Green Eyes on the Prize
byline: Anubis C. Soundwave
3. I'd rather blame God.
Dash drags the last cooler, filled with rainwater, to the steps of the porch. He and Sam, both drenched to the bone, sit on the steps.
Shane hollers with glee. "Now I can do some waterin'!" he crows.
"If I die of pnuemonia, Shane," sputters Dash, taking off his shirt, "I'm going to haunt this farm for all eternity."
"That'd be real nice of you, Dash," says Shane. "Now wring out your shirt in the cooler. I don't want to waste a drop."
"You're insane. You do realize this, right?" scowls Sam.
"You two did fine," says Shane, obstinate.
"You had us on top of a moving SUV in the middle of a raging thunderstorm!" shrieks Sam.
"A storm which shut off like a light the second we drove into town," says Shane. "So if I'm a bit nuts," he adds, noting the cumulonimbus clouds coasting overhead, "it's because of the damned weather."
"Hot, humid, and sticky," says Dash, stripping to his briefs, "but it never rains." He wrings water out of his soaked clothes into the cooler.
"Red Fruit of the Loom briefs, Dash?" snorts Sam, wringing water out of her hair into another cooler.
"You know I'm hot, Manson," quips Dash.
"The humidity's getting to your brain that quick, Dash?" asks Shane.
Dash scowls at Shane.
"Get inside, but take off your shorts before you go," says Shane.
Dash rolls his eyes as he complies, tossing his briefs to Shane.
Sam shuts her eyes. "Are you going to wring out your cousin's Underoos, too?" she asks.
"Won't hurt," says Shane, catching Dash's briefs.
"And I guess I'll be naked too," continues Sam.
Shane nods, turning his back to Sam.
"Dash will never have room to call the Fenton family weird ever again," Sam mutters as she slips off her clothes, then wrings the water out into her cooler.
"Damn," smirks Jackie. "I haven't tired you out yet?"
"Shut the fuck up," spits Jack, exhausted as he downs a shot of bourbon.
"You been a Yankee too long," Jackie snorts. "Don't even know how to drink a good bourbon properly."
"Dad!" cries Danny from outside Barrineau Plantation. "If you need help, Tucker and I are right here!"
"Right there," roars Jack, "is where you're going to stay! And you're grounded when we get home!"
"Fair enough!" Danny shoots back. "My job as your son is to make sure we all get home, you big dumbass!"
"I'd say Danny's a stubborn bastard," mutters Jack, smiling, "but he's my kid."
"Sure as hell came by it proper, didn't he?" says Jackie.
"Yeah," says Jack, "because he, first and foremost, is a Fenton." He picks up an anti-ghost rifle. "And I won't let you and your sins sully our good name."
"Whoo! Here we go again," says Jackie as he dodges Jack's laser fire.
"We're going to have to pull your dad out of there before Jackie breaks him, Danny," says Tucker as Danny phases them both inside a room in Mary Jane Foley's house.
A tall, lanky teen wearing a green basketball jersey, T-shirt, and khaki cargo shorts, enters the room; the teenager stares wide-eyed at Tucker and Danny, the pair not noticing the teenager.
"If I come as myself, Dad won't budge," says Danny, as the Phantom. "If I come as the Phantom," he continues, reverting to normal, "then he's just as likely to slug me with the Gauntlets as Jackie Barrineau. Dad isn't thinking clearly."
"If we can weaken Jackie's hold over Barrineau Plantation-*" begins Tucker, only to be interrupted...
...by the teenager. "T-the fuck, Tucker!? What the fuck!?" he sputters.
Tucker and Danny both note the teenager.
"Shit! He saw me change...?" spits Danny.
"Virgil, chill out," hisses Tucker to the teenager. "We're cool, man."
"No, no! You don't get it!" shrieks Virgil. "I'm callin' Grandmama. Grandma-*"
Tucker and Danny clamp their hands over Virgil's mouth.
"Shut up!" scowls Tucker. "Shut up and calm down!"
"How the fuck am I gonna calm down!?" says Virgil, his voice muffled beneath Tucker and Danny's hands.
"Because if you don't, I'll overshadow you," says Danny quietly, glaring as his eyes glow green. "I'm not fucking around."
"Look, dude," spits Virgil as he tries to regain his calm. "How you fixin' to stop Jackie when you've got the dude's powers? Bad enough that you kin to him!"
"I...have his powers?" wonders Danny.
Virgil sighs. "I guess I'll have to explain," he says. "Y'all meet me at the lake by Barrineau Plantation tomorrow night. Now get the fuck out my room. I need some sleep."
"Don't mention any of this," says Danny. "Please."
"I ain't sayin' shit. Just be there tomorrow," says Virgil, scowling.
"Now do you feel me, dude?" asks Virgil. "Ol' Jackie was baptized and ostensibly filled with the Holy Ghost in this lake when he was fourteen."
"The lake that some earlier Barrineau created over an abandoned Cherokee burial ground," says Danny, down on his haunches as he touches the lake with his finger, "which means that souls are trying to rest here." Danny gazes at the eerie glow, brightest at the tip of his finger where his aura and the lake touch.
"But Danny didn't get his powers from Jackie Barrineau," says Tucker. "I don't think it's possible to inherit being a halfa."
"It skipped too many generations to be passable from parent to child," adds Danny. "Besides," he continues, "of the three halfas I know about, only one of them was intentional. The other two, including me, were total accidents."
"It's just too coincidental, though," says Virgil. "Ol' Jackie had ghost powers when he was livin', and so do you. Jackie Barrineau and your daddy could've been twins. You feelin' me yet?"
"It's true that from where you sit," says Danny, "I'm a blood descendant of that bastard out there tormenting my dad. But so are Tucker and Valerie-to say nothing of my dad, yet they don't have any ghost powers to speak of."
"How have you used your powers?" asks Virgil.
Tucker glares at Virgil.
"No, Tuck," says Danny, rising to his feet, "it's a fair question. Though I will cop to slipping into places where girls are in various states of undress, and maybe pranking an asshole at my school when he's pushed me too far," he says to Virgil, "for the most part, I've used my powers to protect people from ghosts of all kinds-especially from ghosts like Jackie Barrineau."
"So you're some kind of superhero," says Virgil.
"I guess," says Danny. "Right now, though," he continues, "I just want to help my dad. He's going to crack."
"Dude," says Virgil tersely, "this ain't just about your daddy. Other people have already started to crack."
Danny studies Virgil.
"There ain't been no fuckin' rain in this part of the Deep South since Ol' Jackie burnt his plantation down towards the end of the Civil War," says Virgil.
"Why is that important?" asks Danny.
"People are losing hope," says Virgil. "Pretty soon, everybody will leave here, and this place will become a ghost town."
"Like other ghost towns throughout the United States," says Danny. "Towns...shut down."
"Come on, man!" spits Virgil. "Oglethorpe Springs will become a literal ghost town if your daddy fucks up," he seethes, "and Jackie Barrineau will win, whippin' on the souls of my ancestral kin for all eternity-just as he did during life, with powers like yours."
"My powers aren't evil," says Danny, sullen.
"Neither are hammers, or knives, or guns," says Virgil, "but in the hands of an evil man, any tool can bring hell on earth."
Danny touches his chin.
"Can you imagine a plantation owner with your powers?" asks Virgil, trembling. "Spying on people without being seen, appearing and disappearing wherever he wants; being able to fly, or phase his hand in some dude's chest and pull out his heart like fuckin' Sub-Zero in Mortal Kombat!?"
"That's...pretty gruesome," says Danny, at a loss for words.
"That was the living nightmare for every slave at Barrineau Plantation," says Virgil. "I want you to think about that." He leaves Danny and Tucker at the lake.
Jack, sitting against the FFAV, glares down at an empty glass of bourbon.
Bethea and Damon walk up.
"Are you ready for our help yet, Mr. Fenton?" asks Bethea.
"Please call me Jack," says Jack, "and no, thank you. I'm ninety-eight point nine percent certain that you've had numerous prayer circles and old-fashioned church revivals, with all of the resulting spiritual energy directed towards futile attempts to drive Barrineau out. He won't budge. I've thrown just about every anti-ghost weapon in my arsenal at Jackie...with the same shit results."
"That's because we need to pull together," says Bethea, "combine our powers to defeat him. Ol' Jackie's roots are set deep, but-*"
"But what? The same results?" spits Jack, surly. "This isn't an episode of Captain Planet-the power is not ours! Why should I allow you to endanger yourselves on my behalf?" he asks.
"We're not doing this on your behalf, Jack," says Damon. "I'm doing this for my daughter, who deserves a good night's sleep without having to wear a Specter Deflector."
"You threw Axion at that bastard, Damon," counters Jack, "and you got fired for it."
"Only to be rehired because DALV bought Axion out," grins Damon, "and the new CEO has authorized me to throw Axion at Jackie again."
"And what are the results?" asks Jack.
"The same, except with dead Axion operatives," says Damon, losing his smile.
Jack grins ruefully. "Jackie had their corpses playing 'Ring Around the Rosie'," he says. "He's like a sick-in-the-head kid zapping ants with a magnifying glass."
Damon and Bethea study Jack.
"I've fought all manner of ghosts over the years, usually with Maddie, sometimes with the kids-mostly for moral support," continues Jack. "So you're likely wondering why Maddie and Jazz aren't here, and why Danny will be grounded until he's forty when we get home."
Damon chuckles. "I know that feeling," he says.
"I'm fighting alone," Jack says, "because I'm trying to fathom how to fight something so damned evil that it affects the climate of an entire town. I will not expose my family to a ghost as warped and twisted as Jackie Barrineau."
"But just by sharing blood ties with him," says Bethea, "your family is already exposed."
"I know," says Jack. "Danny's at a vulnerable stage of his life," he continues. "He's confused and unsure of himself, and he's seeking guidance."
Damon nods, understanding in his eyes.
"Right now, the only male role models he has are: my best friend Vlad, who harbors an unyielding lust for my wife which has persisted since college," continues Jack, "and myself: a guy who doesn't know a damned thing about being a male role model because when I was Danny's age, my sole role model at that time blew his fucking brains out due to being even more confused than I was."
"Jack..." Bethea gasps.
"I've been this big, goofy disappointment to Danny for as long as he's known me," says Jack. "I...I accidentally ran over a stray puppy Danny was secretly trying to make his pet with the FFAV when he was seven-but if it hadn't been for that puppy, I would have killed Danny. I...don't even know why Danny would bother trying to save me."
"Because you're Danny's father," says Damon, "and he knows that you love him."
"And he loves you too," adds Bethea.
"I'm...not the father he wants," sighs Jack.
"But you think Jackie is?" asks Damon.
"What I think," says Jack, "is that Jackie would not frighten Danny. He looks like me, and sounds like me if I had a Southern twang to my voice. That's why I stopped bringing Danny here when he was little..." Jack shuts his eyes, tense as he recalls the memory.
"What are you wearing, Dad!?" giggled Danny. "You're dressed even funnier than usual."
"You think I look funny, boy?" asked the man, looking down kindly on Danny.
"You look like Colonel Sanders in a pink-orange suit!" chortled Danny.
"This suit color is salmon, young 'un," countered the man, preening in his suit.
Danny bit into a peach with relish. "You're dressed funny, you're talking funny...Dad, you're just funny," he said, peach juice trickling down his chin.
"You think I'm your daddy, boy?" asked the man, amused.
"Of course you are!" laughed Danny. He took another bite of his peach.
"Do you believe in the Lord, Danny?" asked the man.
Danny's eyes widened. "You mean God?" he asked.
The man nodded.
Danny shook his head. "There's no empirical evidence," he said, "and Mom always says that you shouldn't believe in things without evidence. You know that!"
"That's right, boy," grinned the man. "I guess I do. I'll show you some hard evidence," he continued, "and I'll make a believer out of you." He pulled out a small cross pendant, then took Danny's hand and headed towards a nearby lake.
Jack rushed up to Danny and the man; he snatched Danny up into his arms. "Where do you think you're taking my son!?" he seethed.
The man grinned.
Danny blinked, dropping his half-eaten peach in shock. "Dad!?" he said, staring at Jack in his familiar hazmat suit and the man in his salmon suit. "Is he your twin brother?"
"No," said Jack, holding Danny tightly in one arm.
"He said that he was going to show me empirical proof of God," said Danny.
"I didn't mean no harm, Little Jack," said the man. "I just wanted to save your boy's soul from the pits of hell."
"I would never entrust my son's soul to the likes of you," said Jack tersely.
"Dad," said Danny, wriggling in Jack's grip, "you're crushing me."
Jack set Danny down. "Sorry, son," he said. "The man was just teasing you. We're going home now."
"Okay!" said Danny. He noted the peach on the ground. "Will we come back for more peaches?" he asked. "They're yummy."
"Who knows?" said Jack, smiling. "Right now, I'm just thinking about your mom's homemade brownies."
"Brownies!" Danny ran towards the FFAV.
Jack turned to the man, fixing an icy glare at him.
"The boy likes peaches," grinned the man, licking his lips. "We all do, don't we?"
Jack trembles.
"You got that woman attached to you, too, Jack-boy," the man continues, "and that tender li'l gal of yours."
"Do you really think," glowered Jack, "that I'll let you run roughshod over my family!?"
The man laughed. "Boy, you done plumb forgot!" he hooted. "We are family."
"Then I plan on pruning this sick part of my family tree real soon," Jack sneered. He turned and left, switching on a belt device.
The man charged at Jack and dove at the ghost hunter, only to be knocked back flat by an energy field.
Jack smirked. "Maddie will be happy to know this anti-spectral deflection field generator works," he said as he approached the FFAV.
"Don't mistake the funk I'm in," Jack says to Damon, "for surrender. Barrineau will have to kill my soul for me to allow any harm to come to my family. They're all I've got."
"Then let us help you," says Bethea.
"You want to help me?" says Jack, an obstinate scowl on his face. "Take. Danny. Home."
Damon and Bethea stare at Jack.
"I'm doing all of this crap to protect my family," spits Jack, "and I want them all at home, where I know they'll be safe, so that I can focus on work. So, please: take Danny home!"
Bethea sighs, then walks away, shaking his head.
Damon sighs. "That son of yours is stubborn," he says. "It's why he and Valerie were able to learn to get along."
Jack rolls his eyes.
"I was trying to avoid that particular topic," says Damon with a wry grin.
"It's amusing how they still think we never figured it out," says Jack, returning the grin. The smile falters as he studies Damon.
"I know. You're confused about why I brought Valerie here," says Damon. "The truth is," he sighs, "sometimes the kids end up being strong enough to protect us."
"Even from the monsters we created?" asks Jack.
"Especially from our own monsters," says Damon. "You know Bethea's number and mine. We're waiting." Damon leaves.
Danny trembles, shivering as his ghost sense triggers. "S-so...many," he says, subdued as he looks toward the peach orchard, dropping to his knees. "They're everywhere. I can hear them all...crying out over there. So much pain..."
"That out there," says Tucker, placing his hand on Danny's shoulder, "isn't your fault."
"My family inherited a plantation," says Danny, "soaked with the blood of your ancestors."
Tucker gently taps Danny's forehead with his fist. "Dude, the whole country is soaked with the blood of my ancestors-and everybody else's. We can't afford to pay for the sins of our fathers," he continues, "or we'd never be able to handle our own."
"I know that logically, presupposing the existence of sin," says Danny. "I can definitely grok why people believed in the devil back then though," he adds, "if an evil bastard like Jackie Barrineau walked the earth. I'm still skeptical of God, though."
"Why?" wonders Tucker.
"For the same reason," glowers Danny as he stands. "If he existed," he continues, "then where was he when all of these people clearly needed his almighty help? One good freak lightning bolt would have been nice, or he could have turned my cock-sucking maternal ancestor into a pillar of salt."
"We would never have been born," counters Tucker. "Your dad would never have been born. We would never have become friends in kindergarten," he muses, "and you wouldn't be here to stop him now."
"If his divine master plan to destroy the soul of one evil man required so many innocent people to suffer," scowls Danny, "then I'd say that God's evil."
"That's the easy answer, Danny," says Tucker. "Whether God exists or not," he continues, "the fact is that humanity is what it is: capable of unspeakable evil, or incredible good."
"...I'd rather blame God," says Danny. "I'm sick of shitting on the human race-whether we deserve it or not."
NEXT: What are you, when you're afraid of the dark?