Disclaimer: Do I own Danny Phantom? No. Do I own a pair of eggbeaters? Yes.

A Temporary Cease Fire

Chapter 5

Maddie glanced from time to time at Jack, who was laying awkwardly in the seat next to her, temporarily paralyzed. She shook her head and said nothing, not knowing quite how to comfort him, considering she was in a situation where she wasn't all too comfortable herself.

Through her exhaustion, she was allowing her mind to wander. It was something that she would normally never allow herself to do in the first place anyway, and she knew full well what the dangers were, but in the Ghost Zone it was especially dangerous.

'I wish that we could find our way back home. Or even if Jack were better, that would be great. A map would really help, like Jack said.' the ghost hunter thought. All of the sudden, a greenish smoke started swirling around the Specter Speeder. Even though Jack was in a position where it was hard for him to see anything but seat and floor, he knew that something was up.

"Uhh . . . Maddie, what's happening?"

"Don't worry, dear, we're probably just . . . hitting some ghostly weather. You know, ectoplasmic fog or something similar to that." in truth, the female intellect was scared out of her wits. The last thing that she needed was to get more lost than she already was.

Then a voice floated in from the fog. "You're heart's desire is my command . . ." The fog swirled into a place in front of the Speeder, to form a female, genie-looking ghost. The spirit waved her hands in the air, looking like she was about to cast some sort of spell.

Maddie did not want to find out what the specter was about to do, and put the Speeder in gear to back up. In her haste, she accidentally pressed one of the many buttons on the dashboard. In an instant, a green, ectoplasmic goo shot from somewhere on the exterior of the vehicle, hitting the genie ghost and throwing her back into the distance. The woman ghost hunter blinked a couple times in surprise, then looked at the button she had accidentally pressed. 'That's odd . . . I don't remember that being there.' she thought to herself. "Jack? How long has that button been there?"

"Button . . . button . . . hmm." Jack, still paralyzed, thought hard. "Oh yes, the button that shoots ectoplasmic goo! I added that weeks ago! I can't believe that I almost forgot about it!"

Maddie sat and fumed for a moment. She was about to get frustrated at her husband for not telling her about the weapon that would have been rather helpful for some of their previous encounters. She counted to ten, though, reminding herself that her companion already was having a tough time as it was.

Neither Jack nor Maddie could believe that they were still lost. By this time, both of them had expressed their worries in subtle ways to each other. Well, Maddie was subtle, anyways. Jack, on the other hand, was not.

"Are we almost home yet?" "We've been gone for at least four hours, now." "This place gives me the creeps." Were a few of the still paralyzed ghost expert. "This position is getting rather uncomfortable. Is there some place we can stop where my face isn't smashed into vinyl?"

"I see some sort of large building in the distance. I don't know how friendly the ghosts will be, but at this point I think we should take whatever chances we've got."

After that, silence set into the married couple. Jack couldn't think of how to reply, and Maddie simply didn't have anything to say. She was focusing all of her attention on her surroundings. Even though she had previously thought the Ghost Zone couldn't get any creepier, she had somehow successfully stumbled upon a section that gave her even colder chills than before. There were fewer doors than other sections, and they didn't float up and down slightly like the other ones did. They were just very, very still. It was as if all things had died. 'Well, of course they're dead,' Maddie corrected herself, 'perhaps . . . evil is more of a better adjective.'

The large building was getting closer and closer. Maddie could now, at this point, make it out to be a castle. Her unease was starting to grow, as a large, cold castle that seemed to be abandoned wasn't her ideal stopping place.

As she reflected upon this subject, something caught her eye. A small poster was floating along the breeze Maddie hadn't realized was there before. Though she didn't want to immerse herself more into something that could cause an even greater amount of trouble for Jack and herself, curiosity won over, and as the Speeder approached the area it was in, the female genius pressed the "automatic" button on the dashboard so she could free her hands for a minute, and stuck her arm out the side and grabbed the paper.

It was a brownish piece of parchment, slightly crumpled and torn on the sides. Maddie straightened it out and looked at the back. The name GHOST ZONE was stamped on. She turned the poster over and studied the picture on it. She was surprised to find that it was D. Phantom, but it wasn't like how she had seen him before. He was wearing prison garb, and was holding a card with a number on it. He had a rather cocky grin on, as if he knew he did something wrong. Or that he knew something that the photographer didn't.

At closer study, Maddie was shocked to find that she felt like she was looking at someone she had known for a long time. Not just someone that she knew, but someone that she cared about, too. Her eyes quickly scanned the rest of the poster. At the top was the word WANTED in big, bold letters. Beneath the photo were the words DANNY PHANTOM. "Danny . . ." Maddie muttered to herself, her mind all of the sudden racing at hundreds of miles per hour.

She was interrupted by a groan beside her. She quickly folded up the poster and stuck it in her pocket and tended to her husband. "Hey, I can move my arms and legs again!" Jack said appreciatively, and got himself into a sitting position. He stretched out his limbs, and looked forward. "Great timing, too! Now I can stretch in that castle up ahead!"

"Yeah, great." Maddie whispered to herself, doubtful that it really was.

Maddie stepped through the open front doors of the castle cautiously. She had a very, very bad feeling about this place, and wanted to leave and try to find someplace else. Jack had reminded her that this was probably their only place to find provisions. In his own special way, of course. "Boy, am I hungry. And thirsty. I wonder why we never packed any food or water in the Speeder? I wonder if this place has any human things?"

Maddie started wondering the same things, even though logic told her contrary.

She wasn't entirely sure what happened next, but all of the sudden things got very dark, and the overall feeling got very weird. She looked at Jack, who, by the look on his face, also knew that something was going on. The very next moment, things got very frightening.

The walls had not only grown spikes, but they were closing in on the couple. They both screamed and looked frantically up and down the hallway. It seemed that they were right in the middle of the hallway, and either way they ran it would take a while to get beyond the threat. In fact, there might have not even been enough time. So they ran as fast as they could back toward the front door, where they at least knew they wouldn't have to deal with any more traps.

Maddie ran as fast as she could, and was expecting Jack to keep up with her, but it seemed that his joints still weren't working properly, and he was considerably slower than usual. She doubled back to help her husband. "Hurry Jack, there's only a few more seconds before the walls close in all the way! Come on!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming! We'll make it, don't worry!" the large man shouted back at his wife, focusing all of his energy on getting to safety.

But Maddie knew that there was no hope. There was only about a foot of allowance on either side of them, the walls were closing in fast, and there were still several meters to run. She braced herself for the end, wishing that she could at least have told her kids goodbye.

But nothing happened. At first she thought that the spikes had killed her instantly, but when she opened her eyes, she was surprised. It was dark, but not like the dark where there was an absence of light. It was more like she was in really murky water. It felt like she was in murky water, too, except that it was not just around her, but also through her. She gripped the large hand holding hers and stepped forward, seeing if she could walk. She was surprised that she could; in fact, it felt as if she was walking on solid ground.

She walked on silently, unsure of her ability to talk, pulling her companion along the entire time. It didn't take long before light met her eyes again, and she gasped in surprise. She was right back at the entrance of the castle, meaning that if she did die, she certainly wasn't in a "better" or "worse" place. She looked behind her, and saw that the orange-clad arm she was attached to was sticking out of the two slammed-together walls. She shrieked and let go quickly, not knowing how to react.

As soon as she let go she heard her husband's voice. "Maddie? Is something wrong?" Jack walked out from the solid wall and looked at her confused, then looked back at the wall. "Whoa. Freaky."

"Jack, do you think we're ghosts? I mean, how on earth could we have survived that trap?"

Jack turned his face quickly to look at his loved one, and brought it up to only a couple inches in front of hers. He examined her face for a few intent minutes, and then stood up straight again and proclaimed his conclusion confidently. "No, Maddie, you look as beautiful as ever." Then his stomach growled. "It also seems that I'm still humanly hungry, and therefore it would make no sense that I would be a ghost. Besides, it would be rather silly if we had to start hunting ourselves, so I say that we can't be."

Maddie, as always, was confused by the way her husband's logic worked, but she grinned at how it made her laugh anyway. "Still, I think we should double check and use the ghost scanner on the Specter Speeder."

They approached the vehicle, cautious, not knowing if it would attack them or not, and Jack got out his key chain with a mini remote that controlled some of the car's functions, and pressed the button for the ghost scanner. "Jack, when did you get a remote to control the Speeder?"

He looked at his wife as if she just said something to where the answer should have been obvious, and replied, "I make it weeks ago!"

Maddie was about to reply to this statement, when a beep was heard from the dashboard inside the Speeder. The couple rushed up to it and listened anxiously for the results. "No ghosts within 50 yards" the voice monotonously droned, and Jack and Maddie breathed a sigh of relief.

Immediately, then, both their minds started thinking for reasons as to why they were able to walk through the walls. Maddie stood there silent, several hypothesis rushing through her head.

Jack, on the other hand, only had one come to his head at a time, and didn't bother using logic to rule out the first one that came to mind. He went right in and tested it. He walked up to the wall of the castle, made a fist, and punched the wall, hard. Instead of either breaking through the stone wall or hurting his fist very badly, like he thought would happen, his fist went right through the wall, and because of the force that went into it, he followed right through.

Maddie rushed up to her husband to make sure he was okay. Her help was not needed, though, apparent by the way Jack stood right up again, without a scratch anywhere and a grin on his face. "Hey, look, Maddie! It seems like in the Ghost Zone, we're the ghosts! Cool, huh?"

Maddie was very impressed with this new finding, and was about to go further with the study, but a threatening rumble from inside the castle drove both her and her companion right back to their transportation and they sped in the opposite direction of the foreboding building.

Maddie brightened up as she thought she recognized a group of floating doors and began hoping that she and Jack were getting un-lost. She tapped the driver on the shoulder and opened her mouth to tell her husband the exciting news, when she was interrupted for the umpteenth time that day, this time by nothing more than things getting very, very still and silent. It was even more still and silent than around the castle, as if someone had pushed a pause button on everything around them.

Both of the vehicle's passengers looked around, curious about what could have caused the sudden change, when a loud, deep, stern voice from nowhere spoke.

"Driving an unauthorized vehicle in an unauthorized zone . . ."

A large white face loomed up in front of the terrified ghost hunters.

"That's against the rules."

Yep, it's Walker. Am I evil for leaving the chapter at that, or what? I would like to give a SUPER THANKS to my reviewers. You guys are so quick to respond – I got something like 18 reviews within the first 24 hours of posting the last chapter! That's one review every 1.3 hours! (Though I'm not very willing to admit it, I am a math geek.)

A cookie goes to everyone who answered my challenge. Here's the answers: The first section was from Prisoners of Love (or, as my friend pointed out later, FtF, where Sam, Tucker, and Danny were working on making a map of the Ghost Zone), the second was from Prisoners of Love, the third was from Fanning the Flames, and the last was from Life Lessons. The can of soda and flamingo named Bert goes to everyone who got it right!

I still need votes to put my dad in cartoon therapy. Sukira-Chan suggested that he be sent to Jazz Fenton herself. I think that's a pretty good idea.

And now to actually thank everyone:

LaBOBuren – Bubbles! Bubblesbubblesbubbles! Who is this David, destroyer of bubbles? I must have a good talking-to to him.

Anomaly25 – I hope this answered your doubt about Jack and Maddie knowing about their own abilities in the Ghost Zone ;).

Hearts of Eternity – Sexy Beast? Well, I've never had anyone call me that before ;).

Catnip070 – Thank you. I try my best to keep Jack and Maddie as close to character as possible.

Princess Nightfire – Yeah, my mom kinda wants my sister back. And I won't tell anyone you have a deformed sister. (Can I have Izzy back now? That's what I named the aardvark.)

Ari-Griffin – Nice to see you! Yeah, I've seen you around in the off topic section. I post mostly there, too.

Hikarisailorcat, Obi-quiet, Firehedgehog, Edward-tivursky-5, OSparrow, Ghoster14, Sukira-chan, cakreut12, Liaranne, Just Plain Insane, KaliAnn, bluish black dolphin, and Grey Raven North.

Finally, I regret to say that there will not be a new chapter next Tuesday. I have an AP exam for World History on the third from noon to three thirty, and I need to spend my time studying until then. I'm being bad enough as it is not studying right now. And, when I do update, I promise that there will be some more of Danny.