How To Outfox A Ghost [BL]

Author’s Note:

Hello Everyone! Welcome to How To Outfox A Ghost. I just want to thank everyone for actually taking the time to read this book. I accept any feedback, constructive criticism, or comments that you may have.

Forewarning: If you decide to give the book a try, there are themes of sexual assault, gore, bullying, homophobia, and angst. ◖⁠⚆⁠ᴥ⁠⚆⁠◗

Have a good one! ε(´｡•᎑•’)っ💕

“I dare you to go into Mama’s Building.” Clarissa, one of my unofficial therapists and closest confidantes, dared.

The area was hilly and open to the public. Glaring azure fog polluted the area, covering most parts of the park. An eerie silence deafened my ears, causing me to hear what sounded like television static. The industrial outline of the park was kid-friendly. On the far right, next to us, there was a swing set that was small but beautifully wooded. Confusing enough, the swing is known to push itself back and forth even when there is no wind or anybody to push it. Just thinking about it gives me shivers. Next to the swing, there were metal monkey bars about six feet high.

Unfortunately, part of the bars makes a squeaky noise as soon as you hang on. That gives you the impression that you might fall off. That’s what Cameron said anyway. I never had the courage to go on it. At the back of us, there is a slide in the shape of an “S” that has dark green moss growing out of it. However, as the park was generally unkempt, that’s why nobody came to play here anymore, so they shut it down. I only came because I heard Mia was going to attend, though I would never tell anyone that.

“What? No way,” Jim, another friend, laughed nervously, with a trail of sweat running down his face, “do another one.”

“Aw, come on, Jim-boy, don’t be such a wuss.” Cameron, the school’s known bully, egged Jim on by sending him a teasing grin.

“Leave him alone,” Nathan, the class president, said with a frown, “he doesn’t have to go if he doesn’t want to.”

“Wuss.” Cameron sneered. His baby blue eyes twinkled even when it was nighttime.

Mia, my crush, and Cameron’s little sister snorted while elbowing Cameron in the ribs.

We were all classmates sitting in a circle playing “I Dare You.” To this day, I do not even know how I became acquainted with the five of them; our personalities were so far apart from each other, like the planets in space.

“Oh yeah?” Clarissa said with a daring grin stretching on her pink lips as she leaned forward, “Well, if he is such a wuss, why don’t you go instead? To prove to everyone here that you’re not a wuss.” When Cameron didn’t say anything, she continued. “Or is it that you want to wuss out?”

Cameron conceded, with a mean smile, “I guess everyone here is a wuss then.”

“Here, Mia,” Jim remarked as if remembering a fact, with a small smile, “none of the attributes you admire so much is in anyone here. Shame.”

What?

Mia blushed and lowered her head. She even went as far as to hide a heart-shaped face on her brother’s shoulder. Mia was that embarrassed.

Am I missing something?

Seeing the confusion on my face, Clarissa leaned forward and, with her cheerfully loud voice, whispered in my ear, but everybody heard it. “Mia here recently admitted that she would date anyone who is increasingly brave and dashing like a knight; apparently she doesn’t even care how they look!”

So does that mean that even with my freckled face and with one or two pimples on my face, I have a chance?

“Really?” I asked, tilting my head and letting some of my curly shaggy hair fall on my face.

“Uh huh,” Clarissa nodded, with a big smile on her face. I could not remember a time when she did not smile and said, “Now to get the creepy setting on, we have to complete that one more dare and then we can all go home!”

“The setting is creepy enough as it is,” Nathan grumbled, blowing a strand of black straight out of his eyes. “Who plays, I dare you, at an abandoned park in the middle of the night anyway?”

“Um, you did.” Jim hesitantly laughed as he pointed that out.

“Yeah!” Nathan glared at Cameron and motioned his pointy chin at him. “Because that bozo over there bullied me into coming.”

Mia silently giggled at what Nathan said, or more so at the intended implications.

Nathan stared at Mia in confusion. His thin lips arched downwards for a second before small pink spots appeared on his cheeks and he discreetly looked away.

“Still,” Clarissa clapped her hands, “who wants to do it?”

“Not me.” Nathan immediately muttered, his brown eyes glancing at the side, not looking at any of us.

Mia shook her head back and forth as fast as a rabbit eating a carrot.

“U-um,” Jim stuttered, rubbing his freckled hands on his loose Dennis jeans, “I-I-I-”

“Cameron?” Clarissa asked hopefully when the others expressed their refusal to go.

“That’s a N.O.” He rejected smirking while leaning back on his strong forearms.

“I guess,” Clarissa sighed, disappointed, “we have to go home now.”

I am not surprised they did not even ask me if I wanted to do the dare. They know, no, I think everyone in school knows I avoid conflict and everything that has to do with the paranormal or gore. It’s just I know I would probably have a heart attack I’m even mockingly named “Courage” from the cartoon Courage the Cowardly Dog.

So my friends were surprised I even came to play with them in this setting.

“I guess we will have to go back in the morning to get your locket,” Clarissa winced as she turned to Mia, “sorry Mia.”

“Her locket is in Mama’s building?” I questioned, concerned leaning forward and making eye contact with Mia.

She was always seen wearing her heart-shaped golden locket, which was given to her by her late mother. She never takes it off.

Then I glanced at a smirking Cameron and concluded that he must have encouraged her to leave it in the building for the game. It sounds like something he would do.

In Mia’s alternative, her thumb and index finger on her dominant hand meet, making a circle, while the remaining fingers point up slightly separated. She signed, “It’s okay,” to me.

I bit my lip, worried because, out of everyone I knew, Mia uses that locket to ground her to reality. One time, in detention, she signed to me that sometimes she felt like she was in the ocean. She felt like the cool water washed over her and it was not scary, but sometimes she admitted to me she could not breathe. Subsequently, that very same day, she lost interest in going to the track and field club.

“I’ll do it.” Before I could register what I had just blurted out, everyone in the circle paused and looked at me.

Nobody said anything for a while. They were probably still in shock that I even opened my mouth, let alone agreed to do that daring deed. Jim was gaping at me, he and Clarissa both. Nathan was eyeing me up and down, and I tried not to squirm because it was not the first time he looked at me that way. Cameron’s eyebrows were raised to his hairline and he appraised me with a curious look. In contrast, Mia looked worried because she knew better than anyone that my volunteering to do the dare was majorly out of character for me.

“I’ll do it,” I repeated, this time sounding more firm in my answer.

Clarissa first broke the silence as she stared at me in shock, “Who are you? And what have you done to my best friend Addison!?”

I sighed.

“A-are you sure, Addi?” Jim fumbled, scooching over to me in concern.

I nodded, “I’m sure.”

“But-” Nathan frowned.

“I say let Courage do it. If he wants to go, let him go. ” Cameron shrugged, cutting Nathan off. “Besides, it would be interesting to see someone like him do it.”

I frowned at Cameron’s “someone like him” comment but didn’t bother with a retort. With a guy like him, it isn’t worth it.

“But,” Nathan continued, unperturbed, staring at me with his infinitely keen eyes, “are you positive you want to do it? You are aware of the exact nature of Mama’s Building, right? ”

The nature?

“Yeah, it’s an abandoned construction site, right?” I asked as my forehead creased. I fiddled with the sleeve of my red hoodie, failing to see what the nature of the building had to do with anything.

Nathan tapped a hand on his forehead and groaned.

“You mean you don’t know,” Clarissa asked, leaning forward with wide eyes.

“Know what?” I asked, confused. The others began to look at me like I was a small child, while Mia looked at me with pity.

“You mean you don’t know why the building has been abandoned?” Nathan asked, perplexed.

I shook my head.

“Of course Courage wouldn’t know anything about it,” Cameron sneered, wrinkling his nose, “he does his best to avoid things like that right,” he sneered again, “you should just go home.”

I bristled, but I did not say anything. I mean, What could I have said?

“Hey, leave him alone,” Clarissa reprimanded, pointing to Cameron, “last time I checked, you didn’t want to go into the building either, so maybe you should go home.”

Cameron shrugged noncommittally.

“T-there have been sightings of strange p-p-phenomena in the building and inexplicable apparitions,” Jim fumbled, clasping both his hands together and fiddling with his thumbs, where a piece of the nail had clipped off, causing his thumbnail to be uneven, “some even s-suggested that the place is h-haunted.”

Haunted? That very word sent a shiver up my spine.

“Not only that,” Nathan added with great fervour, “the reason the building was shut down was that a mother and her eight kids recently visited the building when it was newly put up looking to buy it.

However, the building was not safe for civilians since it was still under construction, but the mother did not care and wanted to see the building right away, and they did get to see the building because the woman was rich anyway-”

Alarm bells rang in my head when I heard that. Who in their right mind would visit a building under construction and bring their eight children with them? Something was not adding up. My frown grew as Nathan continued the story.

“-so the woman and her children went to check the building out. Since it was still under construction, many items on the building were loose, but that did not stop them. “Here Nathan blew out a breath and shook his head,” one of the eight children was playing. Then a loose railing fell on top of the child and was going to impale him, but the mother pushed him out of the way and took the hit instead. At that time, an earthquake hit. So the mother, and her eight children, as well as the construction workers who were on duty that day...died.”

Clarissa nodded her head readily, “Yep, and don’t forget, after the building collapsed and when they started to construct it again, there were detailed reports of seeing the ghost of a woman calling out to her children.”

“I h-heard that before the c-construction, the building was under a c-cemetery.” Jim put in his two cents while nodding.

So Clarissa turned back to me with concern in her green eyes, “So are you absolutely sure you want to go? I mean, we could go with you in the morning if you like and retrieve the locket. ”

Now I don’t want to go. Then I glanced back at Mia, who was looking at me in concern. But Mia...

It’s not like she would die from the absence of her locket for one night, but still, it was not a chance I was willing to take.

I shook my head and pretended to put on my brave face (but from Clarissa’s expression, I probably looked constipated), “No, I’ll do it.”

Clarissa sighed and stood up, dusting off her pleated skirt and motioned with her head at the entrance of the park for us to leave, “Alright, lets go.”

The others got up and we walked down the hill in silence. Well, nearly silent.

Jim tried to say something, but with all his stuttering, I could not understand what he was saying. Clarissa chatted animatedly about the area we were in. We were going down the hill, and coincidentally, the construction site is just below the hill.

The moonlight was mellow and radiant, shining enough light down on us so we would not need to use our flashlights on our phones. The ground on the hill was soft and moistened with seaweed (I have no idea how they got here), and, from the corner of my eye, squirrels came out and were chattering to one another in their language. There was this loud, harsh sound that sounded like an owl—yellow eyes flashed that looked upon the living with dead eyes—and the trees remained stagnant and did not move.