Foster's

Teddy .5

Their plan involved fire.

This was a problem, because Kevin was set up in the chimney and they needed to use the chimney.

It took an hour to convince him to let them set the fire in the first place, and another thirty minutes to get all his stuff out so that his nest wouldn't get all sooty.

She was starting to see the problem with housing Kevin in the Chimney. She was thinking of blocking it off, that had been the plan, but now, if this whole burning things to get rid of spirits was going to be a thing—and she was thinking it would be—she would need a working chimney.

Would it be weird to have a decoy chimney?

Yeah probably, how would she even explain that?

Once the fire was stoked and ready to go, she got all her monsters ready before she pulled out that distressed Teddy and then held it out above the flames.

"Alright, ghost guy. I have your teddy bear, or whatever, now come on out. I want to have an actual conversation with you, no screaming, just talking."

She waited to see if anything would come back nothing came. Angelica frowned, oh now it didn't want to show up? How rude!

"Come out right now, or I'll drop this in the fire."

She waited for any sign of it and when it, once again, didn't show she purposely put the teddy closer to the flames and suddenly the ghost was there.

It just appeared out of nowhere, kind of like Kyle did. It was the same guy as before. He was tinged grey, like he had come out of a black and white movie, or he was covered in dust. The skin was translucent and sagging, his eye sockets empty, but the uniform was pristine, it's buttons super shiny compared to the rest of him.

He opened his mouth to scream again, his gnarly bony hands reaching out to her, like a zombie would. But Angelica wasn't scared of this ghost anymore.

"Drop the scare tactics!" she cried. "I've got the teddy, I've got the power, now cut out the shit, we need to have a serious conver...."

The man morphed in front of her eyes and her words died on her lips.

He shrunk down a good half his height. He was no longer in the uniform, but instead in a loose white cotton shirt and brown ankle-long slacks. His hair was shorn short, he wasn't wearing shoes, his dark skin was smudged with god knows what.

He was staring up at her, a seething snarl curling his lips up and tears free falling down his cheeks.

Angelica's heart broke just staring at him. No one should die as young as this kid had.

"It's a kid? I mean that makes sense now, with the teddy bear... okay, okay don't cry, here, here take your teddy."

She took a few steps towards him and he cringed. But she was offering out the Teddy and she figured that was the only thing that was keeping him from bolting. For a moment he stared at her like he wasn't sure he believed the offer, which was fair.

But then he snatched it out of her hands and screamed at her. A full-fledged demon scream, it hit an octave no human could, and his jaw descended much like Kyle's did when he was eating.

But Angelica wasn't scared anymore. She was startled and she winced at the loudness of it but she wasn't scared of a child. Even if it were a ghost child.

And then it was gone.

Just vanished into a mist.

For a moment they were all quiet and then a voice said: "What a stupid thing to do."

Ah Kevin. Never really there during the drama, but always there after with a snarky comment at hand.

"That was your only leverage and you just... gave it back."

Angelica sighed. "It's a kid. It's not some full grown evil ghost. It's just a kid, and he's probably scared and I mean... we're strangers..."

"Yes. And now there's no way to stop him from haunting you because you gave the Teddy back."

"Yes cause a kid throwing a temper tantrum because I took his toy is better."

Kevin glared at her and then said: "Put out the fire so I can sit in my chimney please."

Angelica doused the fire as requested, and then waved at the embers so the smoke would dissipate faster. It took a while but eventually it was okay for Kevin to go up. He stuck his head in and immediately started grumbling.

"Look at this... everything is all... sooty..." he muttered.

"Sorry," she said though she really didn't mean it. "We'll think of something, okay?"

Kevin said nothing, but continued to grumble as he climbed his way back up into the chimney.

Once he was up there she turned back to the couch. She doubled checked that Chad was okay, which he was. She checked on Babs next, who was now busy watching out the window.

Once she was sure all her monsters were fine, she figured now would be a good time to go back to unpacking. To taking an inventory of her rooms and what was in them, but that was exactly when she heard it.

The sniffling of an about-to-cry child. She turned around but couldn't see the ghost. Odd, she could hear it but not see it.

She stepped out into the hallway, pivoted and then immediately yelped. She hadn't meant to, but she hadn't been expecting to see the boy there.

He was just standing in the middle of the hallway, his teddy clutched to his chest. He was doing that little kid shudder-cry thing. He wasn't actually crying, it looked like he was still trying to stop it, but he was shuddering through his attempts to breathe while he tried to stifle his sobs, hence where the sniff was coming from.

"Oh. Hello," she said. "Are you ready to talk now?"

He just stared at her, and she stared back, waiting for a response. She didn't know if he could talk. Maybe all he could say was get out. It was the only thing she had gotten from him so far.

"Do you have a name?" she asked hoping maybe that would work, except it didn't.

At that he vanished into mist again and she nodded. "Alright," she whispered mostly to herself. She took a look around before clearing her throat and shouting: "Well if you decide you want to talk to me just let me know."

She waited, counting to ten, before shrugging and figuring the ghost was gone. Not gone, gone, but at the very least no longer there with her.

She had stuff to do today anyway, she was sure he'd come around.

He'd have to. Because she wasn't leaving.