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Danny cringed as he slammed into a café window, more from embarrassment than pain. He’d fought this ghost enough times to know that it shouldn’t be taking this long to bag it. Glass clinked to the floor as he turned intangible to get it out of his hair. He didn’t seem to fully reappear, though— his form flickered. Before he knew it, his hands were fading into a fine grey mist that was carried away on nonexistent wind. He barely had time to react, catching sight of his friends running across the street. They’d definitely noticed he wasn’t bouncing back as quick as he should have.
“Sam? Tuck—!” Danny shouted to them, wide-eyed. More of him vanished.
Sam called his name, but it sounded distant. Before she could reach for him, Danny was gone.
Danny was gone.
…
For a moment, the brightness of his glow startled him. He was in a room with curtains drawn, surrounded by cheap red candlesticks that colored the paper plates they sat on.
“What the fuck?” Danny looked up from his now-tangible gloved hands, registering his surroundings. Three twenty-something’s stared back at him.
“It’s him.” The young woman’s goth look gave Sam a run for her money. They could’ve been fast friends at one of the local scene’s dive bar concerts.
“Told’ya it’d work! I’ve been studying—” Another combat-boot-clad guy put her arm around her, beaming. Acting like Danny wasn’t a person. Who was sitting right there.
Danny grimaced. “This is some occult shit, isn’t it?”
The third kid looked more vanilla. Redhead. Glasses-wearing. He rolled his eyes. “We call ourselves the Dark Brotherhood.”
Danny scoffed and shook his head. “C’mon, even I played that game.”
“But you’re a—"
“Ghost. Who’s tired of finding out what’s real and what’s not like this.” He cautiously toed the table salt the college kids had poured onto the floor, muttering to himself, “Well, that’s one less thing to worry about.” Danny took a step outside the circle.
“Wait—!”
He froze up, waiting for the four-eyes to finish.
“We were hoping to ask you some questions.”
“Uh… shoot, I guess. For future reference though, a Ouija Board would be a lot less awkward.” Danny smiled. Now that he was talking, his audience seemed starstruck. He took the ego boost.
“How did you die?”
“I was electrocuted.”
“By what?”
“Don’t remember.” Danny answered casually. He didn’t mind playing the role of a full ghost sometimes. “I’ve got one for you— where are we?” He slid a couple fingers behind the closed blinds, squinting into the daylight. “Downtown? Off Main?”
“Yeah, uh, Fourteenth.”
“Was there… anything else?”
It was becoming obvious the kids didn’t expect to make it this far. Their mouths were still agape.
Danny shrugged, stretching his shoulders. “Great. Be glad you didn’t take me too far outta my way.”
“Phantom’s not dangerous,” the punk guy muttered. “You got the good-guy thing going.”
“Then what’s with the salt?” Danny grinned, flashing his pointed teeth. He made for the door, and he didn’t need to ask the redhead to move out of his way. “Don’t fuck with the other ghosts. They’re not as friendly as I am.”
The knob didn’t turn. He wiggled it again. Locked. Ghost. You’re a ghost, dumbass.
He turned around. The faces had gone from mesmerized to perplexed.
A shy wave and Danny dipped through the floor, rehearsing his “guess what happened to me today” moment— which he’d share as soon as he figured out which direction was home.