to tell just were the Thing was in relation to them due to its echoing voice.

Pretty soon they were stumbling right back into the clearing where Kat, Wendy, and Casper had originally begun.

"We've gone in a big circle!" Wendy cried in frustration. "I'm really beginning to hate this place."

"Not as much as you're going to," commented Casper, pointing to the horriffic Outer Planes beast crouched on the flourescent green rock. The monster was simply indescribable - especially since it kept shifting its shape, number of limbs, and saliva color.

The Trio yelled and clutched eachother in fright.

"Okay, Wendy," hissed Kat. "You're the resident expert on weird. What should we do?"

"Uhhh...I think this one is beyond me."

"Quick - shoot it Stretch, shoot it!" Stinkie cried urgently, shaking the tall ex-ghost my the shoulders.

Stretch hit Stinkie with his hat. "I can't, stupid - I never carry loaded guns."

"Why not?"

"...Dangerous."

Stinkie rolled his eyes. "Oh sure!" he argued. "You're probably just sayin' that 'cause you got lousy aim!"

Stretch widened his violet eyes in offense. "Hey!" he yelled. "My aim is terriffic!"

"Yeah? I seen you at the Disneyworld shootin' gallery. You stink!"

"You should talk, you - "

Fatso stepped in between them. "You shoot it," he blurted at Stinkie. "Your gun's bigger anyhow."

"Uh - right." Stinkie dropped his bayonet and began digging through his pockets. "I'm pretty sure I've got some shot somewhere...Give me a minute."

"I don't think we have that long!" cried Kat, as the beast sprang off the rock with fangs - er, beak - bared. It pounced, and everyone scattered - everyone that is, but Stinkie, who was still searching and didn't notice the commotion.

"Stinkie, look out!" cried Kat urgently from behind the magenta shrub.

Stinkie frowned as he pulled a greasy paper-wrapped bundle from his pocket. "What in the hell - " He unwrapped it and brightened. "Hey, wow - a garlic sandwich!" he exclaimed. "I forgot I had this."

"Well, that clears up a mystery," grumbled Stretch.

"...Get out of the way!" Kat persisted.

"Huh?" Stinkie looked up in confusion as the Outer Planes beast bore down on him, chartreuse drool oozing its way between open jaws. Before he could move, the monster had him pinned flat on his back.

"Oh no you don't!" cried Stretch. He and Fatso burst out from behind the shrub and ran to help their fallen comrade. The others watched in horror.

Stinkie flung his arms over his eyes as the monster reared forward, licking its mandibles hungrily. It inhaled in order to roar, and in doing so got a healthy sniff of the garlic sandwich, which Stinkie still had a firm grasp on.

The Outer Planes beast fainted dead away.

"I don't believe it," muttered Kat as Stretch and Fatso hauled the unconcious monster off of Stinkie, who lay frozen with his eyes covered.

"Uh oh, look out," warned Casper, pointing to the top of the green rock. A white light flashed there, the kind that is produced when you aim a mirror into the sun. Seeing it, Stretch and Fatso picked up Stinkie's rigid form and hurried away from the rock with it.

The flickering stopped, and become a bright ring with a dark center, which widened far enough to let through...

"Vic!" cried Kat, who was becoming more and more confused.

"Oh no, Vic, don't!" Wendy rushed forward. "You'll be trapped too!"

Vic grinned and shook his head. "No I won't - Look, a lifeline." He wiggled the tapestry rope, one end of which was tied around his waist, the other end disappearing through the dark portal, which had shrunk around it. "The twins are at the other end. Come on - What's that?" he demanded, pointing to the feebly twitching Outer Planes beast.

"Nothing." Kat began the scramble up the slippery green rock. "You look real good right now, Vic...Help me up."