A/N: Think 'Lake Placid' meets 'Friday the 13th', but in a well written, tasteful way (whatever that means).

Animal House

By JadeRabbyt

WEDNESDAY

Corduroy was ten years old. He liked his toy dinosaurs, picture books, and swimming in the Great Lakes, whose winter-chilled waters lapped just outside his door. He was homeschooled weekdays and went fishing with his dad Saturdays, and on Sundays he would cut out to take his own little boat within the restricted area defined by his parents.

Corduroy's parents drank coffee, read the papers, and fought ghosts. Corduroy knew all about the last, of course, but very few others did. Their house sat a hundred yards from the beach, trees on all sides; the nearest house was almost fifteen minutes away. With the exception of a small guest cabin and a boat house, the area looked as though man had never discovered it. It left his parents, Hal and Janice Kalen, free to pursue their studies unmolested. Sometimes, their studies involved Corduroy. Usually these studies were painless. Occasionally, they were not.

When Corduroy was four years old, an incomprehensible Thing happened to him. In the years to come, his memory succeeded in preserving only a small piece of the experience itself, and nearly everything which had occurred prior to the Thing evaporated from his mind entirely. He remembered floated in a tank in a room without windows, the nervous, smiling faces of his parents just beyond the glass. One small hand reached out—he touched the glass, pawed at its surface. Corduroy heard his mother's reassuring voice crackle through speaker; he watched her lips move into a microphone attached to a metal table armed with a million different lights and switches, the pink tint of the strange water rippling across its silver surface. He wanted out. Corduroy didn't like this water, so unlike that in his lake. It tingled warmly, and he could breathe in it. He wanted out.

They talked outside his tank, gesturing to something. Corduroy followed their motions and spotted another tank a short distance from his own, this masked in inky black water. His mother was angry about this other tank. She started shouting, but the microphone stayed off, and Corduroy could only watch, distraught and deaf, as his parents began to argue more and more violently. Finally, his father reached for the metal table and pushed a button. A dark blind came down around Corduroy's tank. When the blind went up again, his mother was gone, and his father sat at the button-filled metal table. His father spoke into the microphone—telling Corduroy he'd be out soon, just a moment more—reaching, slowly, for a red lever as he spoke. He wished his mom were there, and said so. As his father pulled the lever, serrated teeth glimmered before his eyes as a bright bolt of pain struck through every nerve in his body.

Corduroy couldn't remember what had happened after, but he was ten now, and much different than he was back before the Thing happened. Different in a good way, though it had taken a bit for him to realize it. His mother and father lived with him in the house by the lake, and he was happy. Corduroy liked his books and his swims and his toys, but more than anything he liked the Sundays when he could go out on the lake by himself.

The Fentons knew nothing of this when they arrived.

XXX

"Michigan." Danny rolled his eyes and unplugged his charged-up phone, tossing it into a travel backpack. "Why does it have to be Michigan."

Somebody sighed and there was Jazz, leaning against his doorjamb and leisurely sipping her coffee. Danny groaned at the sight of her. Jazz had her red hair combed neat and had already changed into 'plane clothes,' jeans and a shirt, all ready for the trip. "Because Danny, ghost-hunting isn't allowed in places like Hollywood or Hawaii. They're much too cool for that." She shook her head slowly at him. "You should know that by now."

Danny smiled and threw another armload of clothes into his suitcase. "Good point." He shared a sarcastic grin with her. "I guess it's not so bad. These people sound just as crazy as Mom and Dad about ghost hunting."

"True." Jazz watched her brother at his packing. She'd been ready since last night, but the plane left in four hours and Danny hadn't finished yet. Of course, considering teenage boys needed zero makeup, had 'outfits' consisting of the same dirty clothes for days on end, and didn't go in for much hygiene anyway, she figured it made sense.

"They've got a kid. He's in grade school, I think. It'll definitely to be interesting to see what he thinks of his parents," she continued.

"Tuck and I had some great movie tickets," Danny grumbled, yanking open a drawer. "This going to set new records for boredom."

"Isn't that what we said about Dad's class reunion? You know, the one with that big evil vampire ghost that ended up overshadowing Dad and basically wreaking unholy havoc?"

"Ugh" was her brother's only reply. Danny headed out the door, going for toiletries. He returned a minute later with toothbrush, toothpaste, a hairbrush, and a handful of other sundries. He tossed the stuff on top of his clothes and set about the task of making everything fit.

She took another sip of her mocha. "Are you bringing of any of Dad's gadgets?"

Danny laughed, bending up from his suitcase. "No. Are you kidding? Dad's FedExing practically the entire lab."

His hands slipped behind him to the suitcase where Danny, very nonchalantly, brushed a sweater over a gleaming silver canister with a green band around the top. The Fenton Thermos.

"Hm." Jazz left him to his packing and walked back down the hall to her own room, listening to the clang and bang of her parents in their basement lab. Were she to be perfectly honest with herself—and she always tried to be—the fact that Danny was on his toes made her feel much, much better about visiting another ghost hunting family.

A/N: Reviews will be welcomed with gift-wrapped packages of tinned meat product!