The world laughs at you behind your back, just like in high school- Free Dan Phantom
The campground was a small, gravelly meadow sloping towards the east. The waterfall, some distance off, could be heard faintly. The ground had been rudely terraced into flat spaces where the tents could be erected. A small shed at one corner of the meadow was open and campers lined up to get their tents. These were monestrous old canvas things, likely army surplus. Danny and Tucker grabbed one and hauled it over to where the rest of their cabin mates were setting up tents. The tent was dark green and smelled of mold and mothballs. There were no instructions for putting it up and Dash didn't seem to be having much luck with his tent either. There were eight three foot lengths of pole each with a peg on one end and a hole on the other. Apparently two of these poles were struck one on top of the other to form the center poles. An eyelet in the canvas slipped over the peg at the top of the pole. A stake was pounded in the ground about six from the pole and a rope pulled the canvas taut. The other four poles went on the corners of the tent to form a low side wall. Ropes to stakes also pulled these poles taut. Canvas flaps hung down in the front and back to curtain off the tent. By the time they were done wrestling the tent into place it was already stifling under the heavy canvas. The whole tent was only about four feet wide and six feet long.
Danny went to get a drink from the canteen truck that had driven in from one of the service roads. When he got back he found Tucker grumpily looking at his unfolded cot. The cot was too high to fit anywhere in the tent except directly under the center line. If pushed up against the knee wall of the tent the ceiling would have been hanging directly on top the sleeper.
"I am not sleeping under that!" Danny said. "It doesn't even look safe for you to sleep on top of it."
"Hey, look," Danny continued when it was obvious that Tucker wasn't going to respond, "maybe it will be pleasant enough tonight and you can sleep outside, under the stars."
"And be eaten alive by mosquitoes?"
"It's your choice. I --at least-- thought to bring an air mattress!" Danny dug out a small vinyl roll and a miniature bicycle pump. He unrolled the mattress and started pumping. After ten minutes he looked at the still limp mattress and groaned.
"What's up?" Tucker asked.
"I've got an air leak in my mattress."
"Didn't you bring a patch kit?"
Danny held up an old flat metal tube. Glue had oozed all around its top and hardened into a gloppy mass. "I guess we're both going to be sleeping on the ground tonight."
"Uh oh."
"What?" Danny asked.
"I can't remember how to fold this cot back up!"
They threw their stuff inside the tent and lashed the flaps shut, then off to find Sam.
Her tent wasn't had to find. On another terrace amid the other Cabin Hemlock tents was a black nylon balloon tent. Springy fiberglass poles stretched around the sides holding the slippery thin material up. Sam and the other Goth girl, Danny realized he hadn't been introduced to here, were sitting under the awning made by the tent's door's rain cover, chatting.
"Hey, guys," Sam called. "Say did you meet Atherial?" She held out a multi-ringed hand in greeting. "We were wondering how long it would take for you to get your tent up."
"Where did this one come from? Do they have any more?" Tucker wondered.
"I brought my own," Sam admitted. It only weights five pounds folded up and takes less then ten minutes to put up."
"Wow. Does it come with running water?"
As a group they moved towards the canteen wagon, meeting T'Keisha on the way. Lunch was sloppy joes and potato salad, except for Sam who was presented with a small container of humus and some pita bread. They found a shady spot and sat down to eat. Although Tucker and T'Keisha and Sam and Atherial spent more of their time talking to each other, it felt good to at least be a welcome part of both.
After lunch the counselors got everyone together and talked about the upcoming camp Olympics and organized practice games for everyone. The egg-toss was embarrassing as Danny took an egg in the face on the first row. Danny felt a little better during the three-legged race watching Tucker and T'Keisha flop around the course. T'Keisha's legs were so much longer than her partner's, she virtually dragged him around the course. Danny's laugh only lasted until Sam grabbed him for her partner and ended up dragging him around the course as well. As they knelt to untie the ropes around their legs Sam whispered, "How is it you can kick Vlad's butt any time you want but you can't run a simple race?"
They had barely caught their breath from that before they were organized into teams to practice passing the baton in relay races. Considering how many batons were dropped Danny felt pretty good about not dropping his, even if his running wasn't among the fastest. He and Tucker were flopped on the ground after their dashes watching the girls. T'keisha was burning up the track with her long legs but the next girl in the relay took off running early and despite T'keisha's best efforts she could not get close enough to hand over the baton. She throw the baton down and started chewing out the other girl. Somehow Danny was not surprised that the other girl was Abigail Farley-Smythe-Hyde.
"What are the odds we'll see a cat-fight?" Tucker asked.
"Here comes Mrs. Doi," Danny answered.
"Who do you think would win? I think T'keisha could kick her butt. I'm mean she's all athletic and everything."
"T'keisha could kick your butt!" Danny said. "Little Miss Girl-in-White is about as much of a challenge to her as -- oh, the Box Ghost is to me."
"Yeah...she could kick my butt anytime..." Tucker mused.
"If you need any help with that butt kicking, I'm available evenings and weekends," Sam interrupted, squatting down beside her friends. "I can see you two are majorly disappointed that nothing is going to happen. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing Miss Farley-yadda-yagga with a black eye."
Seeing Danny stare in surprise at her, Sam quickly added. "I'm a vegetarian, not a pacifist."
Mrs. Doi seemed unable to resolve the two girl's issue. Eventually Dash came over and just ordered the girls to separate.
Potato sack race training didn't go well. Dash. for all his letterman jacket, didn't seemed able to coordinate both legs into a simple hopping gait. Finally, in disgust he ordered everyone to line up for tug-of-war. The group was divided into evenly matched groups of boys and girls and practiced how to plant their feet and tug in a coordinated manner.
Dash had just announced practice was over when Mrs. Doi called out that the girls didn't think the boys had been pulling their weight in the tug-of-war, and challenged them to a boys versus girls contest. Danny could see that some of the girls were as confused by this as he was. Dash shrugged his shoulders and cracked that maybe the girls ought to play over a mud puddle if they were so confident of winning. Mrs. Doi agreed but observed there were no mud puddles available and objected to dumping the camp's drinking water on the ground to make one.
"Alright, loser does KP tonight," Dash said.
Mrs. Doi gathers the girls together for a moment, then they took their positions along the rope. The boys picked up their end of the rope amid sneers and jeers.
The instant Dash blew his whistle to start the contest the boys gave a mighty jerk on the line. The girls in turn dropped the rope. The boys smashed into a heap on the ground. As they were slowly getting to their feet the girls picked up the rope and pulled it across their line. With a roll of his eyes Dash blew the whistle and declared the girls the winners.
"You know, for an old lady," Tucker observed, "she's got an evil mind."
After that Dash organized a soccer game for those who wanted to play. Mrs. Doi announced she would take a group on a nature hike, while still others just wanders down the well marked trail to the waterfall. Danny motioned for Sam and Tuck to join him with Mrs. Doi's group. "I'm not to big on this whole nature thing," Tucker was saying, "Outside of knowing how to avoid poison ivy I'll willing to give the whole thing a pass."
"Yeah, what's the deal," Sam asked Danny. "You've not a big fan of flora and fauna, either."
"We're going to look into that abandoned camp site," Danny explained. "If I've got my geography right its up over that way." He pointed slightly north of the trail Mrs. Doi was leading her group along. "Somewhere along here is an old trail leading to that camp. We find it and 'accidently' get separated from the group. We give the camp the once over and get back before supper."
"That's sounds simple enough" Tucker said.
"I know, too simple. Something is sure to go wrong." Sam retorted.
"What could possible go wrong?" Danny asked.
Danny was surprised to find himself more interested in Mrs. Doi walking lecture than he expected. Besides showing kids the wild Treeus Squirrelus, Mrs. Doi pointed to a soaring red eagle and how to distinguish it from the more common turkey buzzard. She could name any tree they came to and knew some interesting fact about them. That some ants collected pine sap to use as a disinfectant, and those that got trapped in the sap would become fossilized in what would become amber. That certain pine trees needed a forest fire to release their seeds. Most awesome of all was when she pointed to some imprints on the ground and announced that they were deer tracks. Danny's contact with the wild was largely limited to trips to the zoo and the occasional stray dog. The idea that an animal as large or larger than himself had just wandered by a hour ago or maybe even only five minutes ago was amazing. That someone could just look at the ground and say that deer had been here was almost superhuman.
It was almost with some disappointment that Tucker pointed through the leafy growth along the side of the trail to what was clearly another trail, now well overgrown with brush that split off from the trail they were one. Danny, looking around trying to match up the mountains in the background with the mountains he had seen around the abandoned campsite, agreed that this must be the right trail.
Danny stooped, pretending to retie his shoe while the other campers marched on by. They were just parting the branches to duck into the abandoned trail when someone spoke up behind them:
"Ditching Mrs. Doi's talk?"
They spun about and found Abigail Farley-Smythe-Hyde standing there, oversized backpack on her shoulders. She was wearing white shorts and a T-shirt, somewhat sweat stained under the arms. Her reddish hair was plastered on her forehead. Though she tried not to look like she had been running, clearing she had been trying hard to catch up with Danny, Sam and Tucker.
"Looking for the abandoned campsite?" she asked.
"No!" Danny instinctively denied.
"How do you know about the campsite?" Tucker asked, somewhat ruining the moment.
Abigail smirked. "I've got a map!"
"Where did you get a map?" Sam demanded.
"Had it faxed to me." Abigail said, waving a sheet a paper in the air. Tucker snatched it out of her hand and exclaimed with surprise, "This is a C.I.A. map!" One corner of the map had a small "CIA, 1951" printed on it. "Dude! You broke into the CIA's computer? You are so in trouble."
"Nah, I used my father's account. They have cooperative data sharing. It's all legit."
"You hacked your father's own computer!" Tucker said. "That can't be good."
"Oh, it was nothing. He uses a lousy password."
"Abigail?" Danny questioned.
"How did you - no, it wasn't 'Abigail!' "
"Bet it was," Tucker said.
Abigail scowled at him then stepped through the brush into the abandoned trail. "It's a couple miles up this road so we'd better hurry it we want to have a to look around before we have to get back to camp."
"No one invited you alone," Sam said crossly.
"But I've got the map."
"We already found it without you!"
"Ah -- look -- ah -- since we are all here now -- ah -- I guess we'll just have to do this together." Danny said. "It's not we'll have another time to do this."
"Fine," snapped Sam, "let's get this over with." She turned and stomped down the trail. Tucker looked at Danny questioningly, then hurried to catch up with Sam.
In the silent that bore in after they left Danny turned to Abigail and asked "Why are you here. Really? You said there were no ghosts here so why are you out ghost hunting? Why are you following me?"
"Obviously after last night's poltergeist experience I was wrong about there being no ghosts at Sleepy Hollow." Abigail said. They were walking down the overgrown trail now. Though there was the occasional low branch to push aside the trail was remarkably clear. Scruffing through the leaf mold on the ground Danny would kick up bits of old cinders, a thick layer of which had kept the forest from completely obliterating the path. "Weirdly the Guys in White site has no records of ghosts at this camp, so something is screwy about that. As for why I'm following you, it's not because of your good looks, if that what you're thinking."
Danny snorted.
"I figured that as the son of the great Jack Fenton, if anyone at this camp knew where this ghost is at it would be you."
"So how did you know to download that map?"
" 'Elementary, My dear Watson.' An abandoned campsite just cries out as the location for a haunting,"
"Mmph" Danny grunted. "Don't they have camps for Junior Guys in White or Girls in White or whatever?"
"I am not a Junior GIW and my father's occupation is strictly classified."
"If you don't want people to think your father's a Guy in White why do you always dress in white?"
"What's wrong with the way I'm dressed?"
Dimly Danny sensed that he was deep trouble. Not knowing why he proceeded to step in deeper. "I don't know, you just looked pretty in that green swim suit yesterday."
"What's that supposed to mean? You only like me when I'm half-naked? I bet you were one of the guys lined up last night to spy on us! You're a perv Danny Fenton, a real sick perv!"
"Hey, keep it down, people will hear! That's not what I mean."
"Then what did you mean. You don't like my bikini? You don't like looking at girls? Why am I even talking to you?" Abigail stormed ahead.
"Right about now I think I'd rather be fighting Technus. He talk your arm off but at least everything he said made sense. "Girls, do they ever become more understandable?"
He ran to catch up with Abigail. "Look all I meant was that wearing white all the time sort of says "I'm a Guy in White."
"Girl"
"What?"
"I'm a girl, not a man."
"But aren't female agents of the Guys in White still called Guys in white? And that thing about your bathing suit...It wasn't white and you sort of looked natural in it. But when you wear white, like this you look kind of bleached out, all red in the face."
"What about last night? What you were doing when all that happened?"
"I was trying to get Tuck back to the cabin before he got caught."
"So he was in line."
"Tucker was but I wasn't. Look there was some weird stuff going on last night. Look at how Tucker and that black girl, T'Keisha are getting on. Now why would he do something to hurt that? He's not that kind of guy. And Butterfly really went nuts. I don't think she's the kind of person who goes all crazy like that. I think the ghost, the poltergeist or whatever had something to do with it."
"So you're saying I should wear my bikini all the time because I look better in it?"
"What!"
"I'm teasing. I'm teasing. I get it, white -- unflattering. I do have non-white clothes in my wardrobe, if that will make you happy."
"How much farther to the camp?" Danny muttered.
"There you are!" Sam called some a short distance ahead. "Done making out with your girlfriend?"
"She'sHe's not my girlboyfriend!" Danny and Abigail protested in unison.
Even after fifty years the clearing was recognizable. Though trees were encroaching around the edges, the center was still relative clear. A circle of stones in the center, mostly buried in grasses now, defined the old fire pit. Three cabins were spread around the clearing. Paint-free and bleached a cardboard gray, they were surprising well intact. They were exactly like the cabins still in use down close to the lake: plain, boxy shapes mounted on short fieldstone pilings, with a pair a windows on each side wall, a porch across the front, chimney on the back wall, low gabled roof shingled with cedar shakes though most of the shingles had disappeared over time leaving the pine planking behind. The steps leading to the porch were fieldstone set in cement. They looked studier than the rest of the building. One building leaned dangerously to the left. A fourth, indicated mostly by the remaining fieldstone chimney had collapsed entirely. Like the site Danny's group had camped out, the clearing opened out into a wide view of the valley below. The view was spectacular. Bare stone rose for a twenty or thirty feet behind the cabins before disappearing in more forest. It had to have been something pretty extreme for such a lovely campsite to have been abandoned.
Tucker was gingerly prowling around the outsides of the cabins. Abigail, after fishing something out of her backpack had joined him. Danny was about to do the same when steely talons seized his shirt and dragged him back.
"What do you think you're doing?" Sam hissed.
"Huh?"
"Making out with her! She's the enemy, Danny."
"Sam, what are you going on about?"
"You're trying to date a girl who wants to kill you. Do you have some kind of death wish or something? This is like Valerie all over again!"
"This is nothing like Valerie..."
"It's exactly like Valerie, Danny!" Sam insisted. "She's a Girl in White..."
"That's her father, she's nothing like that."
"Danny, she dresses all in white and that's a Fenton Ghost Finder in her hand. Don't tell me she's not like her old man."
Danny squinted. It was hard to tell just what it was she was waving around, except that it did look like a Fenton Finder. He gulped and hoped it was still damaged enough to not pick him up.
Valerie had been a snooty rich girl in his class whose father ran a security consulting firm. His firm had gone bankrupt when a giant ghost dog, Cujo, had destroyed the facility Valerie's father had been hired to protect. Valerie blamed her sudden lose of wealth and prestige on Danny Phantom even though Danny had been trying to drag the huge dog back into the Ghost Zone. She somehow acquired a treasure load of high tech ghost fighting devices including a flying jetboard and took to sending all her free time, not that there was much of that since she was reducing to working two part-time jobs to help make ends meet, trying to kill Danny. Danny could have dealt with that, since there were lots of ghosts already trying to kill him, but a horrid health class project had forced them to work together and they had become friends. They even dated for a time despite Valerie stilling trying to kill him at night.
In hindsight it was easy to see that dating Valerie was a bad idea, a very bad idea, but in the moment it had seemed like exactly the right thing to do. It felt really nice to have a girlfriend. It felt almost better than life itself. It had hurt to discover that one of his enemies had been pushing them into that relationship, hurt to realize that he had been so desperate, so needy for something he didn't even realize he wanted at the time. Danny hated that Sam was throwing Valerie in his face like this, not because she was wrong, but because she was probably right.
Sam was still going on as Danny reflected, "...Get your eyes out of the clouds and think! The minute she finds out you're a ghost she'll have you stuff and mounted in some government lab."
"I'm not trying to date her!" Danny responded angrily. " I don't like her and I didn't invite her here. If you had some idea of how to get rid of her you should have brought it up before we got here!" Danny paused, took a breath and tried to calm himself. "Sam, what's got into you? It's almost like your jealous or something."
"Jealous? Of what? -- Danny. I'm your friend and all I'm saying is that you've got a secret, a big secret that could get you killed if people found out. You've got to be careful who you hang around with. I don't want you to get hurt."
"I'm a big boy. I can take care of myself."
"Do," Sam said, turning away and walking off a ways towards the edge of the clearing. Faintly Danny could hear her continue, "because I hate going to funerals"
Danny joined Tucker and Abigail. Abigail was waving the Fenton Finder around but it didn't seem to be registering anything, or rather it emitted the same low buzz no matter where she pointed it, even at Danny. At first that was a relief for Danny but them he got wondering what it was picking up if it wasn't picking up him.
"Weird," she grumbled as she shut down the machine and put it in her backpack. She pulled out a cannister of Fenton Specter-Off and began spraying her arms and legs with it. Overspray drifted his way causing his skin to contract in unpleasant shudders. Just standing close to her was making him feel ill. His mother had invented the spray-on ghost repellent and true to form it was much more effective than anything his father built. It was because he was only half-ghost that he wasn't running screaming from the place.
"From the way that Fenton Finder was acting," Abigail said, "you would almost think the camp ghost was all around us."
"Yeah, most ghost are very localized anthropomorphic manifestions."
"Really?" Abigail asked, looking at him suspiciously. "And just how many ghosts have you seen?"
"That was just in some notes Danny's father wrote up once," Tucker slide in while Danny was still stammering. "Mister Fenton is very diligent about keeping us away from any ghosts or spectral dangers." Tucker flashed her a guileless smile.
"Yeah," that's what my Dad's reports say, too. Anthro -- whatever. It's almost like they're beings from another dimension instead of spiritual energy. So, are we going to go into one of these cabins? They may be some clue to the ghosts location or identity there."
"May as well, there doesn't seem like there's anything out here that looks like a clue." Tucker said. "Say, why is Sam pouting over there?"
Danny shrugged his shoulders.
"Hey, Sam," Tucker called, "We're going in, come along!" Sam Manson slowly joined them. They mounted the stone steps of the left most cabin. It seemed most intact, least likely to collapse on them while they were inside. At the door Danny held them back and said "I'll go first."
He knew that if the ghost was inside he was the only one who could fight it, but would have to 'Go Ghost' to do so. He didn't want Abigail to see that,
The door was closed but not locked. He half closed it behind him. The cabin was bare, simple and stark. It was about 24 by 36 feet in size, a single room lacking any furnishing except the stone fireplace at the far end and small piles of leaves in the corners where wind from the broken windows had swept them. Yet the instant he had crossed the threshold there had come a sense of ominous dread.
He looked around the floor at his feet, turned around and looked behind him. There was nothing to see, yet the sense of dread remained. He noticed that his breath had turned to blue smoke. Clearly a ghost was here, but where...
Danny looked up towards the ceiling. Like the cabins down below there was no ceiling, just the exposed stringers running from side to side turning the rafters into load-bearing triangles. Through the stringers he could see to the rafters and planking the covered the roof. It seemed oddly clean after fifty years of abandonment.
Danny looked back down, toward the fireplace, then gasped. Hanging in the middle of the roof, hanging from a stringer that a moment before had been bare was a very real and distinct rope noose. It swayed back and forth slowly as if supporting a heavy weight. Icy fingers crawled up and down Danny's spine. He slowly backed out of the cabin.
"What did you see?" Tucker demanded as soon as he back on the porch.
"Don't go in," was all Danny could say. "It's... it's...it's..."
"Faugh!" Abigail snorted and pushed open the door. She stepped through and for a heart-beat of two all was quiet. Then she screamed, loud, shrill, endlessly until there was no more breath for screaming.
Her screams galvanized Danny. With a shake he turned into Danny Phantom and flew through the door. He saw Abigail kneeling on the floor, screaming silently, the noose swaying above her. Great, burning eyes stared at her through the circle of the noose and winds were starting to kick up the trash in the room. Danny grabbed Abigail and flew up through the roof. He landed at the start of the trail and set her down. She was staring with unblinking eyes at some unseen horror.
He turned back to see Tucker and Sam entering the cabin.
"No!" he screamed and rocketed through the air to stop them. He burst through the door, physically this time as it had swung shut to keep him out. The crashing door knocked Sam off her feet and sent Tuckering spinning into a corner. Danny had a huge glob of ectoplasmic energy to fire at whatever ghost was there but found himself frozen by the sight of a body swinging from the noose. The body of a young man, of about his age, dressed in old fashioned clothes, feet hanging freely several inches off the floor. A ghostly chair lay overturned on the floor behind the apparition. But the was no head, only fiercely burning eyes where a head should be.
"Go away!" Danny finally screamed, hurling the ball of ectoplasm at the headless horror. The glowing energy seemed to splatter on the ghost causing it to waver like looking at a distant object through the shimmer of heat waves. Danny fired some more bolts of energy, seeming to score direct hits but not affecting the specter in any way. He turned and grabbed Sam who was climbing to her feet, flew towards Tucker, grabbed his hand and dematerialized them through the wall of the cabin.
He flew back to the trail head where he had left Abigail. As he sat Sam and Tuck down he realized that Abigail was no longer there, just her backpack. He didn't have time to worry about that. Danny flew back to the cabin ready to once again battle the camp ghost. But even as he barraged through the door he sensed that the ghost had gone away as suddenly as it had appeared. He flew up through the roof and circled high over the cabin but could not detect any presence of the ghost. Spiraling around the ground in ever wider loops he did spy Abigail's white-ckad form crashing through the undergrowth as she ran down the trail back to their camp. At least she was safe, he thought.
Danny flew back to his friends who were warily looking around for any sign of trouble. Sam's normally Goth-pale face looked like glossy white paper, Tucker's brown skin looked a sickly yellow.
"Are you guys all right?" he asked as he lit beside them and changed back to Danny Fenton.
"...And I thought Fright Knight was scary," Sam grumbled. "Where's little Miss I'm-not-ghost-hunter?"
"It's not funny. I caught a glimpse of her running back to camp. I think we can assume that the Guys in White will be here by nightfall. But what about you, are you guys all right?"
"I got hit by a door, thank you very much." Sam said. "I'm sorry Danny, I shouldn't snapped. Thanks for getting us out of there. It's just that -- man, that door hurt. But other than that I seem to be fine. What about you, Tucker?"
Tucker was looking at his hands. "My hands are shaking," he said quietly. "Their was literally shaking. I didn't think that really happened... oh, I gotta sit down."
Danny caught his friend as he fell and eased him to the ground. Tucker sat there with his head between his knees. After a bit he said, "I don't think anything happened to us. There was just this great sense of fear and horror and stuff."
"What did you see?" Danny asked.
"What did you see?" Tuck replied.
"You first."
"All I can remember is seeing a pair of great big eyes," Sam volunteered. "They were glowing with unimaginable hate."
"Anything else? An arm, a leg, a piece of clothing?" Danny prompted
"No, just the eyes. Tucker, what about you?"
"I saw the eyes, alright. They kind of like swallowed you up. But I thought I saw a chair or a table or maybe it was an iPod behind the eyes. But it's all kind of vague now."
"An iPod?" Sam wondered.
"It was a thing. I remember were was a 'thing' behind the eyes but that's all." A note of consternation crossed Tucker's eyes and he quickly felt through all his pockets before pulling out his PDA. "Oh, thank god," he breathed. "It wasn't you I saw in that room." He hugged it to his face in a manner that would have been creepy if his friends weren't so used to it.
"So what did you see?" Sam demanded.
"I saw -- the eyes. But they were in the middle of a ghostly noose hanging from the rafters in the middle of the room. That's when I backed out of the cabin."
"A suicide?"
"I'm thinking." Danny agreed. When I went in to get Abigail the ghost had materialized to a full body, hanging from the noose -- but there was no head! Just the flaming eyes. When I came to get you two it seemed a little more solid and my best energy blasts were like lobbing marshmallows at it. And then it was gone. It's like on Monday. It gave me the more horrendous fright and seemed invulnerable to my blasts and then suddenly it's gone and it's like it was never there."
"If we're going to fight this thing and have any chance of beating it we're going to have to know a lot more about it," Sam said. "Danny, you may have to talk to your father..."
"I think I'd rather let the Guys in White sort it out."
"He's got a point, Tucker chipped in. "Since The G.I.W. are going to be here anyway let's let them take care of this. I mean your Dad means well and I don't mean this disrespectfully, but I was kind of hoping this would be a vacation from your parents as well."
"I think it's a big mistake not calling in your dad but we can always save that for in case the Guys In White can't do anything."
"Yeah, let's call that the nuclear option," Tucker said.
"We'd better get back to camp."
When they got back to the camp Danny waited until Sam had left before he sought out Abigail's tent to return her backpack. He found her laying on her bedroll in her tent, staring fixedly into the darkness.
"Hey, how're you doing?" Danny asked. "You dropped this. I thought I'd bring it back." He held up her backpack.
"Hey, where did you get that," she cried out in alarm. "That's mine; give it to me."
"Yeah, sure." Danny answered, confused.. "I was bringing it to you... Don't you remember us going to that abandoned campsite this afternoon?"
She looked at him blankly for a moment, then said: "Oh, yeah, that old place."
"We saw the ghost there, remember? You had a panic attack or something and -- ah -- left early, and forgot your backpack..."
"There was no ghost there."
"Of course there was. It was hanging from a noose in the middle of the cabin. It had great big, glowing eyes. You screamed like I'd never heard before. Don't you remember that? You screamed so loud I'm surprised you can talk now. Don't you remember anything?"
She looked at him like he was crazy. But slowly her brows furled "I remember ...eyes..." she whispered. "They were very scary, I think. Yeah, they must have been that Danny Phantom guy who attacked Butterfly last night."
"I thought he was the one trying to save Butterfly from the camp ghost."
"There is no camp ghost."
"Abigail you saw it today! We were all there. We all saw it."
"Fenton, you're as crazy as your father."
"Leave my father out of this!" Danny snapped. What about your father, are you calling him in?"
"Why should I?"
"Because of the camp ghost."
"There's no camp ghost."
"Abigail. You were there. It attacked you. How can you forget that?" When she continued to look at him blankly he added, "The eyes, remember the eyes"
She frowned. "The eyes... They were...cold...scary..."
"Then you remember the eyes?" Danny asked hopefully.
She looked up and shook her head. "Thanks for bringing my knapsack back, but you'll excuse me, I want to get a little nap before supper." She turned away and pulled a blanket over her head.