#I feel like this is the ultimate ectober vibe

[astridianmayfly]

my teen angst bullshit has a body count

Ectober Day #5: Grave Robber

“This is so illegal.” 

“Will you quiet--ugh--down, Sam?” Tucker was hitting the ground with a shovel. It was only October, yet the ground was frozen solid. Sam toed the frosty topsoil with the toe of her boot, expecting it to be tractable. It remained stationary. Ah, the benefits of living in Illinois combined with enduring the symptoms of climate change. 

Tucker continued with his attempt at shoveling. Sam leaned on the neighboring headstone, lethargically holding a flashlight over his work. Bored, she burnished the decrepit stone with the sleeve of her black sweater. Despite a “hey!” of protest from Tucker, she shone the beam of her flashlight on it. It belonged to someone named Tyrone Sonders; he sounded like a charming fellow in name alone. Standing next to the graves, it was hard to not sympathize with those who had passed.

A wave of nausea hit her square in the chest.

Tucker’s voice shocked her back to reality. “A little help here? I’m literally doing all the work.”

Sam sighed. “Yeah, yeah, hold your horses. I was just taking a minute.” She grabbed her own shovel that she’d brought. It was leftover from her childhood, plastic and cheap compared to Tucker’s practical one. A dusting of amethyst glitter remained on its handle--probably some symptom of a failed DIY in a past long forgotten. Sam brushed it off. She watched as the sparkles drifted to the ground like magic.

The ground really was solid, and the pair’s excavating job grew painstaking very quickly. The night remained dark, and it was hard to make out anything that the flashlight, propped against Tyrone Sonder’s grave, did not reach. Their breaths escaped fogged and ragged, ragged and fogged. Sam’s face stung from the cold, but the labor from her shoveling job managed to keep her from contracting hypothermia.

What felt like a half-hour passed before Tucker finally spoke. “We haven’t made much progress.” 

He was right. At most, they’d managed to dig about six to seven inches.

Sam cursed. 

A hum started from the depths of the ground, a bad energy weaving and intermingling with the trees. Catlike eyes opened from a hollow of a nearby tree.

Sam hears Tucker’s breath catch in his throat.

Sam smiles. She waits to hear that raspy voice.

“Boo.” 

A small shadow materializes next to her, deceptively unthreatening. As figure solidifies, Sam punches it in the arm. 

“Ow, Sam! What was that for?” Danny rubbed his misty arm. His form shifted and his blurred features narrowed in mild annoyance. 

“For being late,” Sam smirked. 

“We could’ve used your help about an hour ago, dude,” Tucker chimed in. Sam couldn’t see his face from where she was standing, but she could hear him rolling his eyes. 

“I was sleeping, jeez!” 

“Shouldn’t you be nocturnal or something?” Sam heard Tucker twisting his shovel into the dirt.

Sam made out what might’ve been a cheeky smile from Danny’s expression. “Well, no. How else would I be able to hang out with you guys?” 

“All jokes aside, could you help us out a bit?” Tucker nodded to the shallow depression they’d dug. 

“‘Course. I got you.” Danny dove into the ground. A few seconds passed. “WHAT AM I LOOKING FOR DOWN HERE?” 

“Shhhhh! Someone could hear you!” Sam whisper-shouted toward the ground. 

“NAH, NO ONE EVER COMES AROUND. I MEAN, I LIVE HERE! I WOULD KNOW!”

Sam facepalmed, side-eying Tyson. How could a ghost be so...alive?

“SPEAK UP. WHAT AM I--OH, THIS?”

Danny came flying out of the ground, pulling out a closed casket turned intangible by his touch. 

Tyson sighed. “Yeah, that.”

Danny let gravity command him again, letting his feet touch the ground. “So. Who’s he?”

Sam picked up her spotlight-flashlight by Tyrone’s grave and shined it on the headstone in question. Unlike the other headstones in the abandoned graveyard, this one was shiny and fresh. Dash Baxter, beloved son.

Danny scratched the back of his head.  “Hello? Earth to Sam and Tuck? Why’re you digging him up?”

This was the part of the story that sat like lead in Sam’s stomach. These were the words that crawled like spiders up her throat, corrosive and deleterious. The body was being exhumed next week for a second autopsy. Before that...well, it needed some modifications. They’d hidden the cause of death well the first time--all it took was a coroner willing to accept hush money.

Tucker brought out the large container of bleach he’d brought with him.

Sam forced the bile down her throat, grasping for the truth. 

“...it was an accident.” 

Danny’s voice became strained when he asked: “What did you do?”

“It. Was. An. Accident!” Sam spat, fury in her voice. She’d spent sleepless nights rationalizing their mistake. To have someone else question her innocence--to have Danny question her innocence-- would be the nail in the coffin. 

Heh. Coffin.

“That wasn’t what I asked.” Danny’s voice was low and quiet, trembling with fury. 

Sam readied a sassy retort before Tucker interrupted their argument. “Guys. Whether it was right or wrong or an accident or whatever, we need to figure this out. Right. Now.” He lifted the can of bleach pointedly. “We came here for a reason, Sam. I don’t intend on going to jail.”

Sam didn’t want to be the reason for Tucker’s technology-free future. She lowered the flashlight to the coffin--

--Each member of the trio reacted at the sight before them:

Scratch marks covered the area where the lid met the casket.

Sam opened the lid, expecting the warm stench of a decomposing body. Instead, she was greeted with more scratch marks. They decorated the inside of the casket, forming crude drawings and spiderweb-patterns. At the bottom, three bloodied fingernails lay discarded.

“Oh my God,” Sam breathed.

The most important feature of the casket?

It was completely empty.

“Petty murders make for vengeful ghosts,” Danny whispered. 

#Full Ghost AU where Sam and Tucker met Danny in a graveyard or something. Fuck if I know. #Danny Phantom #ectober 2019 #ectober #ectober week 19 #ectoberweek19 #danny fenton #dark #I feel like this is the ultimate ectober vibe #halloween #writetober #fanfiction #my writing #this was highkey based on heathers just a bit #hence the title