A/N: I'm in a very rare situation in my life where I actually have a lot of time on my hands, for once, so I can keep writing chapters and delivering them out relatively quickly. Once med school starts again, however, things will have to go a lot more slowly. Just making sure you guys are aware of that.
Anyway, here's a shorter, light, and hopefully funny chapter. No tragic backstories or traumatic incidents here. Those will be coming up in full force in the future. Heh heh heh...
Chapter 3 – Board Games with Ghosts
"Hrrrggghhhh…." Mike yawned as he got up from his bed. "That was a great nap. Huh, three hours? Geez, that lasted longer than I thought it would. Let's see how badly the ghost kids wrecked my house while I was asleep."
He quickly made his way down the stairs, preparing himself for what would surely be chaos. At the end of the day, the ghosts were still kids, and judging by his own experiences at Freddy's and the horror stories his friends shared, rambunctious kids + supernatural powers = a mess waiting to happen. To his surprise, however, there were no signs of chaos, no broken valuables or things scattered all over the place. Instead, all of the ghost kids were quietly and raptly watching the TV, the Marionette having taken Mike's place as their supervisor.
"You're showing them Star Wars?" Mike asked Mary as she shushed and beckoned him to join them. The kids all applauded as the movie ended with the destruction of the first Death Star, and all of them greeted him cheerfully when they realized Mike had rejoined them.
"Yep," Mary replied. "After you left, Gabe grew curious as to why you liked that movie so much. I figured now would be as good a time as any to show it to them."
"Man, Darth Vader is so cool!" Fritz exclaimed. "I mean, he's got it all! The look, the lightsaber, the TIE fighter! He's the best villain ever!"
Jeremy, meanwhile, was discussing two of the main protagonists with Gabe. "So did you like Han or Luke more?" he asked.
Gabe shrugged. "I dunno, man. There's different reasons to like them both. I think I'd have to see the rest of the movies before I made a final call on that."
"Glad to see you guys liked the movie!" Mike interrupted them with a smirk. "I'll be sure to show the rest of them to you later. But for now…" he clasped his hands together. "You explored my house a couple of hours ago, and I'm sure you've come across something that you found interesting and didn't know what it was. So…any questions about what's in my house?"
Susie raised her hand. "You have a really nice TV," she commented. "But…what are all these things?" she pointed at various devices that she had never seen before.
Mike grinned. "Great question. Those, Susie, are video game consoles. There's so many different games out there that do so many different things, but for the sake of simplicity: imagine a movie or a TV show, and then actually being able to control and play what's happening on the screen."
The children's eyes widened in awe. "I remember those!" Gabe exclaimed. "I used to have an Atari!"
"Atari?" Mike scoffed. "Pffttt…that is so old news. Video games have improved so much over the decades that you wouldn't believe that some things consoles can do nowadays are even possible."
"Can we play some?" Jeremy asked eagerly.
Mike shook his head. "A little later, maybe. I don't think it'd be good parenting to just let you watch TV all day and slowly rot your brains and your eyes."
"We don't have physical eyes or brains, Mike," Fritz commented dryly. "In case you haven't noticed, we're dead."
"I'm aware of that, thanks," Mike replied, matching Fritz's dryness with his own word for word. "But still, there's other things that you can be doing instead that don't require you to sit in front of a TV all day." Fritz grumbled under his breath but ultimately relented.
Cassidy decided to take her turn. "I saw you had a lot of board and card games, daddy," she said, and the way she said "dad" nearly overwhelmed Mike with cuteness overload. "Can we play some of those?"
Mike grinned. "Ah, those. No matter how old you get, you can never get too old for board or card games. Ain't that right, Mary?"
The Marionette shrugged her shoulders. "I dunno, Mike," everyone could swear that she would be smirking if she could, "your performance in our last chess game was borderline senile."
"Oooooooh…" some of the ghosts whistled as Mike nonchalantly flicked the middle finger at the Puppet.
"Well, we can't play chess, that game only lets two people play at a time," Mike deftly ignored the Puppet's burn. "Guess we could start with a game of Sorry! or something…"
"I saw Monopoly earlier," Jeremy suggested. "I think I remember some kids brought a Monopoly Jr. game at the Pizzeria back when I was still Bonnie."
Mike's eyes bulged. "You want to play MONOPOLY?" he gaped. "Uhm…I'm not sure that's a good idea. That game tends to take quite a long time."
"Do you have anything better to do?" Fritz asked.
"No...but that's not the point," Mike answered reluctantly. "Monopoly can get a little, uhm…long-winded. And either boring or rage-inducing, depending on the state of the game."
Gabe cut him off. "Mike, we've been stuck in the same animatronic suits and trapped in the same places for more than thirty years. I think we can handle a simple board game."
Mike sighed. "All right, but I'm cutting the game off and declaring a winner after two hours. Don't say I didn't warn you."
The ghosts raised their eyebrows. Two hours? What kind of game lasted that long?
Thirty Minutes Later…
"Ugggghhhhh…." Jeremy groaned as he moved his cannon piece onto a railroad he already owned. "This game's been going around in circles! Nobody's even close to bankrupting yet!"
Gabe sighed. "Well, I have two of the green properties right now, and I might be able to get it this roll. Come on, gimme a 9!" The ghost rolled the dice onto the board, and everyone gasped as he got the exact number he needed. "Yes!" he shouted triumphantly. "I got the third property! Now I've got my Monopoly! Soon as I build up those hotels, your money is all mine!"
Susie rolled her eyes. "Not if I get my Monopoly too!" She rolled the dice and landed on the third yellow property that she needed. "Hah!" she laughed. "You won't be able to take my money if I take it all first!"
As Fritz and Cassidy both started groaning about how screwed they probably were, Mike beckoned to the Puppet and they both left the room. As soon as he was certain they were out of earshot, Mike smirked at his "eldest daughter." "You magically manipulated the dice rolls, didn't you?"
Mary shrugged. "What can I say? I was getting bored."
"You just gave two of the ghosts free monopolies. Things will stop getting boring real quickly. I just hope they don't learn that you're messing with the game."
"I'll make sure to give them all monopolies as soon as possible, Mike. Don't worry."
Thirty MORE Minutes Later…
"Are you FUCKING kidding me?" Fritz howled. "The fuck is this bullshit?"
Gabe and Jeremy both gave him a disapproving glance, but ultimately decided not to comment. If they were honest with themselves, they'd probably be cursing up a storm just as much as Fritz was if either of them had gotten this many bad turns in a row.
First, Fritz had landed on Cassidy's orange monopoly, causing him to lose almost all of the money in his inventory. Then, he'd landed on Susie's yellow monopoly, forcing him to give up most of the buildings that he'd developed on his red properties. And then, he landed on a Chance card…which had forced him to move straight to the Boardwalk…which was part of Jeremy's blue monopoly. Needless to say, he was now bankrupt, and Mike was still marveling over the worst stream of bad luck he'd ever seen in a Monopoly game.
He glanced sideways at the Marionette. "You didn't mess around with his rolls, did you?" he mouthed.
The Marionette shook her head. "I wouldn't mess around with the game like that," her gestures indicated.
"Screw it," Fritz sulked. "This game was getting boring anyway. Now we just go around in circles again until someone else screws up."
Mike shrugged. "That's just how it is, Fritz. You can't say I didn't warn you."
One Hour Later…
"All right, that's it, I'm ending the game," Mike finally declared. "Can't believe none of you landed on each other's monopolies enough times to bankrupt one of you for an entire hour. Jeremy, you have three monopolies and the most money. You win. Let's move on."
"Thank God!" Gabe groaned. "This was taking forever!"
"Now do you see why I didn't want you guys to play Monopoly?" Mike asked. "It's a classic, but it takes forever. This is the game that you play when you have nothing else to do and a lot of time to kill."
"I can tell," Jeremy muttered. He might have been the winner, but at this point he was more relieved that the game was over than anything else.
Susie looked up at Mike. "Are there any games that DON'T take two hours or longer to end?" she asked.
Mike smirked. "Most of them actually don't take this long, Susie. I think this one will be much better for you guys." He left the room and came back with a few seconds later with a game called LIFE. "It has a set beginning and end goal, so it won't take any longer than several minutes at most. It's supposed to be based on what real life is actually like."
"So basically," Fritz deadpanned, "everything that we missed out on because we got brutally murdered by an asshole in a purple suit."
An awkward silence fell. "Dude, really?" Gabe chided as he whacked Fritz on the head with his ghostly hand. "Not cool."
"Sorry…" the former Foxy inhabitant mumbled, "was trying to make a joke, but I realized that was a dick thing to say the moment it came out of my mouth."
"Don't worry about it," Mike waved it off. "I've said my fair share of stupid shit and then some. But with that being said, do you guys want to play?"
"Sure!" all the ghosts chorused, and they gathered around. This time, Mary joined in as a sixth player, leaving Mike as the only spectator.
"Are those cars?" Jeremy asked as he held one of the game pieces.
"Yep…" Mike nodded. "Here's how you play..."
One Explanation and Ten Minutes Later…
"Okay, what the fuck?" Mike interrupted.
"What is it, Mike?" the Marionette asked innocently.
"How the are you so ahead? You got the best job and salary combination possible in the entire game, paid off the entirety of your college debt in your first four turns, have the best house in the game with both insurances, and you still have more money than both Gabe and Susie, who haven't done ANY of those things!"
"Maybe I'm just that lucky, or just that good. After all, I am the Puppet who gives life," Mary replied smugly.
"Or maybe you cheated," Fritz mumbled out of the corner of his mouth to Susie, who rolled her eyes. The Puppet's head whirled around and focused right on him.
"I heard that!" she snapped.
Mike suppressed the urge to groan. "Well, might as well see what happens. For all we know she might be forced to blow her money on a lake cabin later. I mean, seriously, who the fuck would spend 90000 dollars on a fucking lake cabin…"
Fifteen Minutes Later…
"Yes!" Cassidy pumped her fist in the air as Gabe landed on a travel agent space. With a groan, he handed over 45,000 dollars to her. "I'll take that!"
"Wish somebody would land on my space," Jeremy muttered. He'd ended up getting the Tech Consultant, and while his salary was on the higher end, nobody had landed on any of his spaces.
Mary shrugged. "I can't complain with how my game is going," she commented.
Fritz scoffed. "Duh. You have so much more money than the rest of us, it's not even funny. I bet being a doctor is the best job ever."
Mike shook his head. "Not unless you want to spend 4 years studying really hard science stuff in school, and then another couple of years working at a hospital on minimum wage first."
Jeremy raised an eyebrow. "You're talking about college, right?"
Mike smirked. "Nope. Four years in college, and THEN four years in med school, and two years after that working in a hospital at minimum wage. And don't get me started on how much debt you'd be in. I still have no clue how one of my friends managed that…"
The ghosts' eyes widened. "I don't know a thing about real life and I can already tell that sounds painful," Gabe commented.
"Yep," Mike agreed. "If you want to be a doctor, you better make sure you REALLY want to be a doctor, cause that's not something you can just change your mind on once everything's been finalized and stuff. They don't even make as much money as this game suggests, though at least they can secure a living for themselves."
"Not that it matters to any of us!" Susie shrugged. "We're dead!"
"True," Mike shrugged. "Out of everyone here, the only person who has to worry about real life related stuff is me. But I'm doing just fine for myself. Anyway, whose turn was it next?"
"Mine!" Jeremy grabbed the wheel and spun it. It promptly forced him to land on a "Pay $100,000 to the doctor" space, and the Marionette smirked as she held out her hand to take his money. "Aww, come on!"
Five Minutes Later…
"All right, looks like you guys have all made it to the end!" Mike declared as the last person, Fritz, finally rolled into Millionaire Estates. "Now all that's left is to take your LIFE tiles, and add the money values shown on them to what you already have. Whoever has the most money at the end wins!"
"Well, we all know who won," Gabe gestured towards the Marionette, who was looking very satisfied with her performance in the game. "No amount of money on those tiles is going to bring us anywhere near her."
"Eh, true enough, but the rest of you seem pretty close to each other." Mike countered as the ghosts all flipped their life tiles. All of the ghosts started calculating their total money amounts, and Jeremy grinned as he realized he had the most.
"Yes!" he exclaimed. "Two wins in a row! I'm the best!"
"Not quite," Gabe interrupted with a smirk. "You forgot about your loans, didn't you?"
Jeremy looked at the white slips of paper and his face fell as he realized Gabe was right. "Oh, crap…" he groaned. He quickly subtracted the amount of money he'd have to pay for the loans, and his eyes widened in horror. "Wait, that means…"
"…I think I just won," Cassidy gasped. She did the ghostly equivalent of getting to her feet. "I won!" she repeated, cheering. "I can't believe I won! I didn't even understand half the stuff that was going on, but I still won!"
Mike shot Jeremy, who was now sulking over being cheated out of another victory because of the loans, a sympathetic glance. "Loans suck, man," he consoled. "Ask anyone who ever went to a high-level university. That's why I take care of all my debt-related crap as soon as humanly possible. I didn't want that baggage over my head well into my 50s."
"I can see why Mary paid hers off right away in the game," Jeremy grumbled and glanced at the Marionette, who raised her fingers to her forehead in a mocking salute.
"Yeah, well, Mary had so much good luck this game I'm still seriously tempted to call out Hax on that," Mike retorted.
Susie looked up at him curiously. "What does Hax mean?"
Mike shook his head. "I'll tell you when I introduce all of you to video games."
The ghost kids started putting the board game away as Mary got up to her feet. "It's just as well that we ended right now," she said as she gestured to Mike. "There was a topic I wanted to discuss with you privately, Mike, if you don't mind."
Mike shrugged and beckoned towards the door. "Sure thing. Whatever you need to say, I'm all ears."
/
No dramatic moments here, just a bunch of ghostly kids playing board games 😊. And fuck that "Pay $90000 for a log cabin space" or whatever it was, I swear I landed on that one space more times than what should be normal.
I did the "time skip and segment" format for this chapter because if I tried to write out an entire board game run it would get really boring really fast. ESPECIALLY for Monopoly. Those kids had no idea just how long that game can get XD
I should've probably mentioned this earlier, but about the kids' ages: I don't really have specific ages in mind yet, but all I know for sure is that (besides the Marionette) Gabe is the oldest and Cassidy is the youngest. This is also why she was the most emotional in the last chapter, as Gadget noted.
I didn't include the Marionette much in the last chapter, so I made sure to include her this time. Of all the ghost kids, she's by far the most mature and she's pretty much the "cool oldest sister" of the group. Though she has her moments just like everyone else :P Incidentally, she's also the only one with a physical body, that being the Puppet.
Anyway, I hope that cleared things up a bit. Hope you enjoyed!
