Jack O' Lantern

The moon hung oppressively in the sky, the color of a pale, grinning Jack o' lantern, shedding an eerie light over the century-old Victorians in the neighborhood. They had been stately mansions built by prominent families during the Gilded Age, but few remained in the hands of their original owners today. The Morrises, Blankenships, and DeLancys were all gone now…

Lieutenant Commander Chip Morton sat on the balcony of the home he had inherited from Captain Phillips, and wondered if his friend, Lee Crane, were looking up at the same moon.

A captain held his boat together with the force of his personality. The trust and loyalty, the hopes and fears of the crew were invested in the figure of her captain. But Krueger had murdered that connection, and Seaview had limped back to Santa Barbara, a damaged and foundering boat.

Chip had tried to convince Lee that he needed support, but the truth was, the whole boat did. They had faced the stuff of nightmares before, but Krueger alone had taken hold of their souls, possessing them like a demon from hell…

Literally, in Lee's case. Perhaps in Admiral Nelson's case as well. There could be no other explanation for that gunshot fired in full view of the crew. If the Navy ever found out…

They had demanded Seaview's logs as soon as she'd docked. Every time Chip looked at Admiral Nelson, he could see that the older man was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Even though he was retired and a court martial was no longer a threat, criminal charges could still be filed. Worst of all, to the passionate scientist who had designed her, Seaview could be taken away. The Navy only had to demonstrate that the admiral was unfit. Once they knew that he had shot and nearly killed Seaview's captain, once the ghosts the boat was trying to bury came to light, they would have that proof in spades…

So Chip – in the utmost secrecy with only Sharkey to aid him – had taken a desperate measure to save the admiral. He could never let Lee or the admiral know that he had falsified the logs, carefully removing all evidence of ghosts or the admiral's guilt; he admired them both too much to let them carry that guilt. But if the Navy ever found out about the lies, not only his career, but the admiral's would be destroyed.

He understood that; he knew what he faced. But sometimes when he caught the haggard look in Nelson's eyes, it was almost more than he could bear to stay silent in the cause of justice.

He hoped Krueger had been damned to the uttermost pits of hell.

Chip shivered in the night air. Will had warned him that he still wasn't one hundred percent. The mysterious illness that had swept the crew in the days after the admiral had returned with Lee and the young woman, had taken its toll. Will refused to give it the name that Lee had given it: Ghost sickness. But it was well-documented in Polynesian culture that ghosts were like a virus. Too much exposure could lead to life-threatening illness…

Chip hadn't succumbed to the disease until after they had vanquished both Krueger and Lani. For the young woman who had come back with the admiral had turned out to be possessed by Krueger's lost love, looking for her own taste of immortality. She hadn't been the savior she had tried to pass herself off as. She had been a demon in her own right… But that was in the past, and he struggled to forget it, struggled to forget that - just for a moment, and without ever acting on it – he had forgotten Maggie in the lure of those devil-dark eyes…

The wind picked up, whistling around the corners of the old house. His cell phone vibrated in his pocket and he considered ignoring it. But he couldn't; almost of their own volition, his fingers plucked the phone out. He looked down at the screen and sighed. Admiral Nelson, just as it had been every few hours since Lee had vanished in the middle of the night, running from his own demons. It was almost as if – having lost one of his protégés – the admiral meant to keep the other one under his hand. Chip reluctantly took the call.

"Yes, sir?"

"You'd better not be out on that balcony, lad." The admiral's voice was gruff, but underneath a tone of hollow loss lingered. "You know what Will said."

Chip answered the underlying loss, ignoring the thin layer of gruff concern. "He'll be back, sir."

Silence on the other end. Then the admiral cleared his throat. "Don't sell yourself short, son." With a click, the call ended, leaving Chip feeling obscurely guilty.

He rose and moved to the railing. The street was quiet and dark except for the glimmer of a jack o' lantern on the porch next door, a faint echo of the full moon's eerie light. He stared at it without seeing it, aching for Maggie. But too much hung over his head now. If those logs didn't pass muster, his fall would be hard and fast. He couldn't set Maggie up for that…

The night was getting colder; Chip turned to go inside. The jack o' lantern's wicked grin pursued him, a symbol of his own demons.