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Exorcism wasn’t exactly the right word. Exorcism implied that she performed some sort of ritual on the ghosts, which she did not, thank you very much. Valerie’s job was more like…relocating the ghosts using the modern marvel called technology and science.
None of that mumbo jumbo religious crap.
But unfortunately for her, social media and marketing were her bread and butter. No customers meant no business, and people who needed ghosts removed were far more likely to search for an exorcist rather than a ghost re-locator.
And thus, Valerie started offering exorcism services.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of the time, her clients did not have a ghost for her to exorcise. Some would be happy with her perfectly reasonable explanations of what was likely causing the racketing at night such as mice in the walls or dying Furbee shoved up a ceiling tile (and yes, this one did happen to her), but sometimes her clients insisted that she look harder for the ghost that they were absolutely positively sure were haunting their walls.
Fortunately, she had the tools for that. A fake scanner that would beep when she pressed down on a button to the side and would “show” the ghost’s location. From there she could take her ecto-vacuum and suck the air for a minute. This typically satisfied those tougher clients, and she could happily take their money for being such stubborn pain in the asses and go about her day.
So no, exorcisms were not her favorite kinds of calls. Which explained why she was driving to her next job debating how bad for business it would be if she nonchalantly drove herself off a cliff.
Just an average case of the Mondays.
She checked her GPS location. Fifteen minutes away. The area was quiet, people already tucked into their homes after their long days at work. Unlike most people, Valerie’s day didn’t start in the morning. Ghosts were most active and rowdy at night, so that’s when she worked.
She thought back to when she was a teenager. Having the energy to go to school and then go ghost hunting at night was insane. Nowadays, even the graveyard work hours were starting to get to her. And that was with sleeping during the day.
Maybe she needed better blackout curtains.
She pulled off the highway, entering one of the suburbs of Amity Park. She recognized this area, though she couldn’t quite figure out how. She must have known someone in high school from here…but who?
Ah well, not much of a loss if she couldn’t remember.
After stopping for a quick Starbucks pick-me-up, she continued down the street filled with a mix between the typical Amity brownstone homes and the more modern wooden ones. And then she turned a corner, and suddenly she remembered who used to live in this neighborhood.
The house looked different from how she remembered it. The giant satellite on the house was gone, that was the first difference. And the glowing sign had vanished too. It was funny how just without those old eyesores, the house looked so… normal.
It almost seemed disrespectful, in a way, how easily their memory was erased from the home. Like they had never lived there before, like the last family had been normal too.
But the Fentons had been far from normal.
Still, she could have laughed. Jack Fenton would have been rolling in his grave if he found out that there was a ghost haunting their old home.
Valerie pulled in front of the house and turned off her ignition. She got out and began pulling her gear from the car—she didn’t show as Red Huntress to these small gigs anymore—when the front door opened.
“Oh good, you’re here,” the man said. He was tall, thin, and looked every bit the overtired, overworked millennial new parent that he had sounded on the phone. “I’m George, we talked earlier.”
Valerie put down her duffle bag to shake his hand. “Hello, I’m Valerie.”
“Yes, yes,” he said hurriedly. “Thank you for coming on short notice. We’re still moving in but we haven’t even been able to get into the basement with this ghost guarding it.”
“The basement?” Valerie asked, her brain pinging an old memory. The Fentonworks lab had been down there, the one with the ghost portal. As far as she was aware, though, their old college friend and her old boss Vlad had dismantled the portal after the explosion. So then why was a ghost hanging around down there? Did it get lost?
Maybe it was just looking for a way home. Ghosts didn’t have the best of memories, after all.
A quiet calm settled over her. Most likely, she was just going to have to tell the ghost—if there even was one—that the portal location had moved, and she’d offer it a ride there. The ghost would leave easily, and her job would be done.
Okay, not a bad Monday after all.
“He hasn’t really done anything,” the man was saying, leading her into the house. Boxes surrounded them, evidence of the unpacking the family had yet to do. “The issue is that he keeps guarding the room. He doesn’t leave the room, but he won’t let any of us in there. He’s pretty small; he doesn’t look like much but take one step in there and he gets all pissed off and you can feel the pressure coming off this guy. I didn’t really want to test my luck.”
“So you’ve seen him?” Valerie asked. Usually, if a client could describe the ghost in so much detail, that was a sign that there actually was a ghost for her to ‘exorcise.’
“Oh yeah,” the man said. “My wife saw him first—she’s keeping the kids busy upstairs while you’re here, by the way—and then I went down to check it out. If he wasn’t glowing, I would have thought he was just a regular kid with a dyed hair job.”
“Dyed hair?”
“It was white. I thought he was an old guy till he turned around.”
Alarm bells blared in her head.
A ghost kid with white hair?
But no…it couldn’t be…
Suddenly she was two steps ahead of this man, all but leaping down the stairs. Her heart pounded in her chest. The man was behind her, still rambling, but Valerie had tuned him out.
After thirteen years, had she finally found him? The ghost that used to haunt Amity Park until the explosion that killed the entire Fenton family?
There were theories as to why Phantom disappeared that day. Some say he was caught in the blast, while others think that his first deaths were too much for his Obsession to handle and he ran off into the Ghost Zone. Others think that he caused the blast, and once his plan succeeded, he had no reason to stay in Amity.
Valerie never learned the truth. She stayed out for weeks searching for Phantom. At first, it was in anger over her friend Danny dying. She remembered she had a whole plan. She was going to punch him in the face and then demand he apologize for letting the Fentons die. But as the weeks passed, and her anger quelled, she remembered just feeling lost. Lonely. She missed her friend Danny, one of the few people who was truly kind to her at school, and she just wanted to talk to someone who had experience with death. But then more time passed, and she realized that she also missed Phantom. They were never exactly friends, but they often ran into each other while patrolling. Valerie hadn’t realized this, but after so long, she had stopped shooting on sight. She had stopped targeting him. She had started to make small talk with him.
With Phantom.
And then he just…disappeared.
She was alone.
But maybe not for long.
She jumped down the last step and flung open the basement door to reveal what used to be the Fentonworks lab. The tile flooring was replaced with carpet, and the metal walls had been replaced with regular plaster. But still, Valerie could see the old lab in the room. She could visualize where the tables used to be, where the portal was, where the odd machines and metal shelving units used to lay.
The room seemed so much bigger with them all gone.
And there in the far end, emitting the only light in the room, was him.
Phantom.
He hadn’t aged a day. His face was still just as childlike as ever, and his hair looked the exact same teenage-boy cut since she’d seen him last. He still wore the black and white jumpsuit, and his aura seemed just as strong as when she’d seen him last.
The man stood at the top of the stairs, unsure (or unwilling?) to go any further.
“Stay there,” she said, before entering the room, flicking the lights on, and shutting the door behind her.
The ghost stared at her, his face impassive, and for a moment Valerie wasn’t sure whether Phantom recognized her.
She stepped forward. “It’s me, Phantom. Valerie.”
He didn’t react.
“You remember me?” On her mental command, her suit activated, shrowding her body in her red suit.
Something flickered in Phantom’s acid green eyes.
Valerie set her duffle bag down and raised her hands.
That elicited more of a reaction.
The ghost blinked, the last of the fog leaving his eyes. He brought his hand up to his forehead and rubbed at his temples as if he had a headache.
“Phantom?” she tried.
“Valerie?” his voice broke as if he hadn’t spoken in a while. He cleared his throat and spoke again, this time more clearly, “Valerie!”
“Hey.” She crept forward a little more and retracted her helmet. “Yeah, it’s me.”
“Oh. I tried coming home, but I…”
“I know. The portal’s gone and you got lost, yeah?”
Valerie watched as several emotions played on his face. A flicker of confusion, then whisps of the fog, a touch of sadness, before settling back into that blank look. “Yeah. That’s it, the portal’s gone.”
Curiosity burned at her skin, but she had a job to do. Once she got him outside, she could ask him any question she wanted. “It’s okay, I know where the new one is. I can help you get there if you’d like?”
“I know where the portal is, Val,” he said, his old teenage snark seeping into his tone. “How do you think I got back here?”
Valerie froze. Something…was off.
Still, she tried to remain calm and professional. Phantom was a powerful ghost, and he’d been MIA for the last thirteen years. Frankly, she had no idea what he was capable of now. “Well, can I ask why you’re here?”
“I…” He ducked his head, his hand going back up to rub his forehead. “I was trying to go home.”
“Yes but the portal is no longer here,” Valerie said slowly like she was talking to a child. “It’s moved locations.”
“I know!” he snapped.
“Then why did you come back to this location?”
His aura flared out, and he whipped around, his green eyes blazing. “I already said I was going home!”
“Okay.” Valerie raised her hands again, taking a step back. “Okay, that’s fine, Phantom.”
He shrank back, a guilty look crossing his face. “I’m sorry, don’t go, Val.”
“I’m not leaving you. I’m just trying to sort this out.”
“Sort what out?”
Was he really this out of it? Valerie always remembered Phantom being above-average intelligence for a ghost.
She wondered if all those years wandering around— wherever he was— did a number on his psyche.
“Why you’re here. There’s no portal, there’s nothing for you here, Phantom. We should leave, the new family has young children.”
He blinked and looked around as if he’d just noticed the carpet flooring and plaster walls for the first time. “Oh…”
“The Fentons aren’t here anymore.”
His eyes flared again, but thankfully this time, he glared at the ground. “I know. ”
Okay, so the Fentons were a touchy subject for Phantom.
“Why don’t we go talk outside?” she asked. Truthfully, she didn’t think any of her equipment could hold a non-weakened Phantom, and she was not willing to get in a fight with a ghost that could easily level the entire house if he was angry enough.
He was staring at the wall again, though. He either didn’t hear her or he was pretending not to. “I miss them.”
“The Fentons?” she asked, failing to hide the surprise in her voice.
She suspected he felt guilt for letting them die, but actual loss?
For a family of ghost hunters?
“Yeah.” He reached out, brushing one of the walls with his glowing hand. “Yeah, I miss them. I just needed to come back here one more time. I don’t know.”
“George said you’ve been here all day,” Valerie said. “You wouldn’t let them in the basement.”
“I just needed a few minutes.”
“You can’t bar them from their own home, though. You know this.”
Phantom let his hand fall back to his side. His shoulders slumped, and for the first time all night, instead of seeing an unstable, powerful ghost, all Valerie saw was a kid.
God, had he always looked this young?
“I just wanted to come here one last time.”
“Why?” Valerie asked. Taking a gamble, she approached the ghost, pulling up to stand beside him. “Why do you care so much?”
His head hung low. Through his bangs, Valerie could see glowing tears pooling in his eyes. “I miss them. I wanted to come home.”
There was that line again. Come home. Before, Valerie had assumed that Phantom was talking about his lair in the Zone as home. But now…
“Phantom, what do you mean by home? What is home to you?”
Phantom shrugged, sniffling. “That doesn’t matter anymore. It’s covered in carpet.”
She wrapped her arm around him and was surprised when he didn’t phase away. For a while, they just stood there, ghost hunter and ghost, as Phantom quietly cried beside her. She tightened her hold around his small body, and he lowered himself to the ground, ducking his head into her body.
He clutched her arm like a lifeline, crying into her suit, whispering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Valerie didn’t respond, not sure if the ghost was even talking to her or not.
After a few moments, Phantom seemed to calm somewhat, and Valerie finally ventured to ask the question that had been slowly forming in her mind. “Phantom…did you used to live here?”
That elicited a fresh wave of tears from the ghost, and he folded, crouching low to the ground, burying his head in his hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I didn’t mean for this to happen. I never wanted this to happen.”
“It’s okay,” Valerie said, because what the hell was even going on anymore?
How could Phantom have lived in this house? While the Fentons were here too? Their home was armed to the teeth with anti-ecto weaponry. It would have been virtually impossible for him to live here.
Unless…
Unless he was able to disguise himself as a human.
As Danny.
Valerie stepped away from him as if burned.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he continued to whisper from the ground, and suddenly those pleads had taken on a new meaning.
“Oh my god. You were Danny.”
He whipped around, his hair wild and face streaked with tears.
“You were Danny the whole time. It was always you.”
His eyes widened, and now it was his turn to stand and slowly approach her. “It’s not what you think, Val.”
“No, it is what I think. Danny died long before the explosion, and you took his place. It makes sense, it all makes sense now. The sudden personality shift, why he was always so cold, why he never really looked right. He never looked or acted right because it was you. ”
He stopped. “That’s what you think?”
“I’m right.”
His eyes welled with tears again, and his lip quivered. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
In her mind, she expected more of a fight. The Phantom she used to know would have angered, he would have flared out his aura in challenge, he would have yelled and gone to punch her for daring to speak ill of his name.
But this Phantom wasn’t the same. He was defeated, he was isolated, and he was abandoned.
And so he just shrugged. “Okay.”
Valerie retracted her suit and headed for the door. “Five minutes. You have five more minutes and then I want you out. If I come back down here and you’re still in their home, I won’t hesitate to remove you by force. You used to tell me all the time that you didn’t want to fight me. Let’s see if you still feel that way.”
But when she turned to glance back at him one last time before she left, she only saw an empty room.
Danny Phantom was gone.