Seeing Double

Seeing Double - Part 3

"Well," Five vampire ghosts said, calmly floating in a circle in the middle of the room. "There is a first time for everything, I suppose."

Their voices reverberated in the air as they spoke. Phantom winced at the sound of it. Worse than five pieces of chalk scrapped on a blackboard all at once.

He'd landed on the fridge. Actually he'd made a Phantom-sized dent in the door. When he lifted himself out of it he saw the shape he left behind. A steel plated snow angel.

The explosion had been so sudden he'd been too slow to react. Normally he'd have preferred to just fly through the fridge and then circle back. Not that it hurt to crumple the door of a steel fridge like tin foil with your body. When you're a ghost nothing hurts.

Unless you forget that nothing hurts, Phantom thought with another wince. He rolled his shoulders forward and flapped his arms and legs. Like when your foot falls asleep and you just need to get the blood flowing again. Except for all his limbs.

And ectoplasm instead of blood.

The ghost clones were ignoring him at the moment. They regarded each other with cheshire grins and started holding hands.

What the heck.

Anyway, the impact didn't hurt Phantom. At all. Actually, what really hurt was seeing Fenton on the ground with that creep. They looked like they were taking a nap together, which, gross. Vlad Masters gave Phantom pedo vibes up and down. Even if the man were dead he didn't want his carcass touching his-

Touching Fenton.

"You're a foolhardy boy, you know," The clones said. They'd begun slowly merging together, but they still had five mouths. "What did you think you'd accomplish with that little stunt?"

Phantom might have answered, but he was too busy staring at the way the clones melted into each other. They'd started at their arms, linking them together into these weird connected ropes. Their hands disappeared and their arms shortened between them, bringing their torsos together as the circle shrunk. Then the arms were gone and they were all torsos, half connected like some freaky twins. All shoulders and five heads.

"It's rude to stare," the ghost heads said.

"Sorry," Phantom said. "Uh, is this normal for you?"

They glared at Phantom. "No as a matter of fact!" The heads had finally reached each other and his voice wobbled as the heads swallowed each other up. "Y-you scatt-t-t-t-ered my-y-y ecto-o-o-oplasm-m!"

"Is that what I did?" Phantom said. "So sorry about that. Won't happen again." He mimed taking notes. "Yanking at core... bad. Scatters... Ectoplasm..." He pretended to click a pen. "There. Won't happen again."

"Insolent brat," the ghost said. He was in one piece now. "I should drag you into the ghost zone. Throw you in a frozen wasteland."

Phantom gasped. "And then just leave me for dead? Er, for undead? Cruel."

The ghost actually pouted. "Hardy har har, you're very funny," he sighed. "Are all teenagers like this? Is there no off button?"

"Afraid not."

Below them, Fenton groaned. Phantom glanced down for just a split second but that was all the time the creepy vampire needed to pounce. He sprang forward and grabbed Phantom by the back of his hazmat suit, lifting him like a baby kitten, and dragged him intangibly through a wall.

Through several walls. Phantom couldn't tell if they were flying up or down. He didn't know how fast they were going, but the world was a blur of colors around them.