This is the last installment of Haunted Hayride! Thanks for reading and sticking with me after my hiatus. I really appreciate everyone who takes the time to review, it's so fun reading your comments!

This will be the last update for June, but I hope to get you guys the beginning of the next arc in July.

I promise this won't be another long absence. Stay tuned!

Let me know what you think of the end of the Haunted Hayride arc! (I know it ends on a cliffhanger, but this conflict will be revisited and resolved in another arc)

-Song

Sam had been handing out caramel apples to a group of kids just after Danny and Tucker had made it to the cornfield. It had taken all night for Mrs. Breckerman to coat enough apples to feed everyone, and this was the last batch. She'd been smiling at a little Gwen Stacey in her spider-girl costume, who was trying to explain all of her superpowers.

"You know," she'd said, "my best friend also has superpowers."

"Like for real?"

Sam smiled. "Yeah, for real."

"Can I meet them?"

Sam laughed. "Someday maybe!"

Everything had been going well. That is until the screaming started.

Sam looked up fast as the first few volunteers made their way out of the trees. A few students from Casper High and some adults in their scariest costumes raced out, shouting, "Fire! Help! Someone call 911!"

The little Gwen Stacey's eyes got huge, and she ran back to her mother without her caramel apple. Sam ushered all the little children back to their parents and then started running for the forest.

Danny and Tucker were in there.

She couldn't sit by and do nothing.

But Danny can go ghost, she thought, abruptly stopping on the dirt path. He'll get Tucker out. You have to help here.

She fought with herself for only a few moments before turning back around and collecting all the kids that looked lost.

"Where are your parents?" she asked. "I'll help you find them, don't worry."

She got as many people organized as she could. She helped Mrs. Breckerman call the fire department. Then Nathan, who had been manning the haunted hayride, stumbled out of the woods, coughing. He reported that farmer Breckerman and his tractor were about to return safely with all guests, but that there were still volunteers lost in the woods.

Sam's heart clenched. "Are you sure?"

"At least five people unaccounted for. Sam…" Nathan looked afraid. "Danny and Tucker haven't come out yet."

They haven't? How was that possible? Danny should've gone ghost by now.

They should be safe.

Sam started again to race for the woods. By now, the size of the fire was bathing everything in sharp, yellow light. But then, a commotion behind her stopped her dead in her tracks. It was the sound of her mother screeching Sam's name. Her father was shouting orders to firemen and adult volunteers.

"Do something, dammit! My daughter should not be spearheading an evacuation! Who's in charge here?"

"Sammy-kins, where are you!?"

Sam had gone totally pale. Danny and Tucker needed her! But what could she do? She didn't have superpowers. She was just a girl.

She hated to admit it, but there was nothing she could do. It wouldn't help anyone to run into a forest fire without powers or equipment or a plan. She forced herself to acknowledge that trusting Danny and Tucker to get out themselves was her only option.

Sam turned on her heel and ran back to her parents.

"I'm here!" she shouted over the noise. "Mom, stop screaming! Dad, let them work!"

Her parents rushed over and enveloped her in a powerful hug that surprised her.

"We're going home," her father said. "Now."

"No!" Sam cried. "Not until Danny and Tucker are safe. You can't make me leave."

Her mother was crying through her perfect $250 eyeliner. "They'll be fine, it's you I care about."

"And I care about them!"

"Samantha, enough. You're making a scene," her father spat. He pulled both his wife and daughter to the side. "We will wait from a safe distance until your friends are found. But you will not snap at your mother that way!"

Sam wanted to scream. She wished she could fly like Danny or go invisible. She wanted to find them - needed to know that they were okay. But she couldn't.

"Fine," she said. "But I want to see them when they're safe. I'm not leaving until I can talk to them."

Her father narrowed his eyes, but he nodded. "Very well. Come along, Pamela."

Mr. Manson led his family away, and they waited behind the firetruck lines. Even though Danny was probably keeping Tucker safe, Sam fretted. She waited and waited. Every second that they didn't appear made her feel worse. Her hands wouldn't stop shaking, and so her mother held them in hers.

Sam's fingers were cold to the touch.

…

Tucker coughed so hard that he doubled over, stomach muscles clenching, throat burning, a little spittle falling from his lips. He gasped for air when he was done, and the burning only got worse.

Why was he here? Why was he running through a burning forest, his eyes squinting and stinging from the smoke, looking for a person who was - most likely - in his ghost form and perfectly fine? Why, when it was possible that Sam was in danger? When plenty of other regular people were helping to put out flames and evacuate?

Because he's my best friend, that's why, Tucker thought as he crawled his way over fallen trees and skirted around burning shrubs.

"Danny!" he screamed. "Danny, where are you!?"

In response was only the roaring sound of a world on fire.

It had started so small. A bright light in the dark.

Tucker had been crouching in the cornfield, waiting for Danny to check in and return. Just sitting there, feeling totally helpless. Totally human.

Danny had promised not to go out of sight, but Tucker couldn't see him. Nothing but the glow of the moon on corn stalks. Nothing but a flash of light growing brighter and brighter in the woods. Then came the smell of smoke.

Tucker was out of the cornfield as soon as the haunted hayride guests started screaming. He slipped once on a patch of dead leaves. His elbow slammed down onto a tree root and stung something fierce, but he kept running. Danny was where the fire started, he was sure of it, so that's where Tucker was headed.

He was detoured when a man ran into him blindly in the dark, knocking him to the dirt for the second time. He was an adult volunteer, dressed as a pale vampire with fake blood on his face - or was it real blood?

"Come on kid, run!" the man cried, yanking Tucker to his feet. Then he was dragging Tucker behind him. Tucker fought against him and dug his heels into the mud.

"Let me go!"

"We have to get out!"

The man was insistent, but Tucker wasn't a skinny little freshman anymore. He pulled backward. The man tripped and fell. He looked up at Tucker, stunned. Then he got up and ran off, a 'suit yourself' look clear on his face. Tucker didn't care. He turned and kept running.

The thermos Danny had left him was clipped to his overalls, and bounced heavily against his hip as he ran. Tucker would have had it in hand, but he was too busy climbing through burning debris.

"You were… supposed to," he panted, "stay within… eyesight! Dammit!"

Tucker was furious because he was frightened. With every grueling step he blamed Danny. First for not telling him and Sam about the ghost right away, and second for flying off to fight it alone. For leaving him, for scaring him, and for making him feel helpless.

When Tucker finally reached the origin of the blaze, he was sore and bruised, his eyes were watering, and he could barely breathe.

"Danny!" he croaked again, desperate for an answer. "Where are you!?"

…

Danny swallowed thickly, staring down the point of Skulker's arrow. He felt with a sharp clarity that this was serious. He'd never come this close to danger before - not even when that lunch lady ghost had almost skewered him with butcher's knives. Not when Sam had been a dragon, or even when Technus had tried to destroy him.

And, as ridiculous as it sounded, he didn't want to die a ghost.

A ghost.

Skulker had said no ghost could break through the net. But what about a human?

Tucker and Sam would probably have said this was a stupid, stupid plan. The net was human-made by ghost hunters after all. It was still a net! But Skulker had modified it.

How? Danny couldn't even begin to guess.

Well, it didn't matter. He was all out of ideas, and he wasn't going to sit there and take an arrow to the face without trying every possible thing first.

"Danny!" screamed a voice out of the blazing forest. Skulker didn't even flinch at the sound. "Where are you!?"

Tucker!

How could he have forgotten about Tucker? He never should have left him behind. Now, Tucker was running around, blindly, through a burning forest.

Yeah, it's now or never.

Without any evidence at all that this half-baked plan would work, Danny squeezed his eyes shut and flashed back to human form, blinding Skulker for a split second. To his shock, Danny promptly phased through the net, and then fell ten feet to the burning forest floor below.

He hit the ground so hard that the wind was knocked out of him. His human heart was pounding hard in his ears, as though it had been the whole time. He gasped like a fish for a few seconds, trying not to cough on the smoke he was now inhaling.

Even worse, he realized that he was still bleeding, and damn it hurt a lot. This time, hot, red blood mixed with the earlier green goo puddled on the ground. The smell was acrid, as if blood and ghostly ectoplasm weren't meant to mix like that. It was almost as bad as the burning smell of the forest.

The gorilla-sized ghost hopped down from the tree and stood over Danny with a lopsided grin. He kneeled down onto one knee and chuckled.

"That was clever, Whelp," Skulker admitted. "But you're going to have to do better than that. You may no longer be caught in my net, but look at you. You're human. You're helpless. You're all alone."

Danny wheezed up at the ghost. Skulker frowned and leaned in closer.

"What was that?"

"I… I'm not… alone."

Someone crashed through the burning trees behind them, and Danny just knew it had to be Tucker. Skulker finally looked away from Danny in surprise.

"A human?"

"Danny!" Tucker cried. He took in the sight of his best friend bleeding on the ground, the Terminator standing over him. "Wha- what the hell is that thing?"

Danny clenched his eyes shut, fighting through the pain, and transformed once more into his ghostly form. He raised a fist and punched Skulker so hard in the jaw that the force rang through his elbow up to his shoulder. Danny screamed at the pain of it, but Skulker was successfully knocked back a few steps. He didn't lose his balance, but he looked a bit stunned. Above them, the huge tree Danny had been hanging from was starting to burn, crackle, and break.

"Tucker, now!" Danny cried.

Tucker popped the cap off of the Fenton Thermos. Skulker's glowing green eyes widened a little. He dodged out of the way as Tucker pressed the green button. The blue beam of light that usually snatched up ghosts shot harmlessly by.

"I've observed your little thermos trick," Skulker snapped. "You thought that would work on me?"

Now he was setting his sights on Tucker. Danny rushed to Tucker's side.

Skulker shot his readied arrow, but Danny pushed Tucker out of the way, and they both fell to the ground. The arrow flew away into the dark. Skulker advanced anyway, pulling back his heavy armored gauntlet. It sizzled with green, powerful energy. He raised it high, ready to bring it down on them with a single death blow.

And Danny, because he didn't know what else to do, raised his hands to defend his friend.

Skulker brought his gauntlet down, and Danny felt, rather than created, a huge amount of power surge within him. It escaped and manifested as a thick shield of ecto-energy, which met Skulker's attack just in the nick of time. Skulker's fist collided with Danny's power, and the energy exploded. Danny felt the overwhelming pressure shove him down into the mud with Tucker, and a massive BOOM rang out. Skulker was thrown back fifteen feet, where he slammed into a sturdy tree, nearly uprooting it. His gauntlet was cracked badly, and Skulker stared at it in shock.

The energy Danny created disappeared just as quickly. Although he was just as shocked, there was no time to dwell on this new power. He snatched the thermos from Tucker's side.

"Hasta la vista, Asshole," he panted, and pressed the thermos' green button.

Skulker, bathed in blue light, was pulled into the thermos within seconds. He screamed in fury the whole way down. When it was over, and with a snap, Danny popped the cap on again. He turned to Tucker, whose expression was dumbfounded. As he looked up at Danny, he opened his mouth to say something.

But then, the burning tree above them crumbled. It snapped in two and started to fall. Tucker cried out, his eyes squeezed shut, arms over his head. Danny immediately grabbed him in a huge hug, turning them both intangible. The tree collapsed over them, shaking the ground at their feet, but they felt nothing.

"Are you okay?" Danny asked.

Tucker was shaking. Danny had never seen Tucker look so upset. His expression was dark and angry, and he looked at Danny with such a fury that Danny felt a different kind of fear rush through him.

Was Tucker upset at him?

The fire roared and the grass beneath their feet started to char. They couldn't stay any longer. Danny's strength was giving out. Soon, he wouldn't be able to stay a ghost.

"Hold onto me," he cried.

Tucker did so, but Danny felt a bad tension between them. Keeping them intangible, Danny flew them out of there, back to safety.

…

Sam was waiting in the parking lot for almost an hour before Danny and Tucker limped their way out of the frightened crowd. The other locals were surrounded by Amity Park police being questioned. Firefighters were still putting out the flames.

Everyone had gotten out, but not unscathed. Lots of children were crying and screaming when it happened, but most had gone home by now. It was the adult volunteers who were forced to stay behind and be treated for burns, cuts and bruises.

When the Mansons saw Tucker and Danny emerge from the chaos, Sam's father put a heavy hand on her shoulder to keep her from leaving them. Sam didn't care what her parents wanted, and she shrugged her father off and ran to her best friends. No one else tried to stop her, and the three of them stood off to the side alone. As soon as she reached them, Tucker rushed forward and swooped her up into such a massive hug that Sam's feet flew off the ground and the breath flew out of her chest.

"You're okay," Tucker sighed with relief.

"I'm okay? Are you okay!?" she cried, holding onto him for balance.

"No," Tucker growled. "I'm not."

Tucker was covered in soot and smoke, looking more like a coal miner than a scarecrow every minute. He had cuts and bruises on his face and arms. A little blood had trickled from his cheek down to his jawline. Sam wiped it for him gently, and he gave her a pained look. She saw that his curly hair was messed up; a few pieces of it had burned.

Then she turned to look at Danny and gasped. His shoulder and right arm were covered in blood. He looked exhausted and in pain, though he wasn't burned. But hadn't he gone ghost at all? How was he this hurt?

"What happened? Danny, look at you!"

Tucker watched Sam go to Danny and panic. He felt a sharp pain in his heart.

"I can't do this anymore," Tucker whispered. Sam turned in surprise.

"Do what?"

"Any of it," he said.

"Tucker?" She glanced between them. Danny's eyes were cast downward toward his blackened tennis shoes. He held an ash-stained Fenton Thermos in his hand. "What really happened in there?"

Tucker glared at Danny. "Do you wanna explain or should I?"

Danny hesitated. "There was a ghost-"

"Which you knew about and didn't say anything! Not until it was too late!"

Sam's eyes went wide. "Guys, keep your voices down!"

"I didn't want to ruin the night…" Danny said lamely.

"Oh, yeah, well. Look at this! Look at all of this, Danny! What a great night! Really went well for Sam and her fundraiser, didn't it?"

"Tucker, you know I didn't mean to-"

"No, dude, I don't know what you meant! What the hell were you thinking!?"

"I was trying to protect you!" Danny snapped.

Sam jumped and stepped away from them both. She'd never seen them like this before.

"I was trying to protect everyone," Danny continued, softly this time.

He looked so guilty. Guilty for keeping the ghost a secret. Guilty for raising his voice.

Tucker had no sympathy. "Well, that wasn't your call to make," he growled. "And hey, guess what? You did make the call and it was the wrong one."

"I know. I'm sorry!"

"I don't care!" Tucker shouted. "If I had even a tenth of what you have, you bet I wouldn't have fucked up like this!"

"Tucker!" Sam cried.

Tucker turned to her. "You don't get it, do you? He's not perfect, Sam!"

Danny ground his teeth. "You think I don't know that? I'm sorry, okay? I'll say it a hundred times! What the hell is with you right now?"

"You don't deserve what you got," Tucker seethed. "You have no idea what you're doing, and people are hurt. Because of you!"

Danny was speechless. Sam felt frozen, the tension turning her to stone.

Tucker spared one last glance to the pair of them before he turned on his heel and left. An EMT tried to stop him and check his vitals, but Tucker shoved him away. Sam looked between Tucker's retreating back and Danny's torn expression. They watched together as Tucker turned a corner to the parking lot and stormed out of sight.

"Danny?" Sam asked after a moment, her voice very small. "What…?"

Danny didn't offer her the reassurance she desperately needed. He looked around at the devastation instead. At the firefighters and their hoses, putting out flames. At the farm fields and the forest, which had gone up so fast, turned to charred sticks. He watched people cry and hug one another. Fellow Casper High students were wiping makeup from their fearful faces. He swallowed thickly and then, he too, started walking away.

"Wait!" Sam cried and followed after him. "We're supposed to be honest with each other but neither of you are explaining anything. I don't understand what happened! I thought you were hurt and now you're fighting and-"

"I'm sorry, Sam," Danny interrupted. "Tucker's right."

He stepped behind a tall stack of unburned hay bales and gave her the emptiest look she had ever seen. Even without transforming back into a ghost, he slowly started to fade away from sight. She'd never seen that before, and it was jarring - terrifying.

"Danny, stop-!"

"This was all my fault," he finished.

Sam reached for him, hand outstretched, but she felt nothing, and both Danny and Tucker were gone.