Before I begin, I would first like to thank both Horselvr4evr123, DemonSorcess and enigmaticpenguin for taking the time so far to review this story. I really appreciate you guys writing my reviews, because it makes me feel really good knowing that people are reading this and enjoying it. (of course, enigmaticpenguin probably already knows all about this) Anyway, thanks again guys! Keep the reviews coming! (any new reviewers are still welcome, though!)
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While there was still some daylight left, the sun was just setting, creating a beautiful mix of yellow, orange and purple in the sky that glistened over the calm waters on the beach. Danny wanted to be able to sit out on the beach and enjoy the scenery, but he couldn't. He was in the Fenton RV with his dad driving him to Mrs. Goonbaker's house to baby-sit her four-year old son, Toby.
"Dad, why did you make me do this?" Danny asked during the ride over. "I mean, I didn't even want to spend my vacation babysitting some kid I met on the street! Can't you just call Mrs. Goonbaker to tell her that I got sick and can't make it?"
"Of course not!" Jack snapped. "Danny, it's about time you learned some responsibility. I can't remember the last time you did something decently responsible or when you put your time aside for others in need!"
"You don't know the half of it," Danny mumbled at that remark. Danny wanted to continue arguing with his dad about the situation, but he knew it wouldn't do him any good. Plus, who knows? Maybe he'd have fun with Toby?
A few minutes later, Jack pulled into the Goonbakers' driveway. Their house was two stories tall, was painted white and looked pretty luxurious. Inside, Danny saw that there was a large living room with fluffy green carpet and a kind of large television set. There were a few sofas and chairs scattered around the room for comfort, and Danny thought he'd have to sit in them a lot to keep himself calm when he was babysitting.
"Thank you so much for coming on such short notice," Mrs. Goonbaker said as Danny and Jack walked in. "I'm sure you and Toby will have tons of fun together tonight!" Her smile was extremely white, and she looked like she had put on tons of makeup since Danny last saw her a few hours earlier.
"It was really nothing," Danny said, trying to be as polite as possible. In reality, he actually was annoyed that he had to throw an entire night away to baby-sit a little kid. But there was nothing he could do about it now.
Mr. and Mrs. Goonbaker walked out of their house a short while later, and Jack followed close behind them. In no time, Danny was just staring at Toby sitting on the floor with a huge grin on his face. Toby was a kid who was barely half Danny's height. He had light brown eyes and darker, thicker brown hair.
Danny and Toby just stared at each other for a while until Toby finally said "hiiiiiiiiii!" in a very cheerful way.
Danny nervously put his hand up to wave back. "So, when's bedtime for you?"
"Mommy says I get to stay up late!" Toby said excitedly. "She says I can stay up until nine tonight!"
"9:00, huh?" Danny asked. "Well, that's still a good two and a half hours away. What does mommy usually make you for dinner?"
"Soup!" Toby once again replied full on enthusiasm.
"Uh, okay then," Danny said. "I'll…uh, go fix your soup. Stay out of trouble, now."
Danny went into the kitchen and didn't waste any time. He started following all the instructions carefully and in less than ten minutes, the soup was finished. He poured it into a small bowl and gave it to Toby.
"There you go, Toby," Danny tried to say with as much cheer in his voice as possible. "Eat up."
"Thank you!" Toby brightly said with his mouthful of teeth showing. He carefully tried to take the soup from Danny, but accidentally spilled some and it landed all over Danny's shirt.
Danny started screaming in pain as the hot liquid came into contact with him. Twenty minutes later, he was walking out of the kitchen with another bowl of soup, along with a noticeable wet spot on his shirt. This time, Danny didn't let Toby touch the bowl at all. He just placed in right in front of him when they were at the table.
A while later, Danny looked at Toby and said "Well, what does mommy like to do after you've eaten?"
"I have a baff!"
"A…bath?" Danny asked nervously. "You want me to give you a bath?"
Toby once again nodded his head with excitement. Danny groaned, then took Toby into the bathroom. Danny filled up a bathtub with warm water, and then poured a decent amount of bubble bath into the water. He later put Toby in the water and just stared and watched him for a little while. It wasn't long before Toby started splashing around and got water everywhere, including on Danny.
"If I had known I was going to get this wet, I would have brought a change of clothes," Danny said to himself as Toby was having the time of his life just by splashing warm water in a bathtub.
A few minutes later, Toby was out of the water and dried off. Even though it was just barely an hour into the night, Danny was already exhausted. After Toby was in his pajamas, Danny said, "so, what does mommy do after she's given you a bath?"
"She plays Gamecube!" Toby said happily.
"Gamecube?" Danny said. The mere thought of the word put a smile on his face. "Now you're talking! Come on, let's go play some gamecube!"
Danny saw a gamecube hooked up to the TV and ran over to start playing it. He started looking through all the games, and immediately his face dropped.
"How come you only have Mario sports games?" Danny asked. "Where are the good games? Where's Resident Evil 4? Where's Tales of Symphonia? Where's anything!"
Toby didn't understand a thing Danny said. He stared at Danny with confused eyes, then pulled out a game: Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door.
"Let's play this!" Toby said happily. Danny really had no choice but to agree.
Danny was hoping he'd get to play the game a little bit, but that didn't happen. For the entire time, Toby was the one playing the entire game. Danny didn't so much as touch the controller as Toby played away on it.
All Danny could do that entire time was wait for the clock to strike nine. When that moment finally came, Danny jumped up.
"All right, Toby, it's time for bed!" he said, smiling. Now he was finally going to get some time to himself.
Toby didn't put up any resistance going to bed. Danny made sure Toby got into bed, and then tucked him in nice and tight.
"Night night," Danny said cheerfully as he tucked Toby in. "Don't let the beddy bugs bite." Danny shuddered as he heard himself say that; he hadn't heard it in years.
Danny was able to go back out to the living room and plop down in one of the chairs. He turned on the TV and waited to see if there was anything on in primetime that night. He started flipping through the channels, and just as he finally found a show he liked, he heard the door to Toby's bedroom open. Danny looked over and saw Toby walking out of his room.
"Can I get some water?" Toby innocently asked.
Danny had to hide the exasperation, but didn't say anything on the lines of "no". He got up with no trouble and walked Toby to the kitchen. He went into the cabinet and pulled out a small cup that had a picture of Oscar the Grouch. Danny poured some tap water into it and then handed it to Toby.
Toby drank the water down in a few gulps, then made a refreshing "ahhhhhhhhhhhh" sound once he finished. "Thank you!"
"You're welcome," Danny tried to say pleasantly. "Back to bed now."
Danny began walking away until he heard Toby say "Can you give me a piggy back ride to my room?"
Danny stopped in his tracks. He grit his teeth, but then tried to put on a smile. He turned around and looked at the innocent child staring at him with hopeful eyes for a piggy-back ride.
Danny sighed and then walked over to Toby. He put his back to Toby and then bent over. "All right," Danny agreed. "Hop on my back."
Toby gleefully climbed onto Danny's back and Danny began standing up straight while making sure that he didn't drop Toby. He started keeping a firm grip on Toby's legs to make sure Toby didn't fall off, and Danny even made some airplane sounds to make Toby happier.
When Danny was only a few feet from Toby's bedroom, he heard Toby say "Hey! What's this?"
Danny stopped as he felt Toby reach into his pocket. He turned around and Danny saw Toby holding the bottle that Danny had taken from Tucker earlier that day; the bottle with the swirling dark cloud inside of it.
Danny gasped and put Toby on the ground. When Toby was safely on his feet, Danny desperately said "Toby, you have to give that bottle to me! That bottle is…bad!"
Toby was smiling and laughing, thinking that it was all a game. "You want the bottle? First you'll have to chase me!"
Toby started running around the house, and Danny was immediately panic-stricken. He thought Toby would do something to accidentally break the bottle and let the dark cloud out, whatever it was.
Danny had no choice. He started running after Toby, yelling "Toby! Give the bottle back! I'm not fooling!"
Danny could outrun Toby easily, but since Toby was ten years younger than him and was in a confined space, Danny didn't give it anywhere near his best. He continued running until he caught up with Toby and grabbed him by the back of his pajama shirt. Toby screaming "Hey!" was heard as soon as Danny got him.
"Okay Toby, give me the bottle," Danny said in a not very pleasant voice.
"Mommy wouldn't want me to. You didn't say the magic words," Toby replied, grinning.
Danny once again sighed and said, "Give me the bottle please!"
Toby said "okay!" very loudly and then started handing the bottle to Danny. As soon as Danny grabbed it, Toby pulled it away. He yelled "tricked you!" and started laughing like a crazed hyena.
Danny, trying his best not to lose his patience, just went for the bottle again and the two started tugging at it. Well, Toby was, anyway. Danny was just trying his best not to wrench it out of Toby's hands and send it flying in the air.
Finally, Danny grabbed the bottle from Toby and had it in his grasp. He was walking away from Toby and trying to put it in a safe place until Toby jumped on Danny from behind and knocked him to the ground. Danny hit the soft carpet with a loud thud, and the bottle came flying out of his hand. Luckily, it didn't break once it hit the floor.
Toby ran over to the bottle and picked it up, then resumed running. This time, Danny didn't hold back so much. He started thundering after Toby and finally caught up with him again. He tried pulling the bottle from Toby's hands so much that Danny actually pulled too hard. The bottle went flying up into the air and crashed onto the floor, but this time, on the tiled kitchen area.
The bottle smashed into pieces on impact. No sooner did the bottle break, but a violent wind started brewing up inside the house. Toby started screaming in fear and ran over to hug Danny for protection. The room became extremely dark as the violent wind howled through the house and blew everything in its path.
As the wind was blowing, Danny opened his mouth and a cloud of blue smoke started coming from inside. It was his ghost sense, but it wasn't normal. Instead, the blue smoke started pouring out of his mouth like a violent waterfall. The blue smoke was coming out so fast that Danny could hardly breathe.
Meanwhile, Toby was clinging to Danny as hard as his little fists would let him. When Danny's raging ghost sense finally calmed down, a huge black cloud started swirling around. What's weirder was that Danny could have sworn he saw someone in the black cloud; it looked like a figure from a scary movie. The figure seemed to have a very dark cloak and a terrifying face that somewhat resembled a skull. However, Danny passed it off as an illusion, as the image disappeared less than a second after Danny saw it.
Soon, the black cloud started flying outside and a loud thunderstorm started brewing in the skies. Bright lightning was illuminating the dark night sky, but it was louder than any lightning Danny ever heard.
Immediately following that, the wind abruptly died down, but the room was still pitch dark. Toby was clinging to Danny and had tears pouring out of his eyes. He was just so frightened by what had just happened.
Even Danny was silent and had an increased heart rate. He was breathing heavy while Toby was sobbing as he clung to Danny. Danny started gently patting Toby on the back as he observed the now-destroyed room. Almost everything in the room was blown around by the gust of wind and looked like an internal tornado had struck the place. There was a very obvious silence that was non-threatening, yet it made Danny feel extremely uncomfortable.
"It's okay, Toby," Danny said, gently patting Toby on the back as Toby continued to cry in his arms. "Everything's going to be fine."
Danny was trying to comfort Toby the best he could, but in reality, he had no idea whether or not everything was going to be okay. He looked out the window and saw that even in the night there was an obvious dark cloud in the sky, with savage lightning striking down from the cloud.
Then he looked down at the floor and saw the broken bottle that had the dark cloud in it.
"I knew that bottle was bad news…" Danny thought to himself. There was no doubt in his mind that the bizarre things that just happened came from the bottle being smashed and the dark cloud being freed.