Broken Transmission

Holy shizzle, I'm actually updating something! I didn't even really want to do this story when I started it. Wasn't my idea. By the way, that contest is quote unquote over. I don't think anyone really won. But I'll continue it anyway, since it's a break from GO and MOM. Both of which I'm in a rut with. Also, WNE is hereby discontinued. I'll rewrite it again, maybe as a part of MOM. O.O


Exploration

Since it was dark, Mr. Lancer and the bus driver had forbidden any late night exploring.

But of course, who really listens to Lancer?

Danny shrunk back behind a bush and glanced around. It was difficult to see if anyone was still awake. They had taken temporary refuge a few yards away from the bus after getting everyone's luggage off of the bus. They found a small clearing where the moonlight made the thin layer of snow glow blue. The bits of shrubbery dotting around them leading into a forest cast shadows over the smooth land. Most people had made makeshift beds, having to layer up all the clothes to use as blankets and their bags as pillows.A lot of themwere huddled in the center of the group to take advantage of the body heat, but a few spare classmates had stayed in their own private groups.

Could he risk illuminating the area with a ghost ray? He definitely didn't want to be spotted leaving the campsite, especially by the resident ghost-o-phobe. Plus, he really didn't want to trip over a rock again and land fact first into a pile of muddy snow.

"Danny?"

He jumped approximately a foot into the air at the whispered sound of his name. He'd been caught! Now he couldn't check the area for whatever it was that had driven their bus off the --

"Danny! Relax, it's me."

Danny inhaled deeply and sighed. "Sam," he replied quietly. "What are you doing out here?"

He heard the bush rustle a little as Sam crouched down next to him. "Trying to figure out what you're doing," she said. "What's the plan?"

"The plan," he answered, "is to do something. Anything at all."

Sam snorted but stopped herself. "In other words, you're just winging it."

"Basically." Danny turned his head back to see if anyone was sleeping nearby to hear him. They were mostly safe. "I would just go ghost or something, fly around, go intangible and slip right by under normal circumstances."

"Why aren't you?"

Danny pointed in the general direction of one slumbering figure. "Valerie. I have no idea what she's packing ever since Technus juiced her suit up." He shook his head feverishly to get the thoughts out of his mind of that failed relationship. This wasn't a time to feel sorry about anything.

"You think she might have something to detect ghostly activity?"

"Perceptive, aren't you?" he commented. He rubbed his hands together and though of what he was going to do. "Look. If I have to do this on foot for a little while, then it's probably better if I'm by myself."

There was a short silence before Sam replied to this bit of news. "Okay. If I see anyone leaving camp to follow you, I'll call you."

Danny stood up and began to tiptoe away. "How will you manage that?"

Sam blinked for a moment, then hit herself on the forehead. "Right. The cell phones are all dead." She stood up and reached out in the near darkness to find Danny's shoulder. "I'll stall them, then. Maybe get Tucker to pull out that mp3 player with all those disgusting sounds on it."

"Whatever works," Danny said before turned around and walking deeper into the forest.

He never did like the woods at night. After the incident at Vlad's house in the Rockies, every sound that was made while he had to stay human spooked him. It was Lancer coming to grab him, or the ghost coming to fight him, or Valerie coming to kill him, or a giant ghost mutant bear coming to eat him.

Why couldn't it be NASA? Why couldn't we do what Danny wanted to do for once? These thoughts ran through his mind as he made his way through the trees and brush that he could hardly see. Still he didn't feel completely safe going ghost. Not until he was a little further from where Valerie could detect him or the lights would be seen.

He felt like a complete chicken, too.

A few minutes later, Danny couldn't stand the forced disability. He paused and raised a fist, igniting it with a faint green glow. It definitely made it easier to see upcoming plants that he didn't want to inadvertently eat.

Soon, though, the light flickered out. He growled and glared at his fist. His powers never did work that well in human form. Only when he was angry could he use the ghost ray for a long time. He turned around to stumble back to camp.

Then, he heard the giggling.

He turned back around and raised his fists. Was it a student following him? Was it two students doing something he really didn't want to see? He didn't feel his ghost sense, but it was so God forsaken cold already.

The giggling came again, this time from in front of him. He peered down and saw the outline of what seemed to be a little boy, maybe six or seven. This startled him. He didn't seem to be a ghost. No glowing, no ghost sense going haywire. It was just a little kid that wasn't any taller than his waist.

He bent down and grinned. "Hey, fella," he said, reaching up to ruffle the boy's sandy blond hair. It was probably a good sign that there was a kid here. It meant that his family might be nearby. "Where did you come from? Is there a house nearby?"

The little boy grinned and giggled again, the sound high pitched and echoing. It sent the sensation of cold liquid going down Danny's throat.

He pulled his hand away and stared at the little kid as he giggled again. It definitely was not a human sound, but the boy looked so innocent in this dim lighting. "Hey, kid, are you okay?" he asked again.

"That was really fun," came a hissing, mischievous voice all around Danny. It was hard to make out just where it was from, but the boy was the only one near him. "It just kept sliding and sliding down the hill, so fast, and all the screaming. That was really fun. Did you think it was scary? Did you?"

Danny took a step back, now incredibly freaked out. He rubbed his eyes and snapped out of it. "Don't know what the heck you are, kid," he said, "but if you're the one who trashed our bus, then --"

A blinding light cut him off and distracted him from going ghost. He covered his eyes with his arm and heard the same hissing voice scream in pain. When the light died down, Danny looked up and let his eyes adjust to the newfound darkness.

"Are you okay?" asked the familiar voice of Valerie.

Danny stared at the shadowy figure in front of him for a moment before he could find his voice again. It had tightened up in the fear that Valerie had seen him when he was using his ghost ray. Before he answered, the light of a flashlight landed on his face and he couldn't see again.

"Danny?" she asked, her voice suddenly shrill. "What are you doing out here?" She seemed to shuffle something into her backpack. It was probably whatever weapon she'd used to make the little boy go away.

"Breaking the rules," he finally said, blinking in the light. "What about you?"

Valerie moved the flashlight around and took a few steps closer to Danny. "The same thing, I guess." She raised the light so that both of their faces were visible. Danny noticed that she seemed very uncomfortable. "So, you saw that… that thing? Did it do anything to you?"

"No. It creeped me out to no ends, but he… it didn't hurt me." He paused. "What was that you just did to it?"

"Oh! That?" Valerie was caught off guard by his observation. "Oh, um, it was something my dad let me use. From his lab. You know. I guess it, uh, came in handy." She was flushed, realizing that Danny had seen one of her ghost fighting weapons. It was the first time the human him had been exposed to the ghost fighting her.

"Yeah." Danny looked around, really not wanting to say anything. Right now, he just wanted to go to sleep. It had been a long night. The only problem with that goal was that the distractions had kept him from remembering how he had gotten there in the first place. "Do you know how to get back?"

As soon as he said this, a loud rustling sound came from his left. The two twisted their heads and Valerie moved the light to a spot on the ground. Sam and Tucker were both laying on their backs, staring up at them.

Tucker smiled and waved his fingers. "Hey, prison breakers. How's the view?"

"Sam? Tucker?" Valerie asked. "How did you guys find us?"

Sam opened her mouth to respond, but stopped before any words came out. She cocked her head to the side, still laying on the ground. "Well," she started slowly, "we noticed that Danny was missing, and saw you walking away. We figured that, um, you were going to look for him, too?"

Valerie furrowed her eyebrows suspiciously, but seemed to accept the excuse. "Any chance you two know the way back?"

Tucker sat up humming and looked back the way they'd come. "Mostly. We can follow our trail if you use that flashlight."

"Excellent," Danny said. "Come on, before someone else notices that we're missing." He lifted Tucker and Sam up from the ground.

The twoled the way, with Danny behind them, and Valerie trailing off a few feet. She rubbed her wrists worriedly and kept looking between Danny and her bag containing her weapons. The only thing running through her mind now was whather or not Danny had bought her excuse or not. If he hadn't, she'd have some trouble.


For the rest of the night, Danny, Sam, and Tucker huddled together in a separate space far enough away from the group so that their whispers wouldn't awaken them. They were arranged so the their heads were all next to each others and their bodies extended outward.

"You mean some little ghost kid threw us off the road so far that we can't even find the highway anymore?" Tucker hissed angrily. Danny has just finished telling them the story of what had happened before Valerie appeared and shot the boy down.

"Basically," he replied. "It was so weird. I'm just glad that Valerie showed up before I went ghost. I was about to." He rolled over in his makeshift bed and stared up at the night sky. "The kid didn't seem like any ghost I'd ever seen before, either."

"That's because it probably wasn't," Sam said. She raised her arm up and looked at her painted nails with mild interest. "It was probably a poltergeist."

"A poultry what now?" Tucker asked.

The word struck a memory in Danny's mind. "Poltergeist?"he asked, ignored Tucker's question. Unlike him, Danny actually knew the term. A poltergeist was more of a spirit than a ghost, according to what his parents had said once. They were restless beings who would make noise and break things to get attention. They could end up being very dangerous. Most of the time, though, they didn't know that what they were doing was harmful. They just did it because it was their nature. "What makes you think that?"

"Well, it didn't affect your ghost sense," Sam said, counting out the list on the fingers of her raised arm, "it was a little kid, and he asked you if you thought he was scary. Poltergeists are known to associate with children, and wanting to scare you is part of the attention complex, right?"

"How should I know?" Tucker asked anxiously. "No one's telling me what it is!"

"It's a problem," Danny answered. "That's all you need to know right now."

There was silence among them as Tucker crossed his arms over his chest in annoyance, Danny stared up at the stars with a frown, and Sam turned her head to look at him. It wasn't quite as difficult to see in the clearing. The starlight definitely helped her to see a bit better than usual. "Danny?" She elbowed him to capture his attention. "You seem a bit off. Why?"

"Well, I've never fought anything that wasn't a ghost before," he explained, his eyes locked on the night sky. "You think I could use the Fenton Thermos on it?"

"You brought one?"

"Of course I did," Danny replied. He yawned loudly, suddenly realizing how tired he was. "It's in my bag. It's kind of late, though." Finding his current position uncomfortable, he turned to the right, facing away from Sam. "Good night, Sam."

Sam gave a final look at Danny before turning over herself and wrapping her arms around herself. It had to be freezing. She was going to get hyperthermia or frostbite or something before they could get help. To think that she could be in a perfectly warm and concealed room right now instead of out here.

Before she closed her eyes, she saw a congregation of three people sitting up, one of them rubbing their leg. Straining her ears to listen, she caught some of their conversation.

"This hurts really bad. I know the bus driver bandaged it up, but it still hurts. I mean, I should be in a hospital or something."

"I know! This is terrible. You need medicine. And what are we going to eat? All I brought was energy bars."

"I'm not eating any rabbits, that's for sure! I could get rabies."

Sam rolled her eyes at Paullina and Star, but realized they had a point about one thing. Paullina's leg was sliced in the crash. She didn't get to see much of it -- sadly -- but it would probably be best for a doctor to look at it.

She'd worry about that once she had some coffee. At last, she let herself drift to sleep.


Here's to me writing this fanfic off as a dud when I first posted it. Seriously, I thought it sucked. I guess otherwise -- dear friends have already credited it. Hope you all enjoy this part, as well!

Thanks Geck Osco for telling me about the problem. Fixed now.

See you in the afterlife,

Saramis A. Kismet