After being escorted from the park and glared at by Mr. Lancer, Henson drove up in the now-clean black Manson Mercedes. It was just like last month when they'd snuck out of the school in the dead of night. Now they were soaking wet instead of covered in mystery meat.

"Sorry about the vinyl, Henson."

"No apologies necessary. It is always a pleasure, Miss Manson."

"Are Mom and Dad suspicious?"

"Your mother and father are at Amity Acres, Miss."

Amity Acres was a sprawling country club that was situated a few miles out of town in the suburbs. It was a place where people like the popular kids lived. Sam's parents would probably have moved out there too if it weren't for the fact that the family brownstone was three stories tall and has been handed down for almost four generations. It was also situated in the heart of downtown Amity Park and therefore within walking distance of Mrs. Manson's favorite shops.

"That means we've got the house to ourselves," Sam said. "You guys wanna hang out in the theatre? It's finally renovated."

"Yeah, we need to talk about-"

Danny elbowed Tucker before he could finish.

"Oh, right, um. Sure, sounds good, Sam."

Henson dropped them out front and then pulled the car around to the back of the family manor to store underneath in their five-car garage. Sam led the boys downstairs into the family basement, which was more of a movie theater-bowling alley combo. They heard the sound of pins being knocked down from the other side of the basement and Sam smiled. Her grandmother was no doubt practicing her 7-10 split.

"She can't hear us. Tell us everything."

Danny explained what happened with the shadow ghost and the mysterious second one. As they listened, Sam pulled her laptop off the coffee table and into her lap, opening it up and casting an eerie blue glow across their faces.

"You're sure the second one was another ghost?"

"Yeah, I was freezing. My ghost sense was going crazy."

"Did you get a look?"

"No, I just heard it. It was had a voice that was really weird and scratchy."

"So, what do we do? Steal into the park in the dead of night and take 'em down?" Tucker asked.

Danny already looked defeated. "We can't."

"What do you mean? I can hack into whatever security they've got-"

"No, I mean… I can't. That thing is way too strong. I don't have the first clue how we'd beat him. Not to mention that I don't even know what the other ghost can do."

"So… we just leave it there to harm other innocent people at the water park?"

"What do you mean?" Danny asked Sam who was tapping into her laptop.

"I mean," she said, turning the computer around, "that Tucker nearly got toppled over onto and there have been other accidents consistently happening since last month."

"What kind of accidents?"

"The reports just say that they're a string of bad luck," Sam said, scrolling and reading, "but apparently the nacho cheese machine nearly gave a worker third-degree burns when it malfunctioned. Then there was a pipe that burst while a plumber was trying to work inside Terror Mountain, and he was nearly drowned. They only got him out just in time! Then there was-"

"Sam, we don't know that that's the ghost's doing. Maybe it is just a string of bad luck."

"But Danny-"

"Look, I don't like the idea of that ghost being on the loose either, but what am I supposed to do? Go back in there and hope I don't get beaten to a pulp a second time? This thing is way more prepared and vicious than any other ghost we've faced so far."

"And it has a scary buddy living under Terror Mountain with it," Tucker pointed out.

"But all ghosts should have some kind of weakness," Sam argued. "I mean, the Lunch Lady was confused and needed a shield to protect herself. All those minor blob-ghosts we've been seeing around town were already here before you closed the portal and they've forgotten their powers and how strong they really are. That means that they're easy to catch."

"But this thing knows what it's doing. It isn't some weird blob ghost that's been haunting its former home for decades, Sam. If the reports are right, it must have escaped 'the other side' right before I closed the portal up last month. You saw it! It's like…"

"A shadow demon?" Tucker offered.

"Yes, exactly."

Sam looked at the two of them in disbelief.

"You're both on the same side, aren't you? You want to leave it there to terrorize people."

"No, we don't want to leave it there," Tucker finally jumped in. "We just know a losing fight when we see it. Don't you think we should be better prepared before we try and catch something that looks like it came straight outta Hell?"

"I don't think Hell is a real thing," Sam mumbled under her breath.

They weren't exactly sure what was on 'the other side' – which is what they kept calling it – but they were sure that these ghosts (the ones that could talk) never mentioned anything to do with an afterlife, heaven, or an underworld. They were mostly amorphous blobs or confused, weakened specters of people long gone. Nothing like the Lunch Lady and certainly nothing like the shadow demon.

"Doesn't matter. I'm with Danny. No one's died yet and we're too young to die ourselves going after it."

"That's not exactly what I was getting at," Danny added, "but yeah. We need to learn more. We need to be careful."

Sam had been the one prescribing caution to Danny before, but now all she wanted to do was jump into the fight.

"I can see that I'm overruled." Her glare was sharp in the bright laptop light.

"Sam don't be like that," Tucker tried but she closed the laptop with a loud "clack" and plunged them into darkness.

When she asked them to leave so that she could change and eat a proper meal, Tucker and Danny knew that they were being pushed out.

"I mean, I feel bad about it, but what are we gonna do? You said you barely escaped before you came to find us. I'm shocked you didn't say something right away."

"There was no time, and we were surrounded by people. If I'd sat you guys down and told you, someone would have thought we were crazy."

"And it nearly got me killed."

"You were fine," Danny said with a laugh. "The scruffy lifeguard said so himself."

"Still, don't do that in the future." Tucker's voice was more serious now, so Danny took it seriously.

"Okay, you're right. I won't keep something like that from you guys again."

"Good."

.

.

.

The next day, there was a huge accident at Floody Waters that took over the local news broadcast, and Sam wasn't answering her phone.

"Are you seeing this?" Tucker asked from his living room couch. His smartphone was pressed tight to his ear.

"I'm seeing it."

Danny and his sister Jazz were watching on their own couch as the news reporter documented the catastrophe that was Terror Mountain's structural collapse, trapping seven people inside who were still in need of rescue.

"At about 8:00 AM this morning, Terror Mountain's interior beams collapsed due to previously undetected structural faults. As of this reporting, there seem to be no casualties, but injuries are expected. Local authorities are directing other families to leave the park in case of further escalation. The Amity Park fire department is working tirelessly to find a way inside, but the owner and proprietor Mr. Hank Waters himself had nothing to say on their current progress. This is Amity Park 8 News reporting."

Jazz squeezed the arm of the couch and stared blankly at the screen which had now turned into a commercial for the Nasty Burger. "That's terrible," she whispered.

Danny's palms were sweating so much that he had to rub the hand not holding his phone onto his jeans.

"Tucker…"

"Yeah, me too."

They felt horrible. Sam was right. How could they have put themselves first when this kind of danger – this attack on innocent civilians – was possible?

"She won't answer my texts, dude."

"I know, me neither," Danny responded.

"She still has her own thermos, you know."

Jazz gave him a sidelong look, but Danny jumped up from the couch before she could ask any questions. He started to take the stairs up to his bedroom two at a time.

"I know."