Chapter Text
It was about 1:00 PM when the wind made its hourly threat on the . It never did but it never failed to try. Casper was mostly sure of the time, the old grandfather clock had stopped working ages ago but he was fairly good at guessing the time. And did that wind howl as Casper sat on his bed, his three uncles standing before them. All in different states of upset.
They’ve done this dozens of times now and every time Casper can’t shake the feeling of failing that settles in his nonexistent stomach. His little spectral feet kicking off the side of the bed. He knows how this goes.
“We’ve been over this, Casper.”
They had.
“You can’t be seen out there with that kid again.”
He would.
“You need to start takin’ this seriously!”
He wouldn’t.
Well, it wasn’t that he wouldn’t. He did take it seriously, understanding what could be at stake. It’s just that, for the un-life of him, he couldn’t make sense of why.
“I know,” he tried. “But I just don’t get it. Why do I have to “shape up”? Why can’t I just be me and play in the park with the stray dogs?”
“Because it makes you look bad, Casper.” His uncle Stinky sighed.
“And it makes us look bad.” Stretch interrupted. “And if that happens then they won’t let us stay in the human world.”
“We’ll have to move back.” Fatso finished.
“But how bad is the Underworld really? I’ve never even been there.”
“Casper, they’d eat you alive down there.” Stretch groaned, pinching his nose bridge in frustration at his nephews insistent questions.
“But I’m already dead.”
“Ya’ know what I mean!” His uncle shouted. Stinky rested a hand on his shoulder as if to remind him of their nephew’s gentle disposition. “Look, we got it good up here. Do you have any idea how hard it was for us to secusre a place up here? The Underworld hate humans and they think we’re human.”
“But we were once.”
“Exactly!” Stretch barked, hands gesturing widely. “So stop messing around and stiffen up.”
“Listen, Casper,” Fatso approached, Stretch floating away to recompose himself. “We know you’re not trying to disrupt the balance so that’s why we’re here.”
“As your guardians, we gotta teach you how to act proper.” Stinky added, settling beside the smaller ghost on the bed. “It’s just the way the world works.”
“But why does it have to be this way?”
“I don’t know, Casper,” Stinky relented, shaking his head. “It’s just how it’s always been.”
In the corner, where he’d been stewing, Stretch spoke up again. Less edge to his tone as they looked to him. “Let’s just hope it hasn’t caught on through any channels yet. We don’t need people knowin’ about this.”
As the four left Casper’s room and descended the stairs, winds less violent as it had been earlier, the spirits split up throughout the house. Some in the kitchen where Fatso began to make Casper a meal (they’re dead. They don’t need to eat but Casper still humoured his uncle’s attempt to cheer him up) while Stinky and Stretch mingled in the living room, settling in front of their 40-year-old television set. The former trying to get the decades old device to turn on again, hoping today wasn’t the day it decided to bite the dust.
“Hurry it up, Stink! My 2 o’clock is coming up.”
“I’m tryin’,” Stinky grunted, wiggling the nearly gone antenna. “Let’s me check the roof again. Stupid birds musta’ made another nest in the dish.”
“Move their nest!” Casper shouted from the other room as Stinky ascended up and through the house to the roof. “Don’t break it this time, please.”
“Hush, Casper, or I’m making you break it.” Stretch yelled, chastising his nephew.
Casper sighed and slumped on the kitchen counter, staring out the cracked and worn window. The sky was turning to a darker grey which was strange. Casper didn’t remember there being a storm watch today. The wind began to pick up again as a cup filled with strawberry milk and whipped topping was placed in front of his face, blocking his view of the grim outside. (How did his uncle keep all this food fresh?)
“Cheer up, Casper." Fatso’s baritone voice made him look up. “If it makes ya’ feel better, you can join your uncles for a good ole’ hunt tomorrow night. Get some menacing practice in.”
The very idea of it, even if it wasn’t as sinister as it sounded, made Casper’s nonexistent stomach turn. Chasing people through parking lots, ambushing them for long enough to have them screaming before letting them run away all to continue the “hunt” again. He loved his uncles but how could anyone take such delight in another living being’s suffering like that?
As the young ghost clasped the drink in his hands, the wind outside grew harsher. He looked outside to see the skies had turned a violent dark. He had hardly the chance to tell Fatso before Stinky came launching through the ceiling. Wide-eyed and frantic.
“Woooah, we got company.” He stammered, floating down to Stretch beside the couch.
The house began to shake. Old and disfigured painting began to fall from their places on the wall, stolen pieces of decor shattering and denting the desecrated wooden floor. His strawberry milk that he had placed on the counter moments before knocking over before Casper’s little hands could grasp it, spilling onto the floor. He gave a small noise of distress as Fatso floated over the counter and scooped him up, carrying him to the living room where the four gathered. Frightened.
“What is it?” The boy shouted, curled up against his uncle’s bulky body.
They didn’t answer but they didn’t need to as a ghastly green gas began to fill the room from small cracks in the ruined walls. Broken window panes oozing a thick noxious smoke that sunk to the floor, gathering in the center of the room like bromine fumes. His uncles looked on in fear, the first time he’s seen them like this, while he looked up in the kind of trembling wonder exclusive to children as the gas began to form. Rising up in the air in thick plumes with wicked eyes peering down at them, a name left his lips in disbelief.
“Kibosh.”
Standing in their living room was the ruler of the Underworld, Kibosh. A spectre that ruled through fear and adoration alike. Glaring down at them.
“Y-your grand hideousness!” Stinky stuttered, floating forward as Casper failed to grab him. “W… to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit, our horrific, cruel, er-“
“Silence.” The King’s glowering voice cut through the room, watching with distain as Stinky slunk back to the crowd of three behind him with his ghostly tail between his legs. Stretch glaring at his retreating brother. Kibosh lifted his hand in the air, a quivering light emanating from it as if trying to escape its ghastly controller.
“I believe I gave you three,” he pulled his hand back in a grip as if holding a chain… “A job.” And Casper’s uncles were yanked forward with a synchronized yelp. Casper limply reached for them as they cowered.
“We had an agreement, did we not?”
The three nodded, head hung low. Not daring to make eye contact.
“We agreed that you three would be allowed to remain,” he loomed closer, “in the mortal realm as long as you cared for your nephew and taught him how to behave like a true creature.”
“And we have been, your royal monstrous-ness.” Stretch dared to speak, his hands wrung together. “W-we’ve been strict.”
“Yeah,” Fatso helped, himself and his brother Stretch sharing an anxious look. “We were even going to take him hunting tonight.”
“Yeah!” Stinky agreed, coming up to join the two in front of the King. “A-and we’ve made sure to- to discipline him today for his screw up.”
The two ghosts beside him winced, scowling at the third. Kibosh floated forward enough for the three to lean back again, almost pressed against the filthy floorboards.
“Oh?” Kibosh hummed, crossing his arms. “So you haven’t been fulfilling your duties?”
“Your royal awful-ness,” Stretch tried, attempting to put himself between the others and the King. “It was only the one time. Surely you wouldn’t waste your eternal powers of destruction on a couple of chumps like us, right? Besides, it’s not like anyone else other than us knows about it. We’ll make sure the kid doesn’t screw up again and you can enjoy terrorizing the local theatre tonight. I hear they’re putting in a play. 5th graders, too!”
Kibosh narrows his eyes before he placed his hand against his chin. As if he was considering such a suggestion.
“Hmm, yes. If it was only the five of us then perhaps we could sweep this under the rug.”
“Yes!” Stretch gave a relieved laugh which slowly turned to nervous as he looked up at the angrily grinning spectre. Stinky and Fatso sharing their brother’s expression. “R-right, your majesty?”
A green flash emitted from Kibosh’s fingers as he snapped and the static T.V box connected to Infernal satellite again. There it was, Stretch’s favourite program. They showed daily highlights of the biggest and best scares from creatures and monsters all over the different planes. A well-dressed freak with spindly fur and bloodshot eyes spoke with spit flying all over the camera. Casper, having seen bits and pieces as he walked past the living room, realized with tingling nerves that they were past that segment.
“And now, ladies and disfigurements,” the ghoul spat, its voice rough and painful to the ear. “We go from the highest of the high to the lowest of the low.”
The five watched as Casper’s “screw up” played on screen in front of both them and the entirety of the Underworld. Cringing and scowling as a laugh track played over the replaying scene.
A flashlight filled dark room, presumably a garage with all the boxes and broken car parts. The camera follows the view of whoever was looking, dust fluttering through the air as it settled on a figure. The figure in question was a ghost, Casper, as he shrieked in fear at whatever startled him.
The host continued to spit and laugh as Kibosh turned off the television set, looking down at the uncle trio with absolute loathing.
“What have I told you three about this?” His majesty spat. “Your responsibilities is not just to the child but to creature kind as a whole. Do you have any idea the kind of threat you harbour? It may not be a problem today or even tomorrow but what will you do when he, in our future, brings an end to our society?”
That is when Casper spoke for the first time.
“Don’t get mad at them.” Casper, interjected, floating up from behind his grasping uncles. “Be mad at me. It’s my fault this happened. They told me to stop hanging out with humans and playing but I didn’t listen. Don’t punish them for what I did.”
“Casper!” Stretch hissed, grabbing onto his shoulder to pull him back but was stopped as Kibosh lifted his hand. The vile magic fading from his grasp, it was hard to gauge his reaction.
“Casper…” he looked down at him. Red eyes a dim light in the dark, staring at the boy’s face. “You look just as I recall. I remember when your uncles came to me with their proposal. Raising a young spectre in the mortal plane. I thought them incapable.”
Kibosh looked back to them, their forms shrinking a touch before his gaze returned to Casper. “But I knew there was something unique about you. Something that had the potential to be great. It’s why it is important for you to understand that there is a balance. If fleshies grow too fearful of us,”
“They will rise up against us.” The four adult ghosts said in unison.
“And if they lose their fear of us,”
“They will rise up against us.”
“It’s why I allowed your idiotic uncles your placement in the first place. I had hopes they could shape you into a model citizen of creature kind.” Kibosh finished, ignoring the scowl on Stretch’s face.
“But why does it have to be this way?” The young ghost tried again, hoping his greatest question would be genuinely answered.
“Because it is the law of our world. Of our existence. For as long as there has been creature and fleshie, there has been strife.”
Kibosh lifted his hands out in front of him, summoning the images of a fox and a rabbit in each. The fox pursuing the other.
“Every time the scales have tipped in one direction throughout history…”
The fox pounces onto the rabbit, the images exploding in violent red streaks and lights. Casper flinches at the sight, implications clear. Arms curled against his chest. Kibosh frowned at the sight as Fatso placing a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.
“Fortunately,” he continued, hands clasped behind his back. “We do have options for you. Your best would be admission in our dedicated academy, Scare School. There you will be taught by professionals and violent lunatics on how to act like a proper creature. With any hope, you’ll grow into a truly monstrous beast.”
“…and if I don’t want to go?”
Kibosh’s eyes darken and Fatso’s hand tightens on his shoulder as if fighting back the urge to pull him back.
“If you cannot abandon your befriending nature,” Kibosh steadily floated closer. “Then I will be forced to enact your banishment to the Valley of the Shadows.”
“No,” Stretch blurted out. Reaching to pull his nephew back towards them with Fatso. “We don’t have to do that. He doesn’t need to, right Casper? He’ll do just fine at this school. He’ll be burned beds and breaking legs before you know it.”
“He better be.” Kibosh frowned, standing up tall and out of their space. “The ship will be here to take him in one weeks time. Have his things ready for them. And be sure he is aware of what to expect. I’ve been told that this year’s class is quite vicious.”
As the sky turned grey and Kibosh departed, his uncles turned frantic to ready his things. Casper sat on the couch, watching them run about. Yelling at each other and grabbing things from different corners of their rundown house. Their shouts becoming ambiance as questions spun around his mind. What was this place like? If Kibosh wasn’t embellishing then he imagined awful. How would he tell his friend Jimmy? Who would help the human boy prepare for his softball tournament? He pondered silently as he helped his uncles pack, well aware that he still had a week left to stay but wanting to help them anyway.
As the day settles into night and the late summer air spilled into the house through cracked windows and creaky doors, Casper laid in his bed. Sheets tucked under his chin lovingly by his uncle Stinky despite the fact that he had no need for it. Try as he might, the soothing sound of natural night life outside couldn’t stave away the many thoughts that laid scattered in his head. Why? Why must he change? Why can’t the world change? Was there truly something wrong with him? It didn’t feel wrong. Despite their attempts neither Kibosh or his uncles could give him a satisfactory answer. For as long as he could recall in his ghost life he wished things could be different and this night was the same. Jimmy had told him about how in his comic book, many stories took place in alternate universes. Smallest details having massive effects on such a grand scale. Maybe there was one out there where the world was kind and he didn’t have to leave. Where creature and humans could laugh and play together. Maybe things were different.
No one cleaned up the milkshake.