Seeing Double

Seeing Double - Part 4

Danny woke up with Vlad Masters sprawled half on top of him. Phantom and the ball of pink energy, whatever that was, were long gone.

He decided not to tell his parents what had happened. They didn't think highly of Amity Park's celebrity ghost, so it was better that they didn't know Phantom had followed them to Wisconsin.

Instead he simply alerted them to the fact that Masters had fainted.

Dad carried him to the nearest couch and that might have been the end of it if Harriet Chin hadn't noticed the dent in the fridge.

"You can't just explain everything away with ghosts," Miss Chin was seething. "This is a real problem, Jack! A man is unconscious."

"C'mon Harry," Dad said. "Vladdy told me himself the place was haunted."

"Sweetie, did you hit your head?" Mom said. She had noticed a drop of blood on the collar of Danny's shirt and was looking for the injury. He tried not to flinch as she lightly ran her fingers over his scalp. She found the scab. "What happened to you?"

"I just tripped," Danny said. "Uh, I mean! When Mister Masters fainted I tried to catch him. But he was too heavy. So, uh, we both fell."

"Did you land against the fridge?" Miss Chin said.

"What?" Danny said. "N-no!"

She snorted. "Of course not, you'd need to be thrown against it at the speed of a jet to make a dent this huge."

Mom laughed too and wrapped her arms around Danny protectively. "Your bones would be crushed by an impact like that," she said, giving Danny a squeeze.

"It's ghosts!" Dad said. "I can feel it in my bones."

"The dent is shaped oddly," Mom said. "It's humanoid. Look Jack. The torso, the head, the limbs."

"A ghost fight," Dad was bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Two ghosts!"

"When did the fridge become this way?" Chin was looking at Danny. "Was it already damaged when you came into the kitchen?"

"Um," Danny said. Now all three of them were looking at him. "I don't know?"

"You don't know?" Mom echoed. "What happened while you were here?"

"Masters fainted," Danny said.

"Was the fridge dented before he fainted?" Chin said.

"Um, no," Danny said. "Uh, I left to get you guys. And came back. It was like that when we got back."

"Are you sure? Did you look at the fridge before you left?" Mom turned Danny around to face her, hands on his shoulders. "Danny this is important."

"I don't know," Danny said. He wasn't sure if it would be better or worse for Phantom, should they catch him later, for the damage to the fridge to be connected to Vlad Masters fainting spell. Would they think Phantom had attacked Masters if the fridge were dented before he fainted? "My memory is fuzzy?"

The color drained from Mom's face and Danny winced. He shouldn't have said that.

"Sweetie," she tried to smile calmly, but her eyebrows twitched. "I want you to tell me everything you remember from today. And yesterday. Actually, this is a good time for a Reflection don't you think?"

Danny groaned. He hated Reflections.

He'd told Vlad Masters that there had been no side effects to his accident with the ghost portal, but that wasn't strictly true. Physically he'd been fine. No ecto-acne, no radiation poisoning, no weird glowing of any kind. But there was one side effect.