And here's chapter number two. If it wasn't obvious from the first chapter, this entire fic is based off of Edgar Allen Poe's Bells. I really enjoy that poem, but I couldn't figure out an appropriate one-shot for it. Then this happened. It's unconventional, and an obvious deviation from the norm, but I enjoyed writing it (however rushed it may be). I hope you enjoy reading it now, 'cause you'll love reading it when I finally get around to editing it! Until then, enjoy!

Silver Bells

Sam sat up straight in her bed, screaming at the top of her lungs. Her hands clawed at her bedspread, struggling to find purchase where it wasn't needed. Her hair clung to her face with sweat, and she panted heavily after she managed to quiet herself down. Fortunately, there was no one around to hear her since her parents were away on a business trip. She didn't have to worry about anyone knocking down her door trying to figure out what her scream was about.

Even Sam didn't know why she screamed. As far as she knew, she wasn't even dreaming. Before she had the chance to recall anything from before, her cell phone rang with Jazz's tone. Flipping it open, she choked out a breathless hello.

"Sam!" Jazz shrieked, catching the goth by surprise and further waking her. "We're in trouble! Big trouble!"

"What?" Sam asked, getting a little panicked herself. "What trouble? Jazz, what happened?"

"That's just it! I don't know! One minute Danny and I are patrolling the town, and the next he just collapses! It's like he's choking on something, he turned human without warning, he's turning blue, oh, God-" Jazz began to hyperventilate and Sam couldn't take it anymore.

"JAZZ!" she shouted, effectively startling the other girl into blessed silence. Jazz was usually the calm one when it came to emergencies, but even though ghost hunts left her a little more riled than usual, it was never like this. Sam took a deep breath and spoke firmly.

"Jazz," she said again, "Calm down. Panicking won't help Danny." Putting focus on the problem made Sam's heart pound. Even as she worked to calm Jazz down, she began to get dressed. "Now, what is happening right now?"

"... Hold on a moment."

"'Hold on a moment'? Jazz, what in the world-?" But the older girl didn't answer. Sam cursed and had nearly ripped her coat getting it off the hanger when Jazz spoke again.

"Danny's fine now," she said simply, almost cheerily, and Sam stared at the phone in disbelief. Placing the phone back to her ear, she wasted no time in putting that disbelief in her voice.

"What do you mean 'Danny's fine now'? You called me at..." Sam looked at her alarm clock for the first time that evening. "At 2:17 in the morning and put me in a frenzy about Danny choking on nothing and you turn around and tell me 'Danny's fine now'?"

Jazz sucked in a breath to speak, but Sam cut her off. "If you say anything about me not needing to worry, I will hurt you." Jazz remained silent. "I'm already dressed now," Sam continued, "So I may as well see if you're alright. Where are you?"

Jazz stayed silent before grudgingly muttering, "In front of the mall."

"Okay then. I'll see you in fifteen." And with that, the goth hung up the phone. Sam stood there for several more minutes, stewing in the utter confusion of the human mind before stepping out of the house while dialing Tucker's number.

She heard him answer while she was putting on her helmet and boarding her moped. "Sam?" he said sleepily. "Why are you-?"

"No time," Sam said quickly, starting up the vehicle. "I have a feeling that Jazz and Danny will need some help patrolling tonight."

"Oh, really?" His voice was thick with annoyance. "And why is that?"

"Because Jazz just called to tell me that Danny was choking on absolutely nothing-"

"What!"

"And then she turned right around and said Danny's fine," she finished, and felt Tucker's confusion through his pause.

"Um..." was all he said, while Sam swung her moped out into the street and onto the path to the mall. He cleared his throat. "That's... what?"

"Exactly," said Sam, appreciating his response. "So there's either a ghost making Jazz extremely confused right now, or she's just really tired. Wanna get out here and help?"

"Uh, yeah, sure. Um..." he paused again for a moment. "Where is everybody?"

Sam answered even as she weaved around the late traffic. "At the mall. I'm already headed there now."

"Okay. I'll see you in a few, then."

"See ya," she said, and they both hung up. The next few minutes were uneventful for Sam, with half of her attention on dodging traffic and the other half on wondering just what had gotten into Jazz. She quickly pulled into the mall's parking lot, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. And she didn't see Jazz and Danny either.

"Jazz!" she called, pulling off her helmet and looking around. The area was completely silent. She cupped her hands to her mouth. "Danny! Jazz? Where are you?"

She wandered the parking lot, taking everything in. The building was still decorated with the bazaar festival from that day, and while it looked cheery and welcoming in the daylight, at night it looked vaguely haunting with the banners swinging in the wind and the baubles bathed in a strange orange glow from the parking lot street lights. In the distance, Sam could see Jazz's scooter parked and abandoned, with neither of the Fenton siblings in sight.

It had to have been a half-hour later that Sam's voice grew too sore to call out anymore. She sat on a bench a long ways away from her moped, rubbing her throat and still looking around herself as if hoping for one or the other to suddenly show up out of nowhere. Of course, they were still out of sight.

"Where could they have gone?" the girl murmured to herself. Desperate and curious, she pulled out her phone and dialed Jazz's number. Maybe I'd misheard where she said she was... Sam thought as the phone rang. That's when she heard it - Jazz's cell phone ringing with the younger girl's tone. Sam jumped in surprise - it wasn't too far away at all. Sam narrowed her eyes and focused on her hearing until she pinpointed the sound to one of the abandoned outside shopping stands. She followed the sound, walked up to the stand, peered around the other side -

And screamed.

Jazz lay face down in a pool of her own blood. Her head was literally split apart; from ear to ear was a large gash that stretched over her head and tore the front of her head from the back and continued to bleed freely. The elder girl's expression was frozen in a wide, slightly insane grin with eyes that would've sparkled if they still saw. But even with Jazz's happy expression, it still gave a faint, nearly hidden impression of complete and torturous pain.

Sam's legs gave out from underneath her and she scrambled away from the corpse, her hand covering her expression of horror. She couldn't bring herself to look away from the sight.

Suddenly, just as abruptly as the sight of Jazz's body was, Sam heard a giggling sound. It was so out of place with the situation that Sam immediately began to look around for the source. What she saw startled her.

There was a pale young girl sitting right next to her. She had a large smile on her face that could be considered innocent, but there was a gleam in her pitch black eyes that screamed insanity. She giggled again, saying, "That look on your face is hilarious. You don't often see your friends with their heads split in half, do you?"

Sam couldn't answer. She slowly began to realize that this girl - this ghost - was the one who had killed Jazz. The girl stood up and began to walk around idly. "It's a shame, really. She was so much fun to play with. Her emotions had such a wide range. I could make her cry at the drop of a hat, laugh at nothing at all, overreact with panic and lose her head... Oh, well. She was gonna die, anyway. Just like the black boy and the half-ghost. I made the black boy kill himself and the halfa..." She giggled again. "Watching my necklace cleave his head off was very satisfying."

Sam gave a start. Tucker and Danny...? They were...? "W-why?" she whimpered, unable to hold in her tears.

The girl stopped walking and looked Sam straight in the eye. "They had my bells." Sam noticed for the first time the golden bells hanging behind her left ear, the brass bell on her arm, and the iron bells around her neck. They were all stained with blood. "And you're the one that took them."

Sam's heart stopped and the girl smirked as she correctly interpreted the goth's expression. "Yep. These are all my bells. I wanted them back. And of course you all have to die for taking them. I mean, I shed my blood for them. Why not you?"

Without any warning, Sam's hand - same one with the bell bracelet - reached out toward the the shop stand of its own accord and tore off a piece of wood. Without giving her the chance to struggle with her wayward hand or marvel at strength that was not her own, the hand positioned the stake directly above her heart. Sam turned a fearful gaze back and forth between her own wrist and the ghost girl, her tears overflowing.

The girl gave one last giggle before saying, "Thanks for giving me my bells back. Hope you have a painful afterlife!"

And before Sam could even suck in a breath to scream, the silver bells jingled with the quick movement it took to thrust the stake forward.