Chapter 4

For months, Danny, Tucker, and I mused over how to "defeat the Darkness". But, how could you defeat something that was nothing tangible, nothing corporeal, just...dark? A ghost enemy could be fought with photon blasts. The Darkness could not. We tried light, because Danny remembered that light weakened Johnny 13's "shadow". But it didn't work, and then we were out of ideas. It was obvious that Karenna knew the secret to defeating the Darkness, but she wouldn't tell us. Whenever we asked her all she would say was "I cannot reveal the secret. You must figure it out on your own."

Meanwhile, the Darkness was rapidly spreading, and happiness and cheer were nowhere to be found. We knew that it must be covering the whole country by now, and that Dark Danny would break out of his prison any day now. And we knew that when he broke free, he would come looking for his past self.

But when he did come, it was semi-unexpected. We were just sitting there, eating our lunches in the gloom, when Danny's ghost sense went off. Danny jumped up and changed into ghost form, instantly on alert for one of the usual ghosts, like maybe Skulker or the Box Ghost. But when the ghost came into sight, we were surprised. It was Dark Danny, wearing something on his face that hadn't been seen in our town in months: a big, wide smile. Actually, it was more like a self-satisfied smirk.

"You!" Danny spat the world out angrily. Dark Danny's smirk widened. "Yes, Danny, it's me. What? Weren't you expecting me? Didn't your little crippled friend warn you I was coming? Yes, she is quite the tattletale."

"Karenna is not a tattletale." Danny said through gritted teeth. "And yes, she did warn me."

"So, Danny, what do you think of my creation, the Darkness?" Dark Danny said lazily, waving a hand around at all the gloom and fog surrounding us. "It's working perfectly. It's forcing everyone to be miserable...and thus do horrible things to themselves. In fact, it's even working on your-or should I say my-friend Tucker." Danny stopped at this one, in the midst of firing a photon blast.

"Tucker?" he asked sharply. "What did you do to him!" Dark Danny smirked. "Go see for yourself." he said, in a slightly amused tone. Without further ado, I

sprinted out the cafeteria door, through the thick fog, towards Tucker's house. Danny followed at my heels, and Karenna on his heels.

When we got to Tucker's house, the door was open. The three of us flew through it, up the stairs, to Tucker's room. What we saw there was not a pretty sight.

Tucker was lying on his back, blood forming a puddle on the floor. Beside him was a knife. It was clear what had happened.

"Oh...my...god." I breathed. Karenna looked horrorstricken. It was clear that she hadn't actually seen the effects of the Darkness before. Danny knelt down to check Tucker's pulse, while I just stood there in shock.

There was a loud cackle from behind us. Dark Danny had followed us to Tucker's.

"Intriguing, isn't it?" he said dryly. "How my creation can drive a young boy with his whole life ahead of him to suicide? Soon everybody in the world will be feeling depressed and miserable-while I will be the strongest and the happiest ghost in the world!"

Karenna glared at Dark Danny. Her eyes flashed and she looked madder than I'd ever seen her.

"You are truly evil." she said quietly, her voice trembling. "You attacked me and left me in this human form...and a paralyzed one at that. You left me unable to use the lower half of my body...you ruined my life." Dark Danny threw his head back and laughed.

"Do you think I care?" he said incredulously. "I've ruined many lives in my rampage. I have no emotion, none of those weighty human feelings. I am a ghost, Karenna. You should know by now that not all ghosts are nice...but then again, even your father wasn't all that nice...to me anyway."

"Of course he was mean to you," Karenna shouted. "Because you were wreaking havoc on the future! And you attacked me, his only daughter." Dark Danny smiled.

"And I enjoyed it very much. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have more misery and fear to spread. Oh, and Danny? This is far from over." He swooped out of the room, leaving the three of us and Tucker's bleeding body.

We stared after Dark Danny. He was right. This was far from over.