"Alright," said Tucker, jumping off the stepladder. "One video camera installed and ready to catch your freaky sleep disappearing act."
Danny sat on his bed, and rubbed the sole of his right foot. "Do you really think it'll work? I mean, it'll only show me getting up and leaving, not why or where I go or anything."
Tucker shrugged. "I don't know, but if we can get you getting up on tape at least we can be sure you aren't being kidnapped by ghosts. I understand that's a big concern."
"Ugh," said Danny, collapsing back onto his bed. "Don't talk about that as if it's an actual possibility. I get enough of it from my parents." It would be good to 'rule it out,' though. Maybe then they'd be able to start looking for the real problem.
Tucker's lips twisted. "Yeah, haha. Sorry." He sat down on the bed next to Danny, who promptly threw a pillow at him. "Hey! Show some respect, I'm helping you out here."
"I knowwww," said Danny, rolling onto his front.
Tucker patted him on the back. "Man, you know what would be great? If we could stick, like, a camera to you, too."
"Don't those exist?"
"Not that I can afford," said Tucker.
"Mom and Dad paid for this camera."
"Yeah, well, I have no idea what they think is reasonably priced. But it'd be great to figure out your blackouts in general, not just the sleepwalking thing."
"I wish."
Tucker was quiet for a long moment. Then he sighed with a note of… relief?
Danny looked up, but Tucker wasn't doing anything odd, just looking at Danny's ceiling with a slight frown on his face. "Is your ceiling different, by the way?"
"Oh," said Danny, brightening and sitting back up. "Yeah. I kind of revamped my constellations! I wanted to make them more realistic, you know?" He shrugged. "It's a work in progress." He was pretty proud of it, even if it wasn't perfect. It reflected the night sky much better like this.
"It looks pretty elaborate. You're not doing this instead of sleeping, are you?"
Danny winced. "At first, I guess, but that didn't help any, I'd still black out, so…"
Tucker put an arm around his shoulders and gave him a quick squeeze. "You'll get through this, man."
"Thanks," said Danny. "And I can just pop the tape out?"
"Yeah. Here, there's a remote. Just turn it on before you go to bed, okay?"
"Yeah."
.
Danny stumbled back into his room and glared at the camera, its red recording light staring at him.
He limped over to his nightstand to dig the camera remote out of the avalanche of volunteer opportunity brochures and hit the button to pop out the tape, then realized that he didn't have the stepladder, so he was too short to actually pull it out. There was no way he was jumping for it tonight. Something had happened to his leg. It felt bruised all up and down its length, as if a giant had grabbed and squeezed it.
Which was just great. A mysterious injury was definitely a thing he needed on top of everything else. Maybe it wasn't the first mysterious injury, but it definitely hurt. He hated this. He hated this so much.
"Dad?" he called. "Can you come get the tape? I want to see what happened!"
It was like unleashing a stampede. When Jack burst into the room, it evolved that he'd brought the entire TV and the VCR with him.
"Um," said Danny, as Jack set the TV down in the center of the room with a clunk.
"So you don't have to do the stairs, Danno! We noticed you were having some trouble on the way up!"
"Oh, thanks," said Danny.
Maddie followed while Jack was trying to plug the TV in, and sat down next to Danny on the bed.
"Can I see your leg?" she asked.
With a wince, Danny pulled the leg of his pajama pants up. Maddie frowned, the expression pulling on lines that Danny could swear she hadn't had earlier this year, before his accident.
"Those are some bruises," said Maddie. "But I think they are just bruises. We have some cream." She held up a small tube.
"Store bought?"
"Yes, it came with the first-aid kit."
"No added ectoplasm?"
"Not this tube," said Maddie, with the grace to look embarrassed.
"Okay, then," said Danny, reaching for it. She didn't give it to him, but unscrewed the cap herself and started applying it. "Mom," he said, not really complaining, but still.
"You aren't hurt anywhere else, are you?"
"I don't think so," said Danny. "I'm just tired."
"Alright!" exclaimed Jack. "Let's find out what ghost keeps taking Danny."
Danny rolled his eyes very deliberately. "Come on, give me the VCR remote. It'll be hours before anything happens. I turned it on at like, nine."
"I can do it, I can do it!" said Jack, who did indeed fast forward… straight into the part where Danny was gone and his bed empty.
It took a bit of finingling to get it only a few minutes before Danny left.
He leaned forward. Even if this was going to be an underwhelming example of him wandering around like a zombie until he made it out the door, it was still something.
Danny watched his image on the screen breathe in and out, smoothly, dead asleep, apparently unaware of anything about to happen. But then he shuddered, a full-body tremor, and went completely still.
Then, slowly, he sat up, turned and…
"What," Danny whispered, his hand creeping up to his eyes. "What is that?"
"I knew it!" shouted Jack. "You were overshadowed, Danny-boy! This is great! We can fix this!"
"What? No, no, that has to be… It has to be a– a– I don't know, a weird red eye effect."
He knew it wasn't.
"Danny," said Maddie, gripping his shoulders. "Calm down. Breathe."
"Those aren't–"
The Danny on the screen vanished into thin air.
The next thing Danny knew, he was in the park and the sun was up.