Ozone and Abracadabra

or alternatively: Mother Said a Smile Breeds Goodwill and Amity

"Wait." Sam had let the tunnel door swing closed, and now she stepped up beside Tucker where he stood transfixed, looking upward. "...What's wrong with the sky?"

A combination of that question and Danny's leg slipping off of his right arm shocked Tucker out of his horrified reverie. When he was done scrambling not to overbalance and dump his friend on the concrete, he turned to her, panting. "You can see it?"

"Yeah, I can see it, it's neon green and it's the whole fucking sky."

Tucker felt like he should probably be more upset by this revelation, but he honestly just…didn't have the energy. "I thought maybe it was a psychic thing. But if you can see it…then probably everyone else can too."

Sam shifted her weight between her feet. She seemed at a loss, which was possibly not a state in which Tucker had ever seen her before. "Well. That has some implications. Do you think there's, like, anything we can do about it?"

Whatever Tucker would have replied (something along the lines of "uhhhhh" or just a blank, exhausted stare) was lost when all the windows of the buildings in a sixty-foot radius abruptly shattered and exploded outward, with a noise like chandeliers dropping in a movie scene. Tucker and Sam instinctively ducked, crouching in place and shielding their heads. Next to Tucker's ear, Danny muttered something that sounded like "Owww…."

"What the hell?" Sam shrieked. Together they stood (Tucker more slowly, hampered by the weight on his back) and turned to stare in shock at the shards of shining glass strewn across pavement, a few pieces still tinkling and thudding on the ground.

It was only one quiet out-of-place crunching sound that drew Tucker's attention to the right, but it was a very good thing he did look. Because picking its way over the glass about fifty feet away was a humanoid figure, no more than a silhouette, but something about the odd, stop-motion way it moved made Tucker want to puke.

It took another tentative step forward.

"Sam, we gotta go! We gotta go now!" Tucker put his head down and sprinted for the car. Sam, blessedly, only took a half-second to identify what he had been looking at before taking off right behind him, pulling her lanyard with her keys out of her pocket. The car's headlights flashed on with a soft crunch-click. After a moment of hesitation by the passenger-side door Tucker remembered Danny and yanked on the handle of the back door nearest to him. It was still locked, but Sam smashed the button on her key again as she dove into the driver's seat, unlocking all the other doors. Tucker heaved the deadweight in with very little ceremony, only pausing to shove Danny's legs past the door frame too before scrambling in himself and slamming the door. "Drive!"

Sam already had the engine on. She reversed at a speed that sent Tucker and Danny both flying forward to mash uncomfortably into the back of the passenger seat and the armrest console respectively, and then she floored it. And then abruptly shouted as the handful of broken glass shards that had stayed on the hood of the car slid backward and directly into her face. Because–oh, yeah, Tucker had forgotten to mention–the car no longer had a windshield, or windows.

He should probably put his seatbelt on now, shouldn't he?

Once that was accomplished, he considered Danny. Danny was slumped down halfway off the seats and into the foot space in front of him, which, while not exactly comfortable, might be the safest place for him. Tucker dared to twist over his shoulder as they sped out of the parking lot and yelped when he saw that same humanoid figure much closer than he'd expected: about two thirds of the way across the parking lot and walking purposefully toward them.

Thankfully, though, Sam was still making it eat her dust. It disappeared behind a screen of trees as they peeled out onto Hemlock Avenue.

There were no cars on the road—luckily, since Sam had swung left across several lanes without even considering that possibility—but as Tucker watched queasily out the window he began to discern the shapes of…things, lining both sides of the road. Humanoid shapes, every quarter mile or so, with indistinct faces, or moving strangely. More frequently whispers just at the edge of his hearing, flashes of motion and color wherever he wasn't looking. The whispers lilted, curious; the humanoid ones turned to watch the car streak by, or took a few drifting steps in its direction. A thought struck Tucker. "Sam, can you see them?" he whispered.

Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel. "Yeah. Are they—Tucker next to you!"

Tucker whirled as the car fishtailed. He frantically scanned the backseat, but there was nothing there except him and Danny and an empty packet of Sunchips, what—

His eye caught on the rear view mirror. There was something reflected in it next to him, a shifting mass—a woman, bloodied, grinning—

Tucker yelped and flailed and punched the empty air next to him. When he looked back at the mirror, the middle seat was empty.

"Fuck. Tucker, call Paulina," Sam said in a choked voice, breathing hard. "See if she knows any, like, protective charms? I'm going to take us to my—" She broke off and gave her full attention to swerving around something in the road that looked like a pothole, or possibly a smear with teeth.

Tucker was infinitely glad that he'd bothered to put Paulina in his contacts immediately after their talk in the pool shed instead of procrastinating, as he was wont to do generally. Sam poured on more gas, and their surroundings blurred as he hit the call icon. Paulina picked up on the third ring. "Foley, what the hell is going on?! The sky is, like, green—"

"We don't really know, there's a portal involved, but that's not important right now, what's important is do you know any charms or protective anything against ghosts?"

"Ghosts, wha—are you driving?"

"Please!"

That seemed to shock Paulina out of her confusion. Tucker put her on speakerphone. "Eh, yes, but most protective charms need materials. What do you have with you?"

Tucker had copper wire, two washers, and a screw in his pocket (the last time he'd worn these pants, he'd been trying to fix poor Diane, PDA number seven). Sam had dried sage, the herb that she'd used at the ends of the summonings; she now apparently never left home without a packet. The car itself had one unidentifiable little plastic thingy that may have come from a water bottle and a cache of spare change. Paulina sighed gustily. Tucker wondered if he should've mentioned the Sunchips bag.

"Okay, can you light the sage on fire?" Paulina asked after a moment. The answer was no, since not only were they in a moving car with no windows, but it was also a bunch of small shavings of sage rather than a cohesive bundle. "Great. Great. Okayyyy, copper wire. Is either of you religious? Any religion?"

Tucker said "Kinda…?" while Sam grimaced.

"Alright, then I'll choose the symbols. You know what an evil eye looks like?"

"It's just, like, an eye, right?" Sam called over her shoulder.

"At its most basic, yes," Paulina responded with no small amount of disdain. "The copper wire should be good. Make an evil eye with it and…well, there's no doorways, but maybe you could put the sage in the windows? Below, in the crack, I mean. And I will give you some spells to ward away evil, so you'd better get your notes app out fast, because I am not repeating myself."

Tucker quickly jotted down the charms she dictated to him and set to work twisting the wire while Sam started chanting the shortest one. Paulina hung up after a few more pieces of advice on wards, likely to call her friends and strengthen her own barriers. If these things got aggressive—and Danny had assured them that they did; haunted houses were avoided for good reason—then someone had to start notifying the city, or the county, or however far this thing spread.

It was unfortunate that the copper wire wasn't sealed, because even though it would seem that bundled metal threads would provide more friction, they quickly became slippery between the pads of Tucker's fingers. Finally he had something that vaguely resembled an eye–just in time for something to thump down hard on the roof of the car, making the whole car bounce on its shock absorbers. Sam swore.

The sunroof was the only window that hadn't broken–something about the angle, maybe?–and Tucker could just see the dark pads of a splayed hand through the tinted glass. Fingers curled around the top of the hole where the windshield had been, notwithstanding the round-edged but still sharpish remaining glass.

Tucker jammed his wonky-looking evil eye into the sunroof directly above him. The hand disappeared immediately, and the fingers near Sam's head uncurled and retreated as well. Something thudded to the ground behind them. Tucker twisted over his shoulder so fast his neck muscles wrenched, and then his breath caught when he saw something dark running up behind them, impossibly fast. "Sam! Speed more!"

"I know…." she responded through gritted teeth. The car hit 75 mph, and then abruptly took a (luckily wide) corner. Wind whipped into Tucker's face. They didn't go up on two wheels, but it was a near thing; the Sunchips bag went out the window, and Danny's limp body audibly whacked into the console at an angle that could not have been pleasant or good for his health. In retrospect, Tucker probably should have belted him in at the start.

"Tucker! Spells!"

"Right!" Tucker gripped his phone and reopened his notes app. "You should probably have the eye. Like, on the dashboard or something?" Though the absence of a windshield made that a perilous proposal.

He dropped his evil eye into Sam's clammy hand and began chanting through the list of Paulina's spells. And it did seem to help, or maybe it was just that they were getting further from the paranormal weirdness' point of origin. They still rocketed past the occasional figure on the side of the road, heard the occasional whisper, but nothing else tried to get in the car. Recognizing this did nothing to slow Tucker's galloping pulse.

At long last, they screeched to a halt in front of Sam's house.

…

It was so quiet.

For a moment, they just sat in the car and breathed.

The street was empty. There were no streetlights, and the large houses on the cul-de-sac crowded above them, denser darknesses to complement the night sky. Or they would be, but the effect was rather diminished by the sky's sickly greenish tint. Beyond it, the moon dipped and wavered.

Sam swung her door open and leaned out to toss a distrustful glance up and down the street. Only when she seemed satisfied did Tucker open his own. "You get the feet?"

"Ugh."

With plenty of jostling, Sam and Tucker managed to carry Danny (who had ceased to be at all responsive; Tucker remembered the console-whacking, cringed, and made an extra effort to stabilize the head) to her front door. Sam fumbled with the key one-handed while Tucker nervously rocked on his heels. "Your parents–"

"Gone. Mom's with friends, Dad's on a business trip."

The door opened just as Tucker started noticing flickers of motion in his peripheral vision. He set down his half of Danny in order to close it emphatically behind him. Sam dropped the legs. "Okay," she said, letting out a shaky breath. Paulina had instructions for this part, too. "Salt lines."

The pantry was stocked with a full, unopened box of Kroger iodized salt as well as a half-used one. "Lucky" felt like an understatement. Thusly armed, Tucker and Sam traversed the hallways in silence only broken by the occasional terse comment, spreading lines of salt as thin as they dared on the sill of every window or threshold of every door on an exterior wall. At one point, Tucker noticed that the outline of the copper eye was imprinted in red creases on Sam's sweaty palm.

They were halfway up to the second floor when a gust of cold wind skipped up Tucker's sleeves to chill the backs of his arms. He stopped, clutching compulsively at Sam's wrist. "Wait. What if something was already in the house."

Sam cursed. She sounded exhausted. "Just block off every room we don't need. If it's in the hallways…" She trailed off because really, at this point? There was no planning for that scenario. They would throw whatever they had at it, and they would run.

There was something in the gym on the second story.

Quietly, quietly, they drew their line across the floor, blocking off not just the door but the whole wall it abutted. Quietly, they crept through into the rooms adjoining and lined those side walls as well. And then they noticed that the door was cracked. Gently, gently, Sam pulled it closed with a small click.

Something slammed into the wall from the other side. Tucker and Sam bolted, crushing salt into the carpet fuzz and stumbling as they went.

~(*0*)~

In conclusion.

Tucker Foley spent the last few hours of the worst night of his life so far shivering himself awake on a pile of clothes in the laundry room, in a house shared by his best friend and one-and-a-half monsters. The house was quiet, but it was not empty, and it certainly was not kind.

Outside, the remnants of decaying starlight whispered over windowsills and practiced their smiles.

~(*0*)~

Morning looked like pea soup in the odd green half-light. Yet another reason to hate everything, Tucker supposed.

Speaking of existential despair, Danny woke up at around 7:15. He groaned, coughed, pushed himself up from his pile of crumpled-up towels, and glared blearily at Tucker. "What the fuck," he enunciated carefully, with palpable indignation.

Sam laughed, a little breathy, from her perch atop the washing machine. "You're asking me."

Danny coughed again, pushed himself up further, cleared his throat twice (he sounded awful), and then caught sight of the verdant view out the laundry room's small window. His eyes widened, and he scrambled to his feet only to have to squat down again, woozy. "What the—are we—?!"

Frankly, Tucker was too tired for this shit. Though it was vaguely nice to see that even Danny could be shocked by something this horrifying. "Yeah, the sky is green. Please tell us why, and how, and where you've been for the past 24 hours, and also I'm stealing your towel." He proceeded to yank it from under Danny's hip without giving him a chance to process. It was cold in the laundry room.

The Manson laundry room, which was a little smaller than Tucker's bedroom, and they were posed in it a bit like a Renaissance painting. Tucker sat on the floor wrapped in large, ugly sweaters and leaned indolently against a dusky blue side wall. Danny sprawled on a mound of fluffy bath towels a few feet in front of the washer and dryer, and Sam lorded above them, perched atop the washing machine like a powerful feudal queen with the under-eye bags to match. A small window above her and to her left poured its sickly green sunlight onto the wood floor between them. Two sticks of sage burned quietly in the corner.

Danny blinked and looked ill. "Uh. Okay, I—what's the last thing—shit! I got summoned, didn't I." He looked at Sam and Tucker for confirmation. Sam shrugged.

"I, I got summoned, and…." He paused, staring off into the middle distance. The dryer creaked. "I was on my way to Nasty Burger. To meet you guys. Woah, thank god I didn't drive, it could've—"

"Danny!" Sam snapped.

"Yeah?"

"Focus. You got summoned?"

Danny's pupils were blown strangely wide, cat-like. It was only because he noticed this first that Tucker went on to register that Danny's eyes weren't usually that very familiar green. Ignoring his scrutiny, Danny continued. "Uh. Yeah. I got summoned. But it—felt weird. Like, usually I get a chance to sorta resist? Like, decide if I'm gonna show up and place the call. This time I didn't even have time to decide, I just blinked and was there and something…something hit my face that burned, and there was someone behind me? And then…I…." He trailed off. Blinked. Looked unsettled. "I don't think I remember anything after that."

Sam kicked the glass door of the washing machine she was sitting on, making a dull thump. Tucker sighed gustily. "Fabulous. Outstanding."

They considered for a few seconds. Then: "Are you feeling o–"

"What did it look–" Tucker and Sam both cut themselves off at the same time. Tucker gestured for Sam to continue.

"The place where you got summoned to, right before you got hit. Do you remember what it looked like?"

Danny paused for a long, long time, squinting down. The seconds ticked by. Sam leaned forward in anticipation. Finally: "It was dark," Danny said triumphantly.

Sam dropped onto her side on the washing machine and groaned. "Anything else? What about the circle you were in, did you see that?"

Danny hesitated again before looking up, brow furrowed. "Oh! It was on tile. And I think it was a…pentagram," he said slowly. "But that doesn't make sense, I'm a conduit for ghosts."

Now that was interesting. Tucker shoved past his heavy, heavy exhaustion for the first time this morning and rolled up to a crouch. "Well, maybe that's why everything went crazy and you yakked up, like, an entire dimension of green stuff. Speaking of which, are you feeling okay? I think you might be concussed."

"The green stuff is ectoplasm," Danny commented absently. "I feel generally like shit, but that's nothing new." Then he processed for a second, and shot to his feet, panicked. "Wait, I'm sorry, I threw up a whole dimension?!"

Tucker's exhaustion, which he had successfully shoved to the side for a few seconds, toppled sideways and rolled back over him like a wave. He let Sam take over explaining what they'd been doing for the past day and night. Other than one surprised "Woah. Uh, thanks," when Sam got to their breaking and entering for his benefit, he mostly stayed silent. When she explained about fortifying the house with salt and mentioned the presence upstairs, Danny's shoulders tensed further and he glanced upward and to the left. "You're right. There's definitely something up there. I can–go deal with it if you–" He started for the closed door but staggered on his first step and had to lean against the wall. "Shit, that really was not good for my core."

Tucker had leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, but at that he opened one to squint at Danny. "Dude, you should probably sit down. We salted it off, so it shouldn't be able to get into the rest of the house, according to Paulina. Uh, but, ya know, on the off chance, do you think you can defend us if anything comes in here?"

Danny sat down and did a quick self-assessment. "Uh, yeah. Probably."

Reassuring. Well, whatever. "Then I'm gonna take a nap."

~(*0*)~

In the interest of not waking up a quietly snoring Tucker, Sam and Danny migrated slowly and painfully out into the hallway, Danny still attempting to stifle a periodic cough. The hallway was spacious, with white walls and a window at the nearer end throwing unnatural-natural light toward them like a child spilling jacks across the hardwood floor. Neither Tucker nor Sam had tried turning on the overhead lights during the long night; it hadn't even occurred to them as an option. Sam and Danny sat against the wall nearest to the laundry room and conferred in low voices. "Do you know how many there are?" Danny asked.

"No, we don't even know how far the effect goes. Like, if it's local, or–" She cut herself off. Worldwide was too horrifying to contemplate, much less voice.

Danny frowned. "I—I think I shouldn't be a big enough portal to displace that much ectoplasm. Have you looked at the news?"

Sam wanted to kick herself. How had they not thought to look at the news? God, she needed a nap. She tossed out a "Not yet" as confidently as possible and tooled around on the internet until she found a national news channel that streamed live footage on its website. It was crackly and barely comprehensible, which gave them both pause, but eventually they were able to gather that there was no mention of a green-tinted apocalypse at the national level. She opened a new tab and pulled up the website for the Amity Local News.

Tiffany Snow was not in her element. She wore no makeup, her hair was pulled up in a fraying ponytail, and her tone was subdued, as opposed to lascivious or vaguely maniacal. She shuffled frantically between papers from the ever-growing pile on her newsdesk, some intern's hand occasionally reaching into the shot to hand her another. There was no livestream, but the broadcasts of the past few hours were posted in twenty-minute video chunks below the channel's logo. Sam clicked on one somewhere in the middle.

"–urging all residents to stay in their homes. Unverified reports suggest the phenomenon does not extend beyond the Heights in the north of Amity and Wilhelm Avenue in the southwest, but authorities advise sheltering in place over evacuation. There has been discussion of an organized evacuation in the last hour; we'll keep you updated on, uh, that…. All public buildings in Amity except those involved in the emergency response, whether inside or outside the affected area, are closed for the foreseeable future; this includes but is not limited to libraries, schools, post offices, the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the mayor's office. Water and power stations will continue to run with a skeleton crew, though you may experience blackouts as employees report trouble monitoring levels and maintaining their, uh, salt barrier–"

Shuffling feet and a number of faint car alarms could be heard in the background. Sam pressed the home button and then opened Google Maps, zooming out to show the whole of Amity. "Where did she say it was? Northeast of Wilhelm and below…."

"Uh, I think 'the Heights.'"

"Got it." Sam traced her finger over the map. "Okay. So we don't know how far east it goes, but if it vaguely centers around the Westside Mall then it should only be about, like, two-thirds of the city, including suburbs. But if it ends in the Heights, then we are nowhere near the edge."

"I couldn't leave anyway. These ghosts are my fault; I need to get rid of them," Danny stated with the calm assurance of absolute fact.

Sam didn't argue with him. She'd barely listened, really. Something had been bothering her for a few minutes now (besides the many, many obvious things currently bothering everyone with a pulse). Sam didn't like not fully understanding her situation. "You've mentioned ectoplasm twice now. Like, that's why the sky is green." She frowned. "What actually is ectoplasm?"

"Okay, that might take a while." Danny coughed again as he settled more comfortably against the hallway wall. He had been sounding worse and worse the longer he was awake, and he looked even more tired than usual, but he took a deep breath and launched into a lecture.

"Okay, so ectoplasm's…weird. I've read a lot of my parents' research, and I barely understood anything, to be honest, like, have you seen my grades? But so anyway, it's not—it's not matter, in the way we traditionally understand matter. And it's not energy—notwithstanding the whole, they're the same thing—but—you know what I mean. The thing with ectoplasm is, it's a thing, but it's also a place. And yet you can move it, despite its being a location. That's how it generates power actually, because when it's moved from over there to over here there's a sort of 'should be' flowing from the 'here' to the 'over there,' like a kind of cosmic battery where the electrons are particles and waves and, like, gravity or whatever, and also something else entirely. And ghosts are made mostly of ectoplasm so they tend to flow with it, following that 'should be' from here to there, but if they're particularly messed up and want it enough, sometimes they're actually able to move against that current and flow in the opposite direction. But Ja—I think that every second they do that, they're being battered by that energy and whatever else of the 'should be,' and that's why they tend to, like, corrode. And also that's why so many ghosts manipulate energy in some way, 'cause of that separation."

"...Huh. So if the tendency of ectoplasm is to flow back along the should–"

A weird buzzing sound interrupted Sam mid-follow up question, making them both jump and eye the direction of the gym. The panic passed when they heard scrabbling from the laundry room and Tucker's voice, laced with panic, saying, "Mom, listen to me."

Danny cursed. "My parents!" He felt in his pockets, but his phone was nowhere to be found. "Sam, can I borrow your phone?" She handed it over. Her parents were still out of town and not due to be back for another two days, and they definitely did not watch the local news.

The Fentons picked up on the second ring, and from the sound of it they were frazzled. Sam could hear at least two distinct voices from where she sat next to him, what was presumably his father's deep voice vibrating over the line and his mother's glitching and fizzing more frequently.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm with—I just went for a walk, and—yeah, my phone died. I know. Sorry…. Wait, are you in the car? Are you kidding me, it's not sa—Mom!"

There was a long pause.

"No, I'm—I'm good here. I don't think she minds. But you really shouldn't be—oh. Okay. Okay."

Another pause. Danny's volume had been rising over the course of the conversation, but not really corresponding to his level of irritation. Loud family. Sam could hear his dad, too, sounding boisterous even if she could only catch the occasional word. His mom no longer seemed annoyed, but maybe…excited?

"Bye. Oh, I think I've got a cold. And the connection is bad. Yeah. Love you too." Danny looked a little embarrassed about that last part. He hung up and slid Sam's phone toward her on the ground. "They're out studying ghosts. Literally. Dad said this was the single biggest break in their career."

Sam frowned. "Is that…safe?

"Not at all! But they think they're better prepared than everyone else. And, I mean, they're probably right, but…." He pushed back further into the wall, gathering up one leg against his chest and resting his chin on his knee. His eyes went distant. "There's…things. Out there. I don't know if any of them came through, but there's things you couldn't even imagine, that could shred through salt barriers like, like tinfoil." He marinated in that for a few seconds. "Shit. I should go shadow them, or something. I need to deal with this." He stumbled to his feet, and the hallway filled with hissing voices as a tattered white light came from everywhere and nowhere. For a moment his limbs were strange and distorted and his features flickered like shadows—and then he hissed and grabbed his chest and his arms were the right length again. He slid down the wall and sat, heavily. "Shit."

"Not happening?"

"Not happening."

Sam figured this was probably the part where she was supposed to act sympathetic, but she already had the phone in her hand, so she left him to his increasingly unimpressive (if really, really unsettling) attempts to warp reality and poked reluctantly at her dad's contact info.

Jeremy Manson picked up the phone on the second ring. "Sammy? Is something wrong? I actually need to be in a meeting in a minute, can we—"

How would she start with this? Yikes, it was already awkward. Best to confirm what he knew. "Uh. So you haven't heard anything? About Amity?"

Something in her tone must have clued him in. Or, more likely, it was the fact that she'd called him at all. Either way, his own tone became significantly more tense. "No, what's wrong?"

Sam pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "It's hard to explain. Um. There's a citywide crisis going on. I'm safe, and I'm with my friends, but I. Thought I'd let you know."

"Wait—citywide crisis? What does that mean, citywide—Sammy, are you in danger, what the hell is going on?!"

"The news will explain better than I can! Go on the website, it's—it's not a prank, Dad, it's really bad, and you can't come back in the city, okay? It's safer for both of us if we stay where we are."

"I—wha—is your mother alright?"

Sam's heartbeat quickened. "Isn't she in Chicago?"

"Oh! You're right." He paused for a moment then, a male voice just audible over crackles of static. Her father's answer was quieter, as if he'd moved the phone away from his ear. "No, I'm sorry—I'm talking to my daughter. Yes, it's an emergency. Sammy? Are you still there?"

"Yeah, but the connection is really bad," she responded quietly. And then Sam had run out of things to say. It was weird; somehow, she'd thought that in an emergency like this, it would suddenly just flow. No more stilted conversations, all awkwardness washed away by mutual concern. But her dad was panicked, and she had no clue how to deal with that, and for some reason it was making her a little angry, just a little seed pod cracking open in her chest. And if she told him what was going on he would probably think it was a joke. And her phone was at two percent.

"...Dad, I'm gonna hang up and charge my phone. You should probably call Mom. And check the news?"

"Wait, Sammy, what—?!"

"Phone's dying! Sorry!" She hung up. One percent.

And her charger was upstairs, wasn't it.

She pressed her fingers into the ridges under her eyebrows and groaned. Let herself curl forward over her knees, relax, blank eyes staring mindlessly at the floor.

Sam had a headache.

~(*0*)~

Tucker was startled awake by his phone vibrating, loud against the hardwood floor. The room was empty, but he could hear muffled voices through the wall. He fumbled for his phone; the caller ID said "Mom." Tucker was instantaneously wide awake.

He answered the call and didn't even wait for her to speak. "Mom, listen to me. You need to get table salt, whatever salt you have on hand, and line all of the doorways and windowsills, right now. Is Dad with you?" Oh god, oh god, he was the worst son, he hadn't even thought to prepare them and oh godddd Mom and Dad could have been, could have been–

"We already did, we turned on the news when we woke up and it said to drop everything and then Aunt Lacey called and Tucker where are you, are you safe?" She sounded just this side of hysterical.

Thank you.

"I'm safe, Mom, I'm totally safe." An overstatement, but he got the feeling standards for "safe" in Amity had shifted a bit in the last twelve hours. "I'm at Sam's house. I'm so sorry, I know I violated your trust, I–Danny was in trouble. It has to do with what's going on. Have you seen–have you seen what's outside?"

On the other side of the line, Angela Foley took four slow, deep breaths. "Yes. There was one in the yard. We think it went away. But that's–that's not important right now, Tucker, where did you go? And you're involved–? Explain. Now."

Tucker swallowed an egg-sized lump of fear and shame; it cracked on the way down. So it had been a close call.

What could he–

What should–

…

He slumped against the wall and told his mom the whole story.

There was a long silence when he finished.

"I'm so sorry all that happened to you, baby. I'm sorry I didn't notice." She sounded close to tears.

"It's okay, Mom, I'm fine–"

"But also." There was a loud crackle of static. "Tucker Foley. You are not going to continue looking into this, you are going to sit in that house and be safe. Promise me."

"Mom, I–"

"Promise me!"

"I can't make that promise, Mom, listen to me!"

"You're a teenager, it's not your job to deal with a serial killer!"

"But I'm a psychic, or something, and Tristan made it sound like something worse will happen if I do nothing! Either to me, or other people, or both. And I might be the only one who can do anything! So I can't promise that, Mom, this is an emergency! People are getting hurt! I can promise to be careful, you know I am, but I would–I would really appreciate it if you would help me with this."

She paused again, longer than before, breathing long and controlled. She was considering. She had actually listened.

She let out one more deep breath.

"...You don't go outside without calling me."

Tucker's breath caught.

"You don't go outside without calling me. I'll pick you up; they said you can salt a car. Right now, you stay with your friends and keep each other safe. And if you think you know where this—this killer is, or is going to be, you don't go anywhere near there. You call the police. Deal?"

Wait, actually?! "Deal!"

"And listen to me!" Her voice was low and fierce. "I am only saying this because my sister said something similar about how you could get hurt if you don't do what the–what the victims need. You are my son and a child; I appreciate that you don't want others getting hurt, but you don't have any responsibility whatsoever in this situation except to keep yourself safe. Do you understand me?"

Tucker wasn't sure he entirely agreed with the second part. But fair point, that was mostly why Tucker was doing it too. And he would really, really like his mom and dad's help with this mess he was in.

"I get it, Mom. Thank you."

She sighed, long and low. "I've got to go break this to your dad. Do you have a phone charger there?"

"Yeah?"

"Good. You stay on the phone."

He fell back asleep to the warm susurration of static on the line. Much more reassuring.

~(*0*)~

"So this…fox you keep seeing." That was Aunt Lacey's slightly husky soprano voice, on a group FaceTime that also included Mr. and Mrs. Foley. How had Tucker never thought of asking Aunt Lacey?! After Tristan told him she shared their little problem, he should have called her first thing. Though she would definitely have told his mom. (Honestly, he should've just told his mom.) "That's the part that doesn't make sense to me. You've seen the ghosts of the last two victims, and this fox. In the occult, things tend to come in threes. Why two ghosts and a fox? Could the fox be the ghost of the third most recent victim? The, I think he was a Russian guy?"

"Was he Russian? The hacker, with the funny appropriate name," Tucker's dad added in. They could hear him hitting keys. Internet was still working, for now. "Nikolai Technus. That can't be his real last name."

"Maurice." Tucker's mom's contribution.

Tucker felt kind of weird disagreeing with Aunt Lacey, as the most experienced person he knew with his species of paranormal inclination, but she'd told him first thing that she had never dealt with something this big before. She'd driven a few people home late at night, directed a few spirits to their final resting places. Nothing fancy.

Also nothing to write home about, literally. Lacey was six years older than her sister, and hadn't even considered telling her about the scary circumstances she dealt with until Angela was twelve and Lacey was eighteen. Angela had declared the whole situation creepy and hadn't seemed eager to hear more, and by then Lacey had been heading to college anyway, so she simply hadn't mentioned it again. Angela had, quite plainly, forgotten about the weird story her sister had told her once, convincing herself it was a dream, or an especially confusing prank. Lacey hadn't felt the need to remind her. She only had to deal with it once every few years anyway; it wasn't a huge part of her life.

But right now, it was basically steamrolling Tucker's life, so he voiced his opinion. "The fox didn't really seem like a ghost to me, actually," he explained. "It didn't give me the same heebie-jeebies. But it was in the room with Amber and Schulker when I, uh. Fainted that one time."

Tucker, Sam, and Danny were all on the floor of the laundry room this time, resting against strategically constructed piles of clothing. It was late morning, now, and the stronger light barely showed the green, so it was comforting as long as you didn't look out the window. In the center, propped up on a sweater vest and facing Tucker, was his phone.

The sage was burning low and sputtering—Sam would have to replace that—but even though that meant he was probably being mildly poisoned less than the last time he was in the room, Danny was fading; he curled at an angle against the wall, contributing little. "Another thing that seems weird to me," Lacey continued, "is that you've only encountered those two, or possibly three, spirits. But there's six victims." She was clearly enjoying being the voice of authority, even in these stressful circumstances. Aunt Lacey was good-natured and witty, generally leading the conversation at family get-togethers, and she'd always enjoyed a good mystery novel. Tucker found it ironic but a little cheering that this was what had broken her out of the shocked, cold, fretting state she'd been in since Tristan's attack. "If the murderer hasn't been caught, if they all have unfinished business, then I would expect all of their ghosts to be active," she finished.

"But the first two died in Chicago. They're probably buried there," Sam put in. "Is the idea of ghosts being tied to their final resting places for real, or is that just in books?"

"I've seen some evidence of that," Aunt Lacey acceded. "But I think it's more of an inclination than a rule. And I've talked to people who say they're actually more likely to latch onto the person who killed them."

There was a long pause, filled with drifting sunlit dust and static over speakerphone.

And then Sam bolted upright. "What if they weren't all killed by the same person?"

Something pinged in Tucker's head. "That's right, that article we read said the police considered the possibility of a copycat, didn't it?"

"I read that article." The cautious interest was obvious in Angela's voice, even over the phone. "It said they weren't pursuing that angle yet because the condition of the bodies was so similar, with details that hadn't been leaked."

"But what if they knew each other?" Maurice piped up.

"Or they could be following the same ritual! Like, off the internet or something," Sam added.

The short nap may have helped more than he thought; Tucker was getting excited. "So maybe the first four were killed by the first murderer and the last two, the active ones, by the second?"

"Or the two in Chicago were the first and the four here in Amity were the second…" put in Mr. Foley.

"And what about the crime thing? Or the immigration thing?" Sam added animatedly. Tucker privately prayed that she not elaborate on the "crime thing" in front of Aunt Lacey, given her son's categorization in that theory. "All of our theories split the victims into two groups, right? So it all makes sense if they were chosen by two different killers!"

"You should make a spreadsheet or something," Danny muttered encouragingly from his huddle against the wall.

So they did. Seven victims, including Tristan. Patterns seemed to emerge, but they were spotty at best. The last three or four victims seemed to check a lot of the same boxes, while the first two, Frankie Young and John Mallory, were similar in that they didn't seem to check any.

And that was it. One good idea, and then for the next half hour, they remained stumped.

Tucker's dad yawned one of those huge dad yawns. Not everyone had pulled an all-nighter, but the adults had all been rudely awakened far too early. "What about your friend Paulina? Have you asked her about this?" he suggested.

Sam made a face but didn't argue; that was probably a good idea. As the most experienced of their collaborators in a wide range of paranormal practices, occult and otherwise, Paulina was likely to know something useful, especially about the fox thing. Hey, they'd finally mastered sharing their information!

The dust settled on the floor, against the grain. "Well, I need to charge my phone. While we still have power, anyway. And I need to check on Tristan," said Aunt Lacey decisively. "Shall we pick this up again later, ladies and gents?" She really was treating this like a mystery novel. Every time he talked, Tucker cringed as he heard himself very much not sounding that blasé.

"Tucker? Are you okay if we hang up?" worried Mrs. Foley. Under any other circumstances, Tucker probably would have been embarrassed.

"I'm fine, Mom."

"And you'll tell us if anything happens?" Mr. Foley.

"I will, I promise. Thank you guys. Really."

"Bye, Mr. and Mrs. Foley," Sam slid in. Danny mumbled something to the same effect.

"Bye, Sam. Danny. Bye, Tucker."

"We love you, honey."

And it was something about the way she said the last part that punched Tucker right in the gut. "We love you, honey." It wasn't a throwaway, wasn't just something you say. No, Mrs. Foley had said it fiercely.

Tucker said it right back, the exact same way.

~(*0*)~

"hey paulina"

"if ur free"

"u know anything about summoning?"

She responded within thirty seconds.

"no"

"insightful."

"sorry that was sam"

"ill be more general then"

"we Have Reason To Believe this guys a way more powerful summoner than he should be"

The reason was Danny, who seemed–was the correct word miffed? Miffed, with undertones of intense unease and a dash of trauma–that he'd been yanked away without any opportunity whatsoever to resist.

"would u, in all ur experience, have any idea why that is?"

Tucker hoped she was a sucker for obvious flattery. She seemed the type, but hey, she'd definitely surprised him before. She took a while to answer the question, but it was a thoughtful pause more than a sullen one. When she responded, it was, in fact, insightful.

"a lot of things r affected somewhat by belief"

"also intention but anyways"

"so like hypothetically, the greater the practitioner's capacity for self-delusion, the more powerful the practitioner."

...

"or idk maybe hes just liek rlly good at it"

"big words!"

"shut up sam"

"thanks paulina"

A pause, while Tucker formulated his next thought. He should probably ask about the fox first…? He hesitated, and Paulina beat him to the punch.

"so what actually happened?"

Tucker had to consult with Sam and Danny on this one. Danny had consented, reluctantly, to Tucker's mom and no one else being told about his, ah, vital status. Mrs. Foley had, in turn, promised not to tell anyone, including his parents, though she didn't seem happy about it. The three of them had worked together to give her the impression that no, Danny's condition was not dangerous, it was just something large and life-changing he'd like to be able to tell his parents about on his own terms. (They had neglected to mention the whole ghost-hunting thing.)

Now, they settled on short, sweet, and vaguely true but incredibly misleading.

"the guy opened a portal"

"let a bunch of ghosts through"

"what did you expect?"

Tucker wrestled his phone back from Sam and moved out of tackling distance.

"sorry"

"please dont hold her against me"

Judgemental silence. Tucker cringed.

"were trying to figure things out, my parents r helping"

"we have no idea whyy tho"

"ideas?"

Three dots bounced on Tucker's screen, indicating that Paulina was typing.

…

…

…

Read 11:52 AM

Tucker stared at his phone for a good ten minutes before giving up and setting it aside. Twenty minutes later, he texted her a quick rundown of all of their theories, in hopes that it would motivate her to at least voice her derision at what incompetent detectives they were. Paulina never replied.

He and Sam finally got some substantial sleep that afternoon, after Danny woke up from a short nap and felt well enough to offer to drag down mattresses from the nearest bedroom. He also made an expedition to the ominous second floor to retrieve Sam's phone charger, and reported back that whatever was up there was still in the gym but hadn't crossed the salt lines, and the rest of the barriers were holding fast. (He knew the latter to be true because he kept mildly shocking himself whenever he brushed against an exterior wall. The periodic yelps and swear words echoing down the stairs were surprisingly soothing.)

In a patch of green-gold sunlight, Tucker dreamt about the fox. It trotted down the street in front of him between two lines of gutted brown buildings. It looked like a bomb had gone off. A red-upholstered chair peeked through a gaping hole in a cement building, and water ran down the street toward them, glistening, reflecting broken cobblestones up and up. He blinked, and there were two foxes where there had been one, and this wasn't strange at all.

They went left and left and left again, and once more, and arrived at Ember's house. There was no reason to know what Ember's house looked like, and indeed it didn't particularly look like anything at all. That's simply what it was.

There was a knock at the door, though no one in particular was there to do the knocking. A few moments of silence, and the two grey foxes padded, and the water flowed toward the house. Another knock. Amber opened the door and smiled.

Paulina opened the door and smiled.

Amber opened, Paulina opened the opened the door and smiled.

~(*0*)~

In conclusion.

It would later be publicly made clear what else had happened in the long hours before morning on October 1. After preparing all of her close friends and family as well as she could, Paulina Sanchez called in to Amity's late-night radio station, which was just about to shut down when the greenout hit. (The greenout was what they called it, afterward. Sam complained that it was uncreative.) One of the radio hosts was the cousin of Lance Thunder, the head cameraman of the Amity Local News, and Thunder in turn woke up his colleagues and made a mad dash to the studio at around 4:30 a.m. Nearly all of his colleagues made it to the studio. Meanwhile, while the late-night radio hosts frantically repeated Paulina's instructions, their intern called 911 exactly eight times, elbowing aside other contributors to an unprecedentedly high call volume. When he finally got through, he was transferred to the sheriff and relayed a somewhat garbled but thankfully usable version of what they had to do to ward a building. Twenty minutes later, the sheriff had cobbled together an emergency broadcast system consisting of 43 officers and staff members driving optimistically salted ambulances and police cars, tearing through the streets of Amity and stopping in highly populated areas to shout into megaphones over the sound of their sirens, instructing people to salt their houses, call as many friends and neighbors as possible with the same instructions, and above all do not leave your homes.

34 of these drivers made it back to the station. Of the remaining nine, three were later found wandering the streets with holes in their memories, covered in mud and strange lacerations. Another walked up to some of his coworkers two days into the greenout, smiled pleasantly, and opened fire, wounding two before they could drop him to the pavement, still grinning. What might've been the body of another police secretary was discovered in a dumpster, skin unbroken but missing all of the joints from its limbs and neck; it was impossible to confirm his identity, however, because not even his wife could remember his name.

The last three remained missing.