Phic Phight 2022
Fic warnings: Animal Death, Animal Murder, implied animal mutilation, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Murder, Serial Killers.
Chapter warnings: Animal Death, Animal Murder, implied animal mutilation.
The Punishment Fits the Crime
There are a lot of dead animals in Amity Park.
Chapter 1: A New Sense
It begins a month after the accident, with a dog on the side of the road. Danny is on his way home from Sam's place when he finds it. His walk started normally. Somewhere along the way, he took a turn off his usual route. He can't explain why. There's nothing special about the road he turns down. It goes in the opposite direction of Fenton Works and will make him a few minutes late for his new curfew. But it's a nice night and he's been late for curfew every night since his parents implemented it, so he doesn't care all that much. He lets his feet guide him, carrying him a couple of blocks further East than he needs to go, to an area he doesn't explore much except from above.
The streets turn residential, lined with proper houses with driveways and backyards bigger than Danny's living room. That's where he finds the dog, lying in the ditch. He doesn't know how to check a dog's pulse but realizes he doesn't need to. One look at it and he knows it's dead. There is no blood, at least not that Danny can see. No gaping wound or twisted limbs. The dog is small and young, and, if not for the way it's splayed out, could easily be mistaken for sleeping. But he knows that it's dead. Has a feeling.
If Danny looks closer, he can see a streak on the pavement, the only wet spot on otherwise dry ground. There's not much of it. A normal person might not have seen it at all in this dim light, but Danny is far from normal. Whoever hit the dog dragged it out from the middle of the road before driving off. They stopped. They saw what they did. And they left. There's no sign of the car that did it. The dog is cold, so it must have happened some time ago, around sunset. Despite this, Danny finds himself scouring the street, examining every vehicle within his sight. He doesn't know what he's looking for. A dented fender? A bloody license plate? The dog is too small to have left much of a mark on whatever vehicle ran it down. The thought makes his stomach turn, but there's nothing he can do about it.
The dog has a collar, but no tags. It's not a stray, and it wasn't supposed to be outside. Danny scans the street. This time of night, not too many people are up. A few houses down, however, he sees a living room light on. Danny carefully scoops the dog into his arms, holding it against his chest, and heads for the house. He knocks on the door. A minute passes before someone answers. A middle-aged man dressed in a robe, wearing reading glasses on his nose. His eyes widen when he sees Phantom floating on his doorstep. When he spots the dog in Danny's arms, his face crumples.
"Oh, dear," the man says.
"Do you know the owners?" Danny asks. "I found it on the road. Someone hit it."
"Poor thing. Yes, I do. Let me take her." The man holds out his arms.
Danny hesitates. There's no reason for it. The man seems kind enough, and he knows the owners. There's no need for Danny to waste any more time with this. And yet, he doesn't want to let go.
"She'll be alright," the man says. "I'll take care of her." He smiles at Danny, small and probably meant to be reassuring. It doesn't make Danny feel anything, except confusion, but he relents and passes the dog over.
For the rest of his walk home, Danny puzzles over the man's last reassurance. How odd for him to think Danny was worried about the dog's body. It is odd, isn't it? Danny is a ghost. He's indeed part human, but the man isn't aware of that. He should know better. When it comes to the dead, Danny cares more about their spirits than the bodies they leave behind.
It happens again a couple of months later. After a rough day of outrunning Skulker—missing a math test because of it—Danny takes to the skies to clear his head the first chance he gets. That chance, unfortunately, doesn't come until after sunset, but the sky is clear and the stars are out, so it's worth it. He flies away from the city, out to the countryside where the light pollution won't impede his view as much. He veers off from the highway and settles over an open field, ready for a good hour of stargazing to help take his mind off things. Until something makes him look down instead of up.
It happens suddenly. One second, Danny is tracing Orion's path across the sky, and the next his head has turned toward the ground. Lights far below him catch his eye. They move fast, at first, but quickly slow down and turn, heading back the way they came. After a few seconds, they stop and stay in place. Abandoning the stars, Danny flips onto his stomach and drifts down to the ground. As he gets closer, he can make out the sources of the light. A pair of quads that someone had been driving around the field. They're parked now; their headlights shine on a spot in the dirt.
Danny isn't close enough for the drivers to have noticed him, but he can hear them just fine thanks to his improved senses.
"Dude, you scared it to death." The voice is young. A teenager, perhaps. Probably a pair of them. Danny supposes they must live nearby, to be out tearing through a field at this hour.
"Told you I could," the other driver says. "My brother used to do it when snowmobiling. You get them running fast enough and like, their heart just gives out or something. Crazy."
"Yeah, but... that's kind of mean."
"It's just a rabbit. Who cares?" The second driver gets back onto his quad and starts driving. The other one, who spoke first, lingers for a few seconds before he follows. Danny waits until they're a good distance away before getting close enough to see what they were talking about. A rabbit, dead, in the middle of the field. It lays a few inches from a set of quad tracks. Danny might not be a straight-A student, but he can piece together what happened fairly easily. One of the riders chased the rabbit with his quad until the poor thing had a heart attack. He killed it for no good reason.
Something sparks in Danny's gut. He turns his head toward the quads. They're still tearing around the field, maybe chasing another rabbit. Danny spares a glance up at the stars, then back toward the teenagers. It would seem that his evening plans have changed. Tonight is a good night for haunting.
"Did you guys see that article this morning?" Tucker asks first thing at school the next day.
Danny glances away from his locker long enough to say: "Hello, good morning, it's nice to see you, too." He quickly goes back to digging through his things, searching for all the late assignments he needs to hand in that day. Who would have thought that ghost hunting would take up so much of his time? His parents would be proud if they knew.
"Now, when you say article..." Sam trails off.
"Okay, fine. It was a forum post—on that website that I sent you guys last week. But it was referenced in an article on the Ghost Gazette this morning," Tucker says.
"I don't think that's a reputable source," Danny says. It's an online zine, from what he recalls, and it's existed long before ghosts actually came to Amity. Much like his parents and their opinions on ghosts, the GG gets a lot of things wrong.
"I told you I was keeping track of all ghost-related news in and around the city. I think it could help us when it comes to ghost hunting if we can see where ghosts are attacking the most and how far outside the city they go."
Sam grabs Tucker's shoulders and turns him to face her, looking deep into his eyes. "And we are very proud of you for taking some initiative. Good job." She pats his head.
"Oh, shut up. But I think ghost activity might actually be moving away from Amity Park." Tucker pulls up the forum post on his PDA and holds it out for Sam to read.
"This isn't much evidence," Sam says.
"What is it?" Finally done rearranging his textbooks, Danny pulls away from his locker and shuts the door, giving Tucker his full attention.
"A couple of teens encountered a ghost last week way outside the city. They were out quadding when it started following them. Chased them all the way home, apparently."
Danny fights back a smile. "That doesn't sound so bad."
"Not to mention, Amity Park can't be the only place with ghosts. We might have a stable portal here, but natural portals can open up anywhere. Once you get news of ghosts like Technus or Skulker terrorizing the next town over, then we can worry. For now, I think we're in the clear. Keep up the good work, though!" Sam beams at Tucker, who grumbles under his breath.
"This is so patronizing."
Danny is about to offer his own teasing comment when something smacks the back of his head. If he saw the hit coming, he would have dodged. He can do that now. He couldn't before, his reflexes too slow and his situational awareness at a minimum. Now, though, after a few good months as a ghost hunter, Danny's skills have improved in one or two areas. Unfortunately, none of those areas include magically knowing when Dash Baxter is about to pass him in the hall from behind.
The smack rattles Danny's brain and sends him stumbling. The stack of late assignments slips from his arms. The papers drop to the floor and scatter across the hall, sliding over the smooth tile. It's almost impressive how far away they end up.
"Someone's moody," Sam says, glaring at Dash.
"He's always moody." Danny drops to his knees and starts gathering the pages back up.
"There's a big game against Elmerton next week," Tucker says.
Danny and Sam stare at Tucker.
"My locker is by the band room."
He seems to think this explains everything. Danny and Sam keep staring.
"The band is playing the game this week. They've been talking about it. I hear things."
"Tucker, your social status can only go so low. Don't push it," Sam teases.
"Oh, shut up! You wish you could play an instrument."
"I can. Violin. It can be nice and dreary to play a piece in the middle of the night."
"I want to play an instrument," Danny mutters.
"You'd break it," Sam and Tucker say at the same time.
Danny pins them both with an offended look, but he can't deny it. Despite having his powers for months, he still drops things on accident all the time. If anyone gave him a trombone, a clarinet, or anything like that, he would break it in a day. Maybe he could learn the drums. The image of a drumstick flying from Danny's hand mid solo and hitting someone in the face quickly dashes that thought.
Piano, maybe? Nothing to fling or drop there.
Danny gathers up the last of his homework and straightens the stack. A few sheets are still out of order, but he can fix that once they get to a classroom. For now, he glares at Dash across the hall.
"Maybe I could break something. As a treat." He and Tucker exchange wicked grins. Danny's palm shines green, the light reflecting off Tucker's glasses. He points a finger over his stack of papers at Dash's back.
"Danny, don't!" Sam smacks his hand down.
"Oh, come on," Danny whines. "Let me singe his jacket. Just a little."
"Danny, we've talked about this before. You have power now."
Danny rolls his eyes as Sam slips into lecture mode. He could just walk away, but that might make her angrier. Better to bear with it until she's done and get revenge on Dash later when it's only Danny and Tucker around.
"I know you don't like to hear it but having the kind of strength you do, you can't go around using it for petty revenge. It's not right."
Danny shoots her a lopsided smile. "What's wrong with a little petty revenge?" His grin widens when Sam glares.
She looks ready to keep berating him but must see that Danny won't drop the subject so easily. "Just don't stoop down to his level, okay? You're better than that."
"No worries, Sam. I wouldn't hurt someone who doesn't deserve it."
Danny pauses at the mouth of an alley. He doesn't quite mean to, but it happens. Just as it did with the dog, and the rabbit, and the few other animals he has stumbled across since then. Somehow, Danny has come into the habit of stopping against his will; he already knows what he's going to find before taking a step off the sidewalk. Sam and Tucker don't realize that he has stopped right away, going a few paces ahead before they notice he isn't following.
"Hey, Danny," Tucker says. "Something wrong?"
"Probably," Danny replies. What will it be this time? A rat someone stepped on? A bug that got squished? Danny hasn't felt a pull toward one of those yet, but bugs get killed all the time. Danny found a bird just last week with a BB gun pellet in its chest. It was a small thing, too. Not even the kind of bird that's known to be a pest. It makes him smile thinking about the way the man who shot it shrieked when Danny pelted him with harmless ectoblasts. Semi-harmless. He might have had a couple minor burns by the time Danny was through with him.
"How wrong? Because the movie starts in ten minutes," Tucker says.
"Tucker! But yeah, he's right. Is it a ghost?" Sam says.
"Sort of but also no. This will only take a second." Danny starts down the alley. After a moment's pause, he hears Sam and Tucker following him. There's a lump at the end of the alley, where the cracked pavement gives way to a dusty back lane. Too small for the average dog. Much too big for a rat or anything similar. Cat, then, Danny guesses. He hasn't felt the pull for a cat, yet. Its silhouette is odd, however. As far as he's aware, most cats don't have rectangular shapes jutting out of their backs.
A lump forms in Danny's throat. When they get close enough to see what it is, Sam gasps. An orange cat with a screwdriver sticking out of it.
"Oh my God," Sam says. "What sick fucking—" She cuts herself off and turns away, a hand pressed over her mouth.
Tucker stops at Danny's shoulder and grimaces. "Shit. That sucks. I hope that cat didn't belong to anyone."
"Tucker!" Sam keeps her back to them as she shouts.
"I mean, it's still sad if it's a stray! Obviously, it's sad. But it's sadder if some kid is missing a pet because of this. Should we... I don't know, do you call someone for this? No offence but it's a cat. It's not exactly a human body.
Danny, out of habit, scans the alley and the back lane, looking for the person who did this. They're long gone, however. Nothing more than a few dusty prints left behind. There's nothing for them to do.
"We could bury it," Sam says.
"We could bury it," Danny repeats. That is a thing they are capable of, yes.
They end up missing the movie. Danny pulls the screwdriver out, grimacing at the sight of sticky blood on the metal. Dropping it in the alley doesn't feel right, so he tucks it into his hoodie pocket to figure something out later. Sam sacrifices her sweater to wrap the cat in something warm. Tucker gives her a funny look for it, but he doesn't say anything. It bothers Sam enough for her to reply anyway.
"It doesn't matter that it can't feel. It deserves some kindness."
Kindness won't bring it back, Danny thinks. Then again, nothing he wants to do will bring it back, either.
They take the cat to Sam's house. She has a large garden with plenty of space. Since it's Sam's, they don't have to worry about her mother's gardener stumbling across the body. Sam gets a shoebox to put the cat in and they find a place to bury it.
"Under the roses?" Tucker suggests.
"What about there?" Danny points to a plant with long leaves and orange flowers. "It matches the fur."
Sam shoots him a grateful look. Neither of the boys understands her at this moment, but they'll do what she wants because they love her. Danny and Tucker dig a hole between the plants while Sam arranges the cat in the box, still wrapped in her sweater. They lower it down and stare at the box for a few seconds.
"How did you know it was there?" Sam asks.
Danny shrugs. "I don't know. Could be a dead person thing."
"Technically, I think this makes it a dead animal thing," Tucker says.
Sam tilts her head. "This has happened before?"
"Yeah." Danny nods. "I thought it was a coincidence at first, but not anymore."
After a few more seconds of silence, Sam pushes the pile of dirt over the box and together all three of them smooth the patch out.
"Come on," Danny says with a hand on Sam's shoulder. "There's a later show we could go to. Might help you take your mind off of this."
"I just can't believe it. Who would do something like that?" Sam shakes beneath Danny's hand.
Danny and Tucker share a glance over her head. Sam isn't much of a crier. And, as teenage boys, neither of them is well-versed in what to do when confronted with a crying girl. Danny, at least, has some experience with his sister, but she doesn't cry much either. She's more the bottle it up and pretend everything is fine type, which is so ironic. In the end, they wrap their arms around Sam and hold her while tears stream down her face. A second set of sniffles joins Sam. When Danny pulls his head back, he sees Tucker wiping his eyes.
"Okay, so I care a little bit," Tucker says.
They stay like that for a while, until Sam and Tucker can dry their eyes, and go to the late show. Danny spends the walk trailing a pace behind them, lost in thought. While Sam and Tucker cried, he didn't feel that same sorrow. He thinks of the dog, of the man he gave it to. He thinks of the expression the man wore, so similar to the ones Sam and Tucker wear now. Something Danny can only describe as sorry. Sorry and sad.
How odd is it, then, that every time this happens, Danny only feels angry?
As soon as the credits start rolling, Danny pulls out his phone. It was buzzing the whole movie. When he turns on the screen, he is met with a wall of texts.
"Shit." He missed curfew by two hours, the whole length of the movie. Danny hadn't even thought of checking the time, more focused on distracting Sam. Scrolling to the start, he skims the messages. A reminder from Jazz was sent ten minutes before curfew, around the time they got to the theatre. Another reminder two minutes after. A warning message from his mom that he will be grounded if he's late again. Another text from Jazz. A text from his dad that basically says the same thing as his mom's, but with a smiley face at the end of it that feels oddly threatening even though Danny knows it's not. The most recent text is—surprise, surprise—from Jazz and is only a few minutes old.
From: Free Therapy | 12:58 p.m.
Danny are you okay?
At least text me so I know you're fine.
Danny is about to text back when the typing bubble pops up under her name. He waits, watching the bubble come and go. Two minutes pass before she finally composes her message and hits send.
From: Free Therapy | 1:07 p.m.
You know you can tell me anything, right? You don't have to act out like this
Danny's lip curls. He tucks his phone away without writing anything back.
"Sam's coming over to my place tonight. You gonna join us?" Tucker asks.
Danny slumps down in his seat, tipping his head back. Most of the other moviegoers have left the theatre by then. Out of the corner of his eye, Danny spots an employee waiting with a broom and dustpan in hand. He stands up and stretches, offering the worker an apologetic smile.
"I wish, but I forgot to text my parents that I'd be late. I think they would kill me if I stayed out. I should probably just get home. Sorry, Sam." Danny tacks on the apology. She looks better than she did, but Sam has always been an animal lover. She doesn't even like the idea of dissecting dead frogs in biology class. He can't imagine how hard this was for her.
"I'm fine," Sam says. "Text us if your parents kill you, so we know you won't be at school on Monday."
"Rude."
They part ways outside the theatre. Danny rocks back on his heels, watching Sam and Tucker walk away. Only once they're out of view does he set off for home. His phone has buzzed a couple more times since the movie ended but he hasn't bothered checking. He's willing to bet a month's allowance that it's Jazz pestering him about how much of a troubled teen he's becoming. She's always had a hard time keeping her nose out of Danny's business. Even their parents aren't as worried about Danny's recent "attitude changes" as she is, something Danny is thankful for. Hiding his secret is hard enough with a nosy sister. Nosy parents would make it ten times worse.
At the last intersection before his street, Danny stops. He can already see the bright lights of the Fenton Works sign glowing in the distance, traces of neon orange and green spilling into the street. One more block until he's home. Danny's shoes scrape against the concrete as he makes his turn. As he heads further down the street, the glow of Fenton Works fades behind him. He follows the regular route that he takes to school for three minutes, making it a quarter of the way to Casper High before he stops at a side road. It's rarely travelled now except by the occasional pedestrian, of the homeless or vandal variety.
One too many ghost fights in the area have left the pavement riddled with potholes and impossible to travel by car unless you happen to have a GAV at your disposal. The city deals with so much ghost-related damage that it can't afford to keep patching up this one dead-end road anyway, so it has been left unattended. Danny only feels a little guilty about that. He won't lie and say he hasn't intentionally steered a few of his foes into this area before. For the first twenty yards, the road is lined by empty lots on either side. It's easier to fight when there's less collateral damage to worry about. Besides, the area was abandoned long before ghosts arrived. They just made it worse.
Danny ignores the big box store at the end of the road—some chain that tried to make it in Amity Park but ultimately failed. Instead, he focuses on the gathered silhouettes that stand out against the distant white walls. The sounds of laughter and clinking bottles drift toward him. Danny takes a step forward, kicking a loose stone out of his path. It skips across the pavement, the skittering noise drawing the group's attention.
"Hey!" someone calls from the throng. Danny waits until they all notice him, unfolding from their tightly gathered pack. He makes out five figures of varying builds, with a few common factors. They're all taller than him, and most of them have arms thicker than Danny's thigh.
One of them grabs something from their pocket. An instant later, a light shines, pointed straight at Danny. From this distance, the light from a flashlight phone doesn't even touch Danny's sneakers. But it does wonders to illuminate the thugs that have caught his attention. The brown of their letterman jackets stands out in particular. So, Danny has run across a gaggle of Elmerton punks. Not surprising, considering the football game tomorrow. It's an Elmerton High tradition to prank Casper the night before a big game, or so Danny's upperclassmen say. Except these boys are a long way from school. Danny doesn't like it.
"Just some kid," another of the Elmerites says. There's a round of snickers. One of them tips their head back. The starlight glances off the neck of a beer bottle. After that last comment, they decide Danny isn't worth their attention and return to their huddle. Danny decides that's the perfect time to find out why exactly he's here.
He ghosts over the pavement, barely making a sound as he crosses the distance between them. He steps up to the nearest gap between their bodies, still unnoticed, and stares at what called him here. Ravens, four of them, lying in the dirt. Wings bent. Necks broken. Plucked feathers litter the ground. Someone drops their beer bottle. It cracks on a raven's beak. Someone else takes a step forward, right onto the talons of one of the dead birds. Danny twitches at the crunching sound.
Shoving his way into the middle of the group, Danny kicks the leg standing on the raven's foot.
"Holy shit!" Shouts ring out as the boys jump back, away from Danny. He sees their expressions twist from shocked to incredulous as they take in Danny's size. The boy Danny kicked leans down and sneers. "What's your problem, kid?"
Shit Boots, Danny decides to call him, on account of the fact that his boots are shit.
"Geez, will you look at his fuckin' eyes? Looks like my cat." The boy beside Shit Boots—hereby dubbed Flashlight—sticks his phone in Danny's face. Danny has to blink a couple of times at first, but his eyes adjust quickly. One of the benefits of ghost biology. "Creepy."
"Oh, look." Shit Boots grabs the front of Danny's hoodie and pulls it out, showing his friends the Casper High logo. "He's a raven, too."
"Maybe we should pluck his wings, too," a third boy says.
Danny faces the newly dubbed Big Mouth—who actually has a small, pinched mouth, but the name fits in its own way—and smiles. "So, you did this. Right? That's what you're saying right now?"
Big Mouth guffaws. Danny has never liked that word, but it perfectly describes the deep laugh that bursts from the boy, boisterous and dumb. He didn't know a laugh could reveal the intelligence of its owner, but that is what's happening now. A big dumb laugh for a big dumb boy and his big dumb mouth. Should have kept it shut.
"So what?"
He really should have kept it shut.
Danny doesn't know when his hand drifted to his hoodie pocket, but now that it's there, his fingers close around the handle of the screwdriver.
"That means you deserve it."
Prompt used:
Submitted by faedemon: Ghosts are naturally drawn to death. When people die in Amity Park, Danny keeps finding the bodies. (PR263)
