Things get serious. (SPOOKSVILLE IS BACK SON!)

Shane looked down at the map that he had found in Scarlette’s hood. “What I don’t get is why that demon had a map of the school in her hood?”

Tekky took a sip of his shake. “You said you killed her at the school? At night?”

Klyde looked up from his Maple Pecan Marshmellow Surprise Donut. “Wait… You were at the school at night?”

Shane nodded. “I needed a place where I could stall and hide. She was following me everywhere. And besides. Brody was apparently living in the shed outside the school.”

Klyde drummed his fingers on the table. “Um… So… That’s all that happened?” He exchanged a glance with Tekky.

Shane cocked his head and took a sip of his shake. “Well… Yeah. That’s all.” His ears drooped. “Please don’t tell me I awoke an ancient evil swordsman from feudal Japan.”

“Did you?” Klyde’s ears perked up.

“Not to my knowledge…” Shane scratched his head.

“Then you should be fine. Except…”

Shane’s forehead hit the table. “I hate my life.”

”The school is haunted… Especially at night.”

“Oh joy. That makes me so very happy.” Shane looked up and was extremely pale.

Tekky looked down at his shake. “Are you gonna drink the rest of that?”

Shane pushed the shake toward Tekky.

Klyde sighed. “So I better explain since Tekky is focusing on his stomach.” He took a deep breathe. “About fifty years ago, back when the town wasn’t as overrun with monsters, monsters were feared and ridiculed. It was bad enough to the point where some of the monsters had to hide the fact that they were monsters. Just so they could live in peace. And there was a student here in the school who would do everything he could to make the students that were monsters, miserable. His name was Tyler Grant, and he was a normal husky. He’d do things like trip them in the hallways, or call them names. He did this for years until one day when the other kids decided they’d teach him a lesson. They ended up scaring him so bad, he went into a coma for three months. When he woke up, he seemed to be better. He didn’t mess with anyone and actually seemed to be nicer. Then the night of the Halloween dance came… All of the monsters in school met up in a graveyard to party it up… Tyler put on the school hockey uniform and mask and went to the party as well. He killed over half of the monsters there before he was sliced in half by our Detective Grim.”

Shane sighed. “So Officer Delightful killed a guy who went nuts and now the guy’s ghost stalks the halls of the school at night?”

Klyde hesitated. “Not exactly. He haunts the school at night… But he’s more than a ghost. Kids have gone inside the school and not come out.”

“So a murderous ghost?”

Tekky shook his head. “Oh no. Tyler is way worse than that. I was there the night he died. His ghost literally would have kept chopping us up if Grim’s boss hadn’t trapped him in the school at nighttime.” He put an arm around Shane’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. We don’t have a reason to go into the school at night.”

Klyde looked at the map. “This map says otherwise.”

Tekky grabbed Klyde by the shirt. “Shut up!”

Shane turned to Tekky, “How were you there?”

Tekky gave him a look. “I am 220 years old Shane. It wasn’t very hard.”

Shane jumped, “220 years old? You look good for your age.”

Tekky put an arm around Shane, “Always knew I was attractive.”

Shane sighed, “Stop.”

Klyde crossed his arms. “We need to go to the school after dark.”

Tekky growled, “I swear I will bite you in a not fun way.”

Shane also growled, “I am not going in a school with one, a ghost and two a serial killer.”

Adrea looked up from her seat and gave him a look.

Shane glared back. “If you were actually in the conversation, you would know we were talking about a particular ghost and honestly, I wouldn’t go in there without you because you’d be very hard to kill since you are already dead.”

Adrea’s eyes widened. “Really! SCORE! I love sleepovers! Plus I have never been outside out house at night.” She grinned. “Where we going?”

“School.” Klyde didn’t look up from the map.

Adrea froze. “I’d like to take back my previous comment.”

Tekky shook his head. “NO. If we have to go, so do you!” He looked down at the map. “Why do we need to go in the school at night.”

Klyde narrowed his eyes at the map. “I don’t know… Wait!” He grabbed the map and pulled it close to his face. “OH! There’s a map key! Apparently we have to find a secret thing… Looks kind of like an ankh.

Tekky covered Klyde’s mouth. “No choking. Not on my donut please.”

Klyde snapped at Tekky’s paw. “Stop! An ankh is an ancient Eygptian symbol for life.”

“But what does it do? What is it for?” Shane put his head on his paw.

Suddenly the map started to burn up in Klyde’s paws. “AH!” He dropped it on the table and it fully disintegrated. “NO! I was reading that!”

Shane fell back in his chair and hit the floor.