Chapter 12: Phoebe found the Trap

(Later at the Farmhouse…)

Trevor and Phoebe into the Farmhouse, they walked to their mother Callie.

"How's school?" Callie asked her kids.

"School is fine." Trevor said.

"School is fine, too." Phoebe said.

"Good." Callie said, with a smile.

"Yet." Both Trevor and Phoebe said.

"So, Trevor, first of all tell me...how have the Americans been treating you so far?" Callie asked.

"Oh, they're treating me quite all right, Mom. In that respect, I've got no problems to report at all. The only thing that I can report with regard to that is when I arrived at Ewen High today and first stepped into the building, I did attract quite a few stares from almost all of the other students who were already there. But I suppose that was to be expected, considering the fact that I was the new kid on the block." Trevor said.

"I see, and how are you doing over there so far?" Callie asked.

"I'm having a great time over here. In fact, just across the street from where I'm staying right now is the school in Chamberlain." Trevor said.

"Well Trevor…that's all well and good, but I hope you're spending time on your studies rather than being in that place all the time." Callie said.

"I am focusing on my work in class each day and back here each evening; however, I may go to the mall again on Saturday and spend the day there, as there's just so much to keep someone occupied there." Trevor said.

"Anyway, setting all that aside, have you made any friends over there?" Phoebe asked.

"I have; you remember Rita Desjardin, the gym teacher who met me from Ewen High School in Chamberlain when I arrived on Today? Well, I've begun to see her as a friend; no, as an older sister in fact. She told me a while ago that when we're outside school, I should just call her by her first name." Trevor said.

Phoebe gazed suspiciously at him but didn't say anything and carried on listening. Trevor then told them of how he'd made friends with Freddy Holt and how they paired up in gym class earlier that day. He also mentioned Ewen High's Senior Class President Norma Watson and how friendly she appeared when she handed him his school books in the library the previous day.

"And have…any other girls in the school or in your class caught your attention?" Callie asked Trevor

"Well, yes one has…I met her in the cafeteria yesterday. Her name's Carrie White, and she's quite shy and has no friends, but is one of the most beautiful girls I've ever met in my life." Trevor said.

"Carrie White?" Phoebe asked.

"I met her in Ewen High School." Trevor said.

"Oh, yeah." Phoebe said.

"What do you mean?" Trevor took a deep breath. "Explained how Carrie was a target for bullying from almost every student in the school, and even the English teacher Mr. Ullmann, something he'd witnessed first-hand the previous day. He explained to his family the incident with the jocks Billy Nolan, Jackie Talbot, and Kenny Garson the day before, which included the graffiti on the locker doors, and how the jocks tripped her up and no one helped her up."

Callie and Phoebe looked shocked with what they were being told. How could such a sweet girl be treated in such a horrid way?

"I intervened and stood up to Billy Nolan, Jackie Talbot, and Kenny Garson. and how he delayed them leaving just long enough for them to admit they painted the graffiti on the locker doors when Principal Henry Morton was behind the three jocks. I said the three got sent to the office and received detention for the rest of the week, as well as having to help the janitor scrub the graffiti off the locker doors. I asked Ms. Desjardin to explain to him why Carrie was being treated so badly, and that's when he told them about the Ultras and how their leader, Chris Hargensen, the Queen Bee of Ewen High School, seemed to have made it her personal mission to make Carrie's life a living hell to the best of her ability." Trevor said.

"Is she okay?" Callie asked.

"She's fine, Mom. There's more that you all need to know…" Trevor said, as they glanced at him. Sighing heavily, he explained. "Chris did something really horrible to Carrie last week…and she recorded it on her phone. Chris showed the video of Carrie, barely covered by a towel, having her period in the locker room and the cries of "Plug it up!", as well as the screams and cries of Carrie in panic at having her period for her first time filled his ears again" He said, those of his mother and sister.

Callie and Phoebe were all in silent horror at what they'd seen, their eyes wide open in shock. His siblings and mother had their hands over their mouths, and his mother had the look of a man contemplating murder. But Trevor couldn't blame his mother in the slightest for that; after all, he had thought the same thing after he first saw the video.

"Holy Christ…" Callie said quietly after a moment, while she had a shocked, speechless look on her face.

"To hell with school tomorrow, girls! Let's all go over there and murder a few bullies!" Phoebe said, as she stood up and thrust her fist in the air.

"Phoebe! Now calm down please." Callie encouraged her daughter to stay calm. As Phoebe did so, their mother turned back to face her son.

"Now, all threats of murder and so on aside, Kevin…what we just saw was beyond cruel…really it was." Callie said, not really sure of what else to say, as Trevor sighed and nodded.

"Well, look everyone; it's not just Carrie that Chris Hargensen has been bullying; it's been other outcasts, school misfits and people just like Carrie as well. There was one notable incident that Rita knows of…" Trevor said.

"What kind of a shitty person would do something like that?!" Phoebe said angrily.

"Now Pheebs." Callie said.

"Sorry Mom, but when you hear something horrible happening to another person by another, what else can you say?" Phoebe asked apologetically, as her mother nodded in understanding.

"Did Chris Hargensen get detention or a suspension for what she did to that girl by putting the firecracker in her show, or for what she did to Carrie today?" Callie asked.

"Yes, she did; for planting a firecracker in that girl's shoe she was suspended for a full week. And for doing what she did to Carrie today, she was suspended for another week…two of a dozen suspensions she's received for various reasons in the last four years...after she skipped the detention that she and most of the other girls were given for that incident...and that detention was one of 74 detentions she's received for various reasons in the last four years." Trevor said, which astonished his family.

"Whoa, whoa, hold it a second! Seventy-four detentions?! Are you sure?" Callie asked in disbelief, as the jaws of Phoebe also dropped in surprise as they leaned forwards in disbelief.

"Yes, I'm sure about that and I'm just as astonished as all of you as to why Chris Hargensen is still in Ewen High School with such a questionable record as that one." Trevor said, with a sigh.

"Trevor…I want to know what you're going to do about this. I also want to let you know that we're there to help if you need it, anything at all…name it, you'll have it." Callie said, and her daughter agreed at once.

"Thanks, I'm determined to do anything that's necessary to get Carrie justice, but at the same time not doing anything that may get me into the U.S. prison system. I'm glad that you're willing to help me achieve this, but I've a plan that'll make Carrie's bullies pay dearly for their stupidity." Trevor explained his plan on how to get revenge on the bullies. When he explained it, they all gave their consent to get justice for Carrie. "Well, you know I think I'd better end the call now. I need to get myself dinner now and get my homework done."

"Okay, Trevor, we'll be in touch with you, and we'll let you know if we have anything on those bullies." Callie said.

"Very well; and Phoebe, I'll send you each an email with the names of the bullies as soon as I possibly can, and I want you to dig up any dirt about them you can find. And I mean ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that you can find. I've already uncovered quite a bit about them, however, I…just need more." Trevor said.

"You got it, Trevor. We'll do whatever we can at our end. I'm ready to take down any bullies anytime and anywhere should any such chance present itself. And you... we'll do everything that we can do here to make sure we can get the dirt you need to take those bullies down." Phoebe explained.

"Thanks, I appreciate that." Trevor said.

"And Trevor, we're very proud of you for what you're doing for this girl; it really shows you're becoming a man." Callie said.

"Thanks…anyway, I'd best get upstairs and the room ready. I'll speak to you as soon as I can." Trevor said he walked upstairs to the room and began preparing dinner; tonight, it was duck breast with mashed potato and asparagus.

"Chris Hargensen…" Trevor said quietly, as he started on preparing upstairs to the room. "…you and your Ultras had better watch out. Your time at the top is coming to an end and I'm gonna make sure you never bother Carrie again. You just wait."

(Meanwhile, evening…)

At the Farmhouse evening and night. Phoebe brushed her teeth then spit into the sink and walked back into her bedroom. The two rooms were connected. She knelt down and realized a white knight had moved one square. As Phoebe moved a pawn to the square between the black pawn and her knight. She watched as a pawn moved on its own and stopped next to the white knight.

"Okay, so this is happening." Phoebe said.

After Phoebe processed that, she advanced her knight and took a pawn. The white knight levitated and knocked her knight off the board… She moved aside then noticed the P.K.E. Meter was on and registered an entity. She jumped on her bed and faced the meter. Phoebe tried to communicate…

"Hello?" Phoebe asked, as she looked around.

No verbal response. Phoebe hopped off the bed and picked up the P.K.E. Meter. She registered a stronger reading. She turned around and the arms lowered. She waved it towards her door and it registered again, her closed bedroom door opened wide, she slowly peeked out into the hall. One by one, the hall lights turned on as she stepped forward. She followed the lights and meter reading downstairs. The meter arms dropped as Phoebe found her mother, Callie sleeping at the dining table with a glass of wine, a light turned on behind her. As Phoebe turned around and the meter registered…

The armchair suddenly slid forward and scooped her up then spun around. Phoebe gasped, checked, and turned her head to her mother. Callie's head moved a little but she was still asleep. As Phoebe looked down and noticed her shoes were on an odd pattern in the floor. She went on her hands and knees, placed the meter down, took a panel off and saw a covering. Phoebe slid pieces of floor panel around. It was a floor puzzle. She solved it and looked into a hidden space… Phoebe reached in and pulled out the Trap that her grandfather Egon hid before his death and watched to her mother…

(At Trevor's room…)

After he got back to his grandfather's farmhouse, Trevor changed into more comfortable attire and got started on his homework straight away and had it all finished after about fifty minutes. Then he set up his laptop and got to work on researching info about Carrie. What he found, or rather didn't find, surprised him; she had no on-line accounts on any social media platforms at all. However, by looking at the social media accounts of other people who lived in Chamberlain, Trevor was able to find quite a bit of info about Carrie's mother: Margaret White.

According to all of them, Margaret White was a strong religious obsessed fanatic who always seemed to dress in black witch-like clothes and who always seemed to claim that everything, even down to the smallest of things, was a sin and that people would burn in hell for the simplest of things. She would even quote lines from the Bible incorrectly, or even sometimes twist religious sayings and make up her own ridiculous religious quotes, to make it seem as though she was following the Bible's words.

However, Trevor could tell from meeting Carrie earlier on that day that she was nothing like her mother and he was happy for that. Yet at the same time, deep down in the pit of his stomach he had a very uneasy feeling that there was much more to Carrie's relationship with her mother than met the eye. He also felt that Margaret was amongst those people in the world who sometimes just took religious fanaticism way too far.

Then Trevor searched for information on the bullies known in Ewen High as the "Ultras", and here he had a lot more luck. Their social media accounts were standard, as it would be for most other people with online accounts; selfies of themselves and with friends, short videos, statuses about their relationships and so on. But strangely, and to Trevor's slight surprise, the accounts of both Sue Snell and Heather Shyres hadn't been undated in some time; what he found wasn't particularly interesting. In fact, there were no mean or questionable comments about anyone, either students or teachers, on their accounts at all.

However, Chris Hargensen's accounts were what Trevor was really interested in looking at, and here he struck a gold mine; from looking over those social media accounts, he could see Chris had been Carrie's main bully since they first started in middle school, and Chris seemed to enjoy harassing and bullying Carrie so much that she often posted comments, photos and videos about it on her social media accounts. Then Trevor found one comment from Chris on her Facebook account posted a little earlier that day saying she'd been suspended from school for a week for an incident that happened the previous Friday, and she claimed strongly that she hadn't done anything wrong to begin with.

"Now that's a complete and total load of utter bullshit if ever I heard any." Trevor thought to himself, while he rolled his eyes. It was clear to him that Chris Hargensen was the type of sadistic, cruel school bully who would never take ANY responsibility for her actions at all and would never see any wrong in anything she did to anyone else, even if it got near to the point of seriously hurting another person. She was the sort of person Trevor needed to stay at least two steps ahead of all the time if he was to win against her.

Doing a little more digging into Chris's accounts, he suddenly found a link to a YouTube video and saw Carrie's name in the link. Curious, and now more than a little anxious, and with that familiar feeling of butterflies churning in the stomach starting to develop, Trevor clicked on the link.

"Plug it up! Plug it up! Plug it up! Plug it up! Plug it up!"

When the video started playing, Trevor stared in mute horror for a minute or so as he watched Carrie, wrapped up only in a towel which was just barely covering her, struggling on the floor of the school's female changing room shower stalls and pleading for help thinking that she was bleeding to death especially considering that there was some blood on the wet floor of the shower stall as well as some on the towel, when she was in fact just having her very first period. But the other girls in the changing room, who were behind the camera and thus couldn't be seen, all just chanted mockingly at her, and threw tampons and sanitary napkins at her all the while until the video suddenly ended as the image turned away from Carrie in a blur.

Trevor sat in complete and utter shock at what he'd just seen; he was utterly appalled how people could just do something like that to someone who needed help and all they got was to be bullied in return in such a heinous manner. He stood up and walked around for a few moments to calm down, but he couldn't help feeling a great deal of rage towards the bullies and a great deal of sympathy for Carrie.

"Those stupid fucking bitches! What the heck is wrong with them?! Why do they even do it in the first place?! To bully someone who's never done anything to them! And in such a disgraceful, cowardly manner like that!" Trevor thought to himself, trying to let the rage out after what he'd seen.

After a few minutes, Trevor went back to work; after making a copy of the video, he set about gathering up more evidence of the Ultras bullying, which was basically anything and everything that he could find out about them. The intention: to use everything he gathered as blackmail against the Ultras whenever the chance arrived…

(Later at the White's Residence…)

Time: 10:15pm

Carrie lay on top of her bed, deep in thought. She hadn't gone to sleep yet and her mind was firmly on the new boy in the school from earlier on; he never did make fun of her that day and he'd even helped her after the jocks tripped her up in the corridor. Even when the other students started their whispers in the cafeteria at breakfast, he didn't leave the table, and he even called her "Pretty", much to her own surprise. The incident in the corridors with the jocks was on her mind when he stood up to them in defense of her and managed to get them sent to the principal's office for what they did, before he went and helped her stand up afterwards. It was quite an unexpected thing that had happened; when she woke that morning, she never thought anything like that would happen, that someone would stand up for her.

She was in such deep thought of what had happened earlier on in the day, particularly at the thought of Trevor's hand being firmly but gently grasped within hers, that she didn't notice the books starting to rise up from the old wooden floor without anything lifting them up.

When she suddenly saw one of her books pass over her face without warning, Carrie gave a startled gasp and sat up. At once, the books that had been floating in the air around her suddenly fell to the ground with loud thumps, which got the attention of her mother: Margaret White, who was busy downstairs in the kitchen washing dishes. Reaching to her left, she grabbed a butcher knife and quietly made her way upstairs to her daughter's room to see what was going on.

Carrie paused and then she heard the creaks of her mother's footsteps as she came slowly up the stairs, so she quickly laid back down on her bed, switched the bedside light off and then closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep. A few seconds later, the door opened a little with a low creak and Margaret stuck her head in. Scanning the darkened room for a few moments to see what was going on, she couldn't see anything that appeared to be any way out of the ordinary, apart from Carrie seemingly asleep on her bed. After a few moments of looking round, Margaret slowly closed the door and went back downstairs.

After waiting a few seconds to be sure that her mother was gone, Carrie sat back up and turned the bedside light back on and stared at one of the books on her ground, wondering whether she had imagined the books floating or not. Deciding to try something and wondering if it would work, Carrie took in a deep breath and then held out her left hand and concentrated hard on one of the books. Nothing happened at first, but then the book wiggled and started to rise off the floor and towards the ceiling.

Carrie was a bit shocked and disbelieving at first by this strange and unexpected phenomenon she was accomplishing, but then a smile slowly crossed her face.

"Oh, my Goodness…I can move things with my mind!" Carrie thought excitedly, as she carefully made a few more of her books slowly float around the room. After gently lowering the books together in one corner, where she was able to stack them neatly, she decided to do some research about her special gift at school the following day. After turning off the light, she relaxed and fell asleep, while dreaming about a certain boy with an Irish accent.

(Later at Chamberlain Junior High School, morning...)

In science class, Gary's students watched "Chucky" in class. They were well into the movie with Chucky attacking Karen Barclay.

"NO!" Karen screamed.

"Hi, I'm Chucky. Wanna play?" Chucky said.

Podcast attempted to pry the Trap open with a wooden ruler. Part of the ruler snapped off. Gary looked up from his Ultimate Avengers #4 comic books and quickly got out of his chair.

"I needed to know what's lurking inside." Podcast said.

"Come on, man." Max said.

"No way." Gary said, as he was amazed by the Trap but she thought it. "Killer replica." He said, as he picked it up and admired it.

"Totally." Connie said.

"A replica of what?" Phoebe asked.

Gary was shocked at his question.

"A trap." Gary said, as he looked at Phoebe, Podcast, Max, and Connie. "A Ghost Trap."

They looked at him blankly and Gary looked at Podcast.

"Seriously? How do you of all people not know about this?" Gary asked.

"I'm ashamed." Podcast said.

"Ah. I was obsessed and told them New York in the '80s, it was like The Walking Dead." Gary said.

"Then it just stopped?" Phoebe asked.

"Mm-hm. There hasn't been a ghost sighting in 30 years." Gary said.

A small gray mist seeped out then got sucked back in the Trap… Gray dropped it onto the table. The Trap cackled. The students turned around to Gray crouched down in front of Phoebe, Podcast, Max, and Connie…

"Wait a minute. This thing is real?" Gary asked.

"Absolutely." Both Podcast and Max said.

"Maybe." Both Phoebe and Connie said.

Phoebe turned to her friends and Gray.

"I found it in my living room." Phoebe said.

"She lived on the Dirt Farm." Connie said.

"Too." Max said.

"Oh, the really spooky one?" Gray asked.

"Yeah, the one that said "dirt" on it." Podcast said.

"Right." Connie said.

Phoebe turned to Gray.

"What happened in New York?" Phoebe asked for New Work...

To Be Continued…