Jason in the Ghost Zone

As long as nothing goes wrong

Danny hurried to meet with the ghost kid, a pillow tucked under his arm. The kid hadn’t been to happy when Danny had pointed out that he’d been using his hat as a pillow. After days of his parents being down in the basement, and ghosts popping up one after the other giving him hardly any time to rest.
What did ghosts in general do when they weren’t attacking? Right now he only had one to worry about, not that he was too worried, if so many ghosts were in Amity then there were fewer in the Ghost-Zone bothering the kid. His grounding was almost up, he was hoping he’d be able to make some headway with the extra time he had.
When the kid's island came into sight he’d been expecting to see the boy napping like he usually was when the hero came to visit, but instead found it empty. He raised an eyebrow, that was a first.
He looked around some of the nearby islands. Danny had to push down the little bit of worry that popped up. It wasn’t fair to think the kid was always in that spot, maybe he just waited there most days for Danny to show up.
The hero flew slowly through the few trees on one of the islands. If he couldn’t fly there was a real limit to how far the kid could get on his own. The number of islands he could reach by flying didn’t go very far. Maybe he’d figured out how to control that ghost skill? If that were the case Danny doubted the boy would have just disappeared, it was more likely he’d want to rub it in the other boys face.
He landed on the nearest island and looked down, what if the kid had fallen? Would his flight have kicked in and saved him? Danny hoped so as he began searching lower.
***
It was easy to say ,'I'll make a plan when I wake up,' when you had no idea what situation you were in. The island was completely isolated, the ones beneath it were too far to drop to, and the ones on the same level were far enough away to look like specs. He couldn’t reach those above.
He was trapped, exposed and helpless where he was. He hated this feeling, it made him think something worse was coming. Pain and smoke and blood were coming and there was nothing he could do about it. How long had he been there even? He couldn’t remember, it was hard to think when your brain was numb from staring at the sky waiting for a fate you couldn’t escape.
Did it even matter? He yawned, maybe he should sleep, he hadn’t done that in a while. The clouds were weird, but they were nice to look at. Shaking his head he derailed that train of thought, that was why people needed sleep, but that Ugly ass thing was still out there and he didn’t want to deal with that asleep, or sleep deprived either.
Why couldn’t I have been stranded somewhere more normal?
Even an old leaky roofed building was better that this. He let out a breath and closed his eyes. Something that loud would probably wake him up anyway. There was a little voice in the distance, but he ignored it and fell asleep again.
***
Danny stood over the sleeping ghost kid with his arms crossed. Irritated that he’d worried about nothing, and relieved that he had nothing to worry about.
“Kid.” Danny nudged the ghosts shoulder. “Hey kid wake up.” He shook the sleeping boys shoulder, but he just batted the heroes hand away. “Look what I brought.” He held out the pillow.
The ghost sat up with a yawn and gave Danny a half lidded glare. “What is it kid, ‘m tired.”
“You’re tired? Every time I see you you’re asleep. How did you even get down here?” Dannys eyes drifted around the island. Were those scorch marks? “What did you do?”
“Wasn’t me.” The kid got to his feet. “I don’t do weird crap like that.”
Danny wanted to tell The Kid how weird it was that he didn’t do any of those things, but a conversation like that wouldn’t have gone well. “So, how’ve you been, sorry I’ve been real busy lately.”
The kid had the look he usually got on his face when he was about to say something sarcastic, but his eyes drifted somewhere behind the hero his expression changed to one Danny couldn’t place.
“Busy with what?” the kid asked. “Anything new?”
“Just the usual.” Danny turned and tried to find whatever the ghost was looking at, the only things there were the scorches and a few cracks. “But seriously, what happened here? Did you see anything?”
“You could say that.” The kid still wasn’t looking at him.
“Must have been intense, huh?” Danny held out the pillow again. “You okay?”
The ghost looked at the pillow strangely then, like someone had flipped a switch he smiled and took from the hero. “I’m fine.”
“You shouldn’t have come down here after that. They could have come back you know.” Danny said with his arms crossed.
He thought he saw the kids eyebrow twitch. “I fell. There were some… some things happening where I was. I couldn’t stay there.”
“Stuff like what?” Now that he looked closely the kid did seem a tired, maybe even sick. Did ghosts get sick the way people could? “Sure you’re okay?”
“Er…” The ghost scratched the back of his head, knocking off the hat, he didn’t even notice. “Weird stuff. I swear the whole place was out to get me,” he said with a chuckle. “Couldn’t hold them off forever. I was hoping I’d be able to find somewhere to hide, but I couldn’t get off this island after I, you know.”
“Did something chase you off?” Danny asked.
“Yeah, something like that, anyway you should probably take off ya know, with those big hero things you’re so busy with. Don’t worry about me, I’ll figure something out.” The Kid was holding the pillow to his chest like it was a teddy bear.
“How long have things been bothering you like this?” Danny asked, a sick feeling building in his stomach.
“Since I got here.” The kid scuffed his book on the ground.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” The hero wanted to shake him.
“Thought it was normal.” The kid shrugged. “Before that thing with your friends I thought it was just how people here said hello.”
Danny felt like dirt. He was supposed to be a hero and he’d left a kid in a place he’d known was dangerous, even after he’d said he would help. Was that why the kid always slept when he was around? Did he not have any chance to otherwise? Now Danny felt like worse than dirt. It was like a guilt trip from Jazz ten times over.
“I’m sorry.” Danny said. “I didn’t think anything out here would hurt you.”
“I said it was fine. Not like there’s anything you can do about it. This whole place is dangerous, right?” The kid had picked up his hat, and was playing with the bells.
Was there anything he could do? As far as he knew there was nowhere in the Ghost-Zone that was safe. He couldn’t stay here all the time, but the thought of leaving the kid alone made him want to throw up. It wasn’t like he could just take the kid with him wherever he went either, or could he.
“Hey Kid, I think I know something that can help, but you have to promise to do everything I tell you. Okay?” Danny said. This ghost couldn’t even fly, he was almost harmless.
***
It was ironic that the reason it was so easy to manipulate the kid was the reason the other boy was worried about him, when it made getting into a position where he could keep him out of trouble so easily. He hadn’t heard the beeping in a while, but he knew the danger was still near.
It was an uncomfortable coincidence that Mr. Ugly had popped up right around the time a lot of activity was keeping Danny busy. Someone had always said that there were no coincidences.
“Okay, so now my parents are normal people, and they really don’t like people that come from here, so you cant let them see you, ever. Okay?” The kid was saying.
The other boy just nodded along. Being from an area people looked down in wasn’t a new thing. He hadn’t thought Danny would be stupid enough to take him right to his home, that he did was troubling. What if someone with bad motives tried the same thing? The kids naivety would have been amusing were it not such a serious problem.
Being flown past all the islands until there wasn’t even one in sight was uncomfortable, very, very uncomfortable. If he was dropped here he was sure he’d keep falling forever. If he’d known where they were going exactly, had landmarks to keep track of, it would have been much easier to keep his mind off it.
He tried coming up with a plan for when he reached his destination, but again he had no information to work with. What was the area near where Danny lived like? Would his movement be even more constricted than it had been before, or was the terrain easy to navigate? Was it defensible, and if not could it be made so, how? Would he be able to track down whoever it was that was a threat to the kid who wanted to be a hero?
He would have preferred convincing the kid to stop playing hero all together, but without information that was impossible. Going into a situation blind was a bad idea, but he was blind where he was too.
“We’ll drop by Sam's first though, she should be able to help us out. Tucker…” Danny gave his passenger a shake. “Are you listening? This is important.”
“Sorry.” The boy forced a yawn. “Tired.”
“Just, don’t freak out when the equipment goes off okay, we’ll be through before it can do anything if we move fast. We’re almost there, you ready?”
A part of him felt he should be more nervous about flying through the big swirling death vortex. The other part was just hoping that they got past whatever equipment the kids parents had set up. Oh well, as far as he could see it was the best solution for the both of them. As long as nothing went wrong at least.
“I AM THE BOX GHOST!”
“What the #@!%!”