#bubblegumbeech

But why had Vlad cut contact in the first place?  Could it have been because… because he was in some sort of self-loathing funk and didn’t think he deserved Jack and Maddie’s friendship?  Just because of the ecto-acne?  That was horrible!

But what if…  what if he was still in a self-loathing funk?  

Jack would have to find a way to pull him out!  All it would take was some good-old Fenton Friendship (patent pending)!  He’d be the best, most unshakeable friend ever!  He wouldn’t let Vlad isolate himself ever again!

With that, Jack rolled over and tried to get back to sleep.  

Unfortunately, all that introspection had really gone to his bladder!  Where did Vladdie keep his bathrooms these days?

.

It took a while for Jack to put his plan into action, but it became much easier when Vlad unexpectedly moved to Amity Park.  

The plan started with getting Danny up.  A difficult but far insurmountable task.  Danny slept like the dead!  Ah, Jack remembered those teenage days.  Well, far be it from Jack to be deterred by fatigue, even if it was someone else’s fatigue.

He picked Danny up.  Danny could get dressed in the GAV.  Jack had already packed!

“Dann-o and I are going out!” shouted Jack, as he hefted Danny under one arm and threw them both out the front door.  He heard a small, unhappy grunt from upstairs.  Sounded more like Jazz than Maddie.  Maddie probably still had her earplugs in.  Oh well!

Banzai!

“Whazgoingon?” asked Danny, scrabbling at Jack’s suit with nails sharp enough to be felt through the spandex.  “Wherzzaghost?”

“No ghost, Dannyboy!” said Jack, nonetheless proud of Danny for his very Fenton-like reaction.  He’d make a ghost hunter out of him yet!

Danny blinked hard.  “Why’re we outside?”

Jack grinned and threw open the door of the GAV, depositing Danny inside.  “It’s a surprise!” he said.  He slammed the door shut.

“Dad,” said Danny, trying to open the door (which stayed firmly shut, courtesy of Fenton Child Locks, the Only Ghost-Resistant Child Lock (patent pending)), “wait, I have plans for today–”

“Rescheduled!” said Jack, jumping into the driver’s seat.  

“No, no, that’s not how plans work.  Where are we going?”

“You’ll see!”

And they were off, zooming through the streets of Amity Park at a much more efficient pace than any of the cars around them.  

“Dad, the speed limits!”

“We’re Fentons, Danny!  We have no limits!”  He looked over at his son.  “We’ll be there in a minute, why don’t you go get your clothes on?  I packed!”

“Sure,” said Danny, sounding strained but away.  “Wait, packed for what?  Dad–”

“You’ll see!”

Soon enough, even before Danny reemerged from the back of the GAV, Jack was pulling up in front of Vlad’s place.  

“Dad,” called Danny, “I can’t find my phone!”

“That’s because I didn’t pack it!”

“But I need my phone, I–”  Danny broke off.  “Is that Vlad’s?  Are we at Vlads?”

“Yep!” said Jack.  “We’re bonding today!”

Danny looked appropriately surprised.  

Jack took the surprise for the approval it obviously was, and jumped out.  “Vladdie!” he exclaimed.  

There was, of course, no response from the mansion.  Vlad probably couldn’t hear him from out here.  Jack ran up to the door and started ringing the bell.  

“Maybe he’s out?” suggested Danny.  

Luckily, this proved not to be the case when Vlad enthusiastically threw the door open. 

“What do you want?” he asked.  

Jack threw an arm around his shoulders.  “Come on, V-man!  I’ve found a haunted house for us to explore!”

“What?”

“It’ll be just us guys!  Like old times!  But also new times!  Because Danny will be there!”

“Jack, you… shouldn’t have.  Surely you would prefer going with just your son, rather than dragging boring old me along for the ride?”

There was that self depreciation again.  Jack wouldn’t allow it!

“No way, Vladdie!  This calls for a trio!  Brains, brawn, and beauty!”

“Oh, is Maddie coming?”

“Nope!”  Jack started back to the GAV.

“Did you plan this?” Danny whispered at Vlad.  

“I can assure you, dear boy, that I did not.”

They were getting along already!  Perfect!

But Jack noticed he wasn’t being followed.  

“Last one to the GAV is a rotten egg!” said Jack.  “Rabbit house won’t wait forever!”

“It’s a house,” said Danny.  “A building.  It isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.”

“Jack, do you mean Rabataceto House?”

“That’s the one!”

Next to Vlad, Danny mouthed the name and frowned.  Jack didn’t blame him.  It sure was a mouthful!  Horrible to pronounce!  Jack much preferred the nickname.  

“Maybe I will come along,” said Vlad, slowly smiling.  “Allow me a few minutes to… put some things in order.”

Success! Cheered Jack, internally.  It was great to see a real smile on Vlad’s face.  Wow.  He couldn’t wait until they got to the haunted house and were able to tangle with some spooks!

.

Rabbit house wasn’t a grand, sweeping mansion.  It was small, compact, even.  Two stories tall, three if you counted the attic, it had a little over fifteen hundred square feet of ‘living’ space, plus another five hundred or so feet of low-ceiling storage in the attic.  

It was old, too.  Built with fireplace heating in mind.  One bathroom on the ground floor, two bedrooms upstairs.  

The property it was built on, however, was quite large, held by distant relatives of the last residents.  No nearby neighbors.

That didn’t stop the rumors.  Rituals in the dead of night.  Mysterious lights.  Curses.  

All hogwash, of course!  There was no such thing as curses!  Clearly it was all caused by ghosts!

Jack hit the breaks of the GAV moments before hitting the small, overgrown, statuette that gave the house its nickname.  The treads dug into the dilapidated and long abandoned drive, flinging mud and dirt everywhere.

“Here we go, folks!” said Jack.  He hopped out and inhaled the fresh, clean air.  Vlad and Danny followed at a slower pace.

“Wow,” said Danny.  

“You like it, son?”

“Uh,” said Danny.  “‘Like’ is maybe too strong a word.  It’s… certainly a building.”

Vlad chuckled behind them.  Well, it sounded more like a scoff, but Jack knew it was a chuckle!  Back in college, Vlad had told him that was just how he laughed!

Well, Danny wasn’t wrong!  Rabbit house was pretty worn out, all things considered.  There were still traces of paint on the exterior, but its color had long ago faded out into obscurity.  Weeds were growing up through the foundations, and there were climbing vines tearing at the wood siding.  The windows were gaping holes, staring like eyes.  

All in all, it looked intensely haunted.  Perfect!  Just what they needed!

“Exactly, Danno!  I’m going to get the equipment!”

“What equipment?” asked Danny.  The plants under their feet rustled and crunched.  

“Fenton tech!” said Jack, throwing open the side of the GAV.  He offloaded a bazooka to Danny, who stumbled under the weight but then held firm.  He gave a number of smaller, more fiddly tools to Vlad.  Detectors, shields, precision weapons, and various deterrents.  

Vlad hissed and dropped them immediately.  

“Vladdie, you okay?”  Were his old injuries acting up?

“No!  Your shoddy wiring shocked me!” 

Poor Vlad.  At least he wasn’t blaming himself outright this time.  

“Shoddy wiring,” repeated Danny.  “Sure.”

“Don’t be like that, Danno!  Accidents happen!”

Danny shot him an impenetrable look, then went back to glaring suspiciously at Vlad.   

“Vladdie, why don’t you take this,” Jack offered up a smaller weapon that had never given him or Maddie any trouble, “and I’ll take care of the rest of this!  Danny, you go secure the perimeter while we sort things out.”

“I don’t think we should split up,” said Danny, promptly.  “That’s how the ghosts get you.”

“Right you are!  Good catch!”  He did wish Danny wasn’t so afraid of ghosts, but that was partially what this trip was for.  

Jack finished loading things into the pockets of his suit (man, those things were useful!) and marched up to the house, confident that Vlad and Danny would follow.  

“Here we go, guys!” he said happily, wrenching the door open.  The hinges let go of the frame with a snap.  

“We do have the owner’s permission to be here, right, Jack?” asked Vlad.  He sounded a little nasally.  Was he coming down with a cold?  Allergies?

Oh, well!  He was fine or he wouldn’t have come!

“We have permission from the city to deal with any ghost we find!  You know that, Mr. Mayor!”

“Dad, are we even in the city?”

“Eh, what we don’t know won’t hurt us!”  He bounded across the threshold.  

The interior of the house was… Well.  No other way to put it.  Sad.  The floor was splintered and rotted through in places.  The wallpaper, what still existed of it, was eaten through.  A wall between the entryway and a small sitting room was all but demolished.  To the right, the stairs were downright ominous, and the open doorway into the dining room sat at an odd angle.  

Yep.  Properly haunted.  

Behind him, Vlad and Danny stepped into the house, much more reluctantly.  Danny shivered as he entered, even though it wasn’t really any cooler in here than it was outside.  

He turned, grinning, and watched as Danny surveyed their surroundings with wide, impressed eyes.  Vlad looked a bit more cautious, peering into the more shadowy corners like the experienced ghost scientist he was.  

“So!” said Jack.  “I’ve got the noise detector, the EMF reader, and a spirit box!  What would you like to try out first?”

“Not the Fenton Finder?”

“Nah, thing gives too many false positives.  Did you know, it picks up both you and Vlad?  We’ve got to iron out the kinks before we field test it!”

“How about the spirit box, Jack?” suggested Vlad.  

Danny looked up at Vlad.  “I don’t think–”

Jack was already pressing the on button.  The spirit box screamed.  Well.  Not really.  Jack had the volume too low for a real scream.  It was just a static-filled high note.  Danny, dramatic teenager that he was, put both hands over his ears and cringed.  

“LOUD LOUD LOUD LOUD,” said the spirit box.  

“My.  A ghost with sensitive ears,” said Vlad.  

“Huh,” said Jack.  He spun a dial.  

“Whothemouthentersnoleavethepactimpacttheupperthemouthtravels.”

“Not very useful,” said Vlad, neutrally.  

“That’s why we’re trying to improve on it,” said Jack.  “It’s too bad the Ghost Gabber is always so buggy.”

“Rabbitsrabbitsplaycometothedarktheplayrabbitstheknifethemouth.”

Jack sighed and turned off the machine.  Nothing useful, huh?

The sunlight filtering in through the windows dimmed, as if a cloud was passing by the sun.  Danny shivered again.  

“Are we sure this building is, like, safe to be in?”

“Nope!  That’s why it’s an adventure!  Let’s explore!”

Jack, mindful of the uncertain flooring, made his way into the dining room.  It was quite dark in here, the curtains over the windows still doing their job.  There was movement out of the corner of his eye, and he turned to shoot.  

The blast rebounded, scorching the wall next to Jack.  

“Are you okay?” asked Danny, hurrying forward despite the weight of the bazooka in his arms.  

“A-okay, Danno!”

“It’s a mirror,” said Vlad, lifting a flashlight.  There were rabbits carved into the heavy wooden frame, although the mirror itself was tarnished.  

“Must be real silver,” said Jack.  “That can reflect ectoplasm, sometimes, Danny,” he added, when Danny gave him a confused look.  “Repel it, even.”

“Huh,” said Danny reaching up to touch the mirror.  He tilted his head, his reflection smiling a little.  “What’s wrong with these rabbits?”  He pointed to a pair of leggy rabbits sitting on top of the mirror.

“I believe those ones are hares,” said Vlad, his reflection smiling also, the warped surface of the mirror somehow showing a glint of red in his blue eyes.

“Do hares have fangs?” 

“Not usually.”

Jack was feeling a bit bored, but if Danny and Vlad were having fun with the mirror, he’d leave them to it.  He wanted to check out the kitchen.  

It was long.  Galley-style, but reasonably wide.  If he didn’t miss his mark, it had been designed with a house much larger than this in mind.  He walked in, cheerfully.  Maddie had been talking about remodeling the kitchen to have a more ‘retro’ style.  Maybe he could get some inspiration!

The stove creaked.  He turned to look at it, and suddenly, there was fire.  He shouted. 

“Dad!”

An ectoblast fired past him, hitting the oven dead-center.  Jack looked back to see Danny lowering the bazooka.  

“Great shooting, son!  You’ve bagged the first ghost of the night!”

“Yeah,” said Danny.  He squinted up at Vlad.  

“Let’s check out these cabinets!  There might be more!”

There really wasn’t anything in the cabinets, not even plates, much to Jack’s disappointment.  The bathroom, equally, was simply empty.  Old and musty.  Slightly damp.  It did have one of those mirrors Vlad and Danny were so interested in, though.  

“Do you hear… water?” asked Danny.  

“No,” said Vlad.  

“Hm.  No, Danny, don’t think so,” said Jack.  

“Like, not a lot, but running water?”

Jack looked at the tap of the old rusted bathtub, then the mostly-shattered sink.  “Nope,” he said.  “Maybe you’re just expecting it?”

“Maybe,” said Danny.  “But we’ve looked at everything now, right?”

“Only the first floor!”

Danny made a face.  “We aren’t going up those stairs, are we?”

“Sure are!”

“Dad, those are a death trap.”

“Oh, yes, Jack, let’s go upstairs.  You can go up first and tell us what’s up there.”

Again, Danny turned to squint at Vlad.  It was getting a little dark in here.  Really unseasonable, that.  Good thing they’d brought flashlights!

“Be careful,” said Danny.  

“Sure will, son!”  He ruffled Danny’s hair.  

The stairs were rickety, but nothing a Fenton Stair Master (patent pending name change) couldn’t handle!

“Huh,” said Danny, as the device unfolded over the stairs, fortifying them.

“Yes,” said Vlad, stroking his chin.  “I’d forgotten you made useful things.  Maddie’s work?”

“All mine!” said Jack, proudly.  “And you know that every Fenton invention is useful!  Even the ones we haven’t found a use for yet!”

The Stair Master stayed firm as he climbed, bouncing just a little under his weight.  The second floor, from what Jack remembered of his research, was bedrooms.  A master bedroom and a child’s bedroom.  

It was very dark up here.  Had someone turned off the sun?  Ha!

“It’s safe to come up,” said Jack.  

“Okay,” said Danny.  “So, what’s up here?”

“Let’s find out!”  Far be it from him to deny Danny the joys of discovery!  He threw open one of the doors.  

A bevy of ghostly white rabbits poured from the room, breaking like water around Jack and Danny’s ankles and flowing down the stairs. Jack readied his gun, but Danny bumped into him, sending the shot astray even as the rabbits seemed to dissolve.  

“That was weird,” said Danny, looking nervously up at Jack.  

Strange.  In this light, his eyes looked almost reflective.  

“Quite,” said Vlad, finishing his climb.  “What even is that room?”

Good question!  Jack and Vlad turned their flashlights on it.  Inside was a small bed and dozens upon dozens of stuffed rabbits in various states of decay.

“Creepy,” said Danny.  “What’s in the other room?”

The other room was the master bedroom.  It was still furnished, a luxurious and oddly inviting four-poster bed sitting in the center of the room.  The chimney from the floor below rose up through the floor.  Some of the bricks had fallen out.  

Jack took a step toward the bed.  Then another step.  He sat down on it.  

“What are you doing?” asked Danny.  

“Getting in a bit of a nap!” said Jack, jokingly.  

Danny’s eyebrows pinched together in worry.  “On that?”

Again, the bed was in surprisingly good shape.  Jack shrugged and started to lie down.  

“Without finding the ghost?”

Jack sat bolt upright.  Danny was right!  There was no resting while ghosts were out there to be caught!  There was still another floor.  

Danny sighed.  So did Vlad.  

“Goodness!” said Jack, putting together the clues from their concern.  “A ghost bed!”  Naturally, he turned and riddled it with holes.  

When he looked back, Danny had both hands on his head, and Vlad had a look of pleased delight on his face.  

“Great work, Jack,” he said.  

“Yep,” said Danny.  “Maybe we should go now?”

“Nonsense, dear boy,” said Vlad.  “There’s another floor, isn’t there?”

“Sure is, V-Man!  The attic!”

He marched out of the master bedroom and noted that it was almost pitch black inside the house.  Had it really gotten that late already?  No matter!  He pulled the Stair Master off the stairs to the first floor and put them on the ones leading to the attic.  He wasted no time going up.  

The attic was dark and crushingly quite.  It smelled like old iron.  Jack panned his flashlight back and forth across the floor, feeling oddly cautious.  

“Something’s wrong here,” whispered Danny.  The sound was unexpectedly close, and Jack jumped, the beam from the flashlight moving erratically.  

Still, Jack saw enough to trace back to the painted circle on the floor, and the small animal skeleton next to it.

“Huh,” he said, “the rumors were right about rituals, it looks like.”

“Could be pesky teens summoning demons on a dare,” said Vlad, passing Jack and Danny and approaching the circle.  “Looks fresh.”

“It’s stronger here,” said Danny.  His hand closed on the back of Jack’s jumpsuit.  

“What’s stronger here, Danno?” asked Jack, turning the flashlight on him. 

Danny shrugged.  His shadow didn’t move with him.  

“Danny,” he said, “I’m going to need you to be real still.”

“What?” 

Jack fired over Danny’s shoulder, but the black mass behind him merely sucked the ectoblast up, the green light running into the cracks in the wood like it was liquid poured into irrigation channels.  Mirrors hung on the walls flashed silver as the light reached them and began disgorging ghostly rabbits.  

Jack picked up Danny under one arm and began firing.  But all of his shots were absorbed.  Vlad cursed loudly as the rabbits bowled him over, into the painted circle.  

“Come on, Vlad,” said Jack.  “This calls for the GAV’s arsenal!  Danny, where’s the bazooka?”

“I dropped it and the floor ate it!”

“Vlad!” called Jack, again, as he reached the top of the stairs.  “Come on!”

“I can’t!” shouted Vlad from where he still stood in the circle.  The paint on the floor was glowing red.  

Oh, no!  This ghost didn’t get to steal his best friend!

Firing at the rabbits to clear them, Jack fought his way back into the room.  

“Dad, you’re just giving it more power!  Try one of the shields!”

“Can’t reach!  Second pocket down from the hip!”

He felt Danny get the pocket open at about the same time he reached the now luridly bright circle.  Vlad looked… bad.  Sickly.  His skin almost blue, his eyes reflecting the red-pink light of the circle.  

Jack dropped his gun, reached across the line, grabbed Vlad by the arm, and pulled.  There was resistance.  Like a wall of taffy between him and Vlad.  Then a bright green shield snapped into place and the resistance vanished.  

Great!  Danny had gotten the shield to work!  It had never been that color, though.  Maybe he’d picked up a new prototype by mistake?  Oh, well.  If it worked it worked!

He wasted no time running for the stairs.  The Stair Master once again proved its worth, but the second flight of stairs proved theirs, too, in that they collapsed into sawdust when Jack was halfway down.  

He laid on his back, dazed, for a moment, staring at the bright shapes streaking above him.  Then he was back, Danny pulling at his shoulder in an attempt to get him off the ground.  

“--a miracle none of us were impaled!” Vlad was saying.  

“Not a miracle and you know it, fruitloop!”

Jack would have to talk to Danny about respecting Vlad’s trauma, but that was for later.  For now, he picked them both up again and ran for the door.  

…neither of them weighed as much as they really should.  Should Jack be worried about that?

The door slammed shut, vines growing over it.  

“Back door?” asked Danny, breathlessly.  The shield shimmered and pulsed as the rabbits threw themselves at it.  “I don’t know how long this shield will last!”

“In the kitchen!” said Jack.  

The kitchen was on fire, green flames licking up to the ceiling.  Jack ran through it anyway, trusting the shield and hitting the back door like a linebacker.  

… Was linebacker the right term?  He hadn’t watched football since the last game he’d spent with Vlad.  

They were out.  The sky above them swirled angrily, a storm with an eye centered over the house.  He cut right to the GAV, which was slowly sinking into the mud of the driveway.  

“No!  You aren’t taking my car, ghost!”  He jumped on top of the GAV and hit the emergency shield button on the roof.  Not only did this repel the mud, for some reason it froze it as well.  

“Did you do that?” asked Vlad.  

“Guess I did!” said Jack, proudly.  

Danny shrugged.  

He opened the roof door and dropped into the GAV, activating the weapons.  “BANZAI!”

The weapons all discharging at once was very satisfying, and they completely demolished the house, which exploded into splinters and small, ghostly rabbits that rapidly disintegrated.  

Vlad sighed.  “I suppose I will be footing the bill for this?”

“More importantly, how are we getting the GAV out of this hole?” asked Danny.  

“Easy, we’ll call Maddie!”

Danny gave Jack a very flat look.  “With what phone?  I know you don’t have one.”

Vlad sighed.  “I’ll make the call.”

.

What a productive day!  Bonding with Vlad and Danny, defeating a ghost!  What more could he ask for?  

Of course, Maddie had been annoyed that he’d gone without her, but sometimes things couldn’t be perfect, and Jack had noticed how flustered Vlad still got with Maddie.  It was sort of cute!  It had been twenty years and he still behaved like he was in college!

Jack started unloading his pockets.  EMF, ectogun refills, spirit box, portable shield generator…  Huh.  When had Danny put this back in his pocket?  

Oh, well!  Danny could be pretty sneaky when he put his mind to it.  Now, only if he put his mind towards other things, like ghost hunting.  

He hummed, cheerfully.  Now, where could he take them next time?

.

Moonlight shone down on the ruins of Rabataceto House.  Slowly, however, something began to shine up as well, the bones of a building tracing themselves out in ghostly white light.  Light that became more and more solid, and dimmer and dimmer, until all that any onlooker would see was a small, dilapidated, but otherwise perfectly normal house.  

There was exactly one onlooker.  

“I’m keeping an eye on you,” said Phantom.  “I mean it.”

The house creaked, as if in answer.