Chapter 42: Haunted
The trainer came out of the trees like something was chasing him.
It wasn't a sprint. It was more like aggressive walking, the kind you do when you're terrified but don't want to admit you're running. He couldn't have been older than seventeen and he was clutching a Shinx against his chest like a worn-out stuffed animal, his face caught somewhere between genuine fear and the embarrassment of being afraid.
He spotted me on the trail and made a straight line for me.
"Don't go that way," he said, out of breath.
"Good morning to you too."
"I'm serious. Don't go deeper into the forest. There's something in there." He threw a look over his shoulder and his Shinx made a small, unhappy sound. "Ghost types. I don't know what kind exactly, but my Shinx won't stop shaking. Something kept laughing and I couldn't see anything and then my bag flew open by itself and all my potions rolled out across the ground and I'm just. I'm going around. I'll take the long route."
"You know that adds like two days, right?"
"I'm aware." He said it with the tone of someone who had already done the math ten times over and decided that two extra days of walking was a bargain compared to whatever was lurking between those trees. "Good luck."
He marched past me without looking back.
I stood there for a second. Ghost types in this forest. I mean, I'd kind of expected it.
The further I went, the more the forest changed. The canopy thickened above me and the light faded to grey-green and the sound of the stream died away. Just wind through leaves now, and the distant call of a bird that sounded like it was having second thoughts about living here. The trail narrowed. The trees pressed closer. It got quiet in a way that made my footsteps sound too loud.
Then I heard it. A laugh.
High and thin and coming from everywhere at once, bouncing off the bark of the trees until the source was impossible to find. It lasted only a few seconds, but the silence that followed felt heavier than before.
I stopped walking.
"Okay," I said out loud. "That's a Gastly."
That's when I felt the tug on my backpack. Gentle. Almost polite. A soft pull on the zipper. I reached back and my hand passed through a cloud of icy, wet air that had no business being there. My bag was wide open and a potion was floating ten centimetres above the pocket.
"Oh you've got to be kidding me. That guy literally just told me you did this to him too."
The potion dropped. The laugh came again, right behind my ear, so close that the cold washed over my neck. I spun around. Nothing.
Right. Time to not be alone anymore.
"Everybody out."
Three balls. Deino, Prinplup, Rhyhorn. They materialized on the trail around me and immediately something was different because all three of them could feel it. Deino's nose went straight up, fur along his back standing. Prinplup's eyes were already scanning, flippers half raised. Rhyhorn looked around once, decided nothing here could hurt her, and settled.
"Alright, so there's a Gastly in here and it's been messing with me," I said. "Deino, can you smell it?"
"Dei dei." He tilted his head, sniffed, took a step forward. His nose pointed into the trees to the right. Then shifted left. Then up. Whatever he was tracking, it wouldn't stay still.
My left shoelace came undone. Then the right one.
I looked down. "Alright, I'll give you that one. Didn't even feel it."
I knelt down, tied them both, stood back up.
A face was hanging ten centimetres from mine. Purple, gaseous, grinning with a mouth way too wide for its face. Two huge white eyes staring into mine.
"Hi," I said.
The Gastly blinked. People were supposed to scream. People were supposed to run, tripping over their own shoelaces. Not this.
"Gastly," it said, somewhere between offended and confused.
"Look, I know what you're doing, and I get it, I really do. But I've been through some stuff recently and a floating purple face just isn't going to do it for me. Sorry about that."
"PLUUP!" Prinplup fired a BubbleBeam straight at the Gastly. It went right through. Hit a tree.
"Prinplup, he's a ghost. Water goes right through him."
"Plup plup." She didn't care. Nobody appeared in front of her trainer's face and got away with it.
The Gastly was already gone, its laugh echoing from somewhere to the left. Deino's head followed the sound, nose locked on.
The Gastly hovered at a distance for a moment. Then it sank toward my bag and opened the zipper again. A berry floated out.
"That's my last Sitrus berry. I'm actually going to be annoyed if you take that."
The berry floated higher. The Gastly watched me. Testing.
"Deino, where is he right now?"
"Dei dei." Deino aimed his snout directly at the floating berry.
The berry dropped. The Gastly shot into the shadows.
I picked it up. "Yeah, that's what I thought."
We kept walking. The Gastly didn't leave. Every few minutes something happened. A pinecone on my head. My zipper again. A branch dumping dead leaves on me, followed by that thin laugh and another BubbleBeam from Prinplup that hit another tree.
"Prinplup, you've hit four trees now. Four trees and zero ghosts. At some point you've got to ask yourself if this is working."
"Plup." The strategy was fine. The ghost was the problem.
The Gastly appeared in front of Rhyhorn and pulled the most hideous face it could manage. Rhyhorn walked straight through it. Didn't slow down, didn't blink.
The Gastly reappeared behind her, looking genuinely hurt.
"Gas..."
"Yeah, don't worry about that. She's not ignoring you on purpose, she genuinely doesn't notice. She once walked through a closed door because she forgot it was there. That's just how she is."
Deino was the one the Gastly kept coming back to. It circled him, drifted dangerously close, then shot away when Deino snapped at the air. Each time Deino got faster. Each time the gap got smaller.
"Dei!" He snapped to his left. The Gastly dodged by a centimetre.
"Gastly." Almost admiring.
After that the Gastly stopped pranking. It just followed. Floating along the tree line, keeping pace. Not scaring. Not laughing. Just there.
After another hour the trail opened into a small clearing. Light on the ground again. Dry, flat earth.
I sat down. Rhyhorn found a rock and leaned against it. Prinplup found a puddle she didn't approve of but accepted. Deino settled against my leg.
At the edge of the clearing, in the shadow between two old oaks, two white eyes floated.
"So you're still here, huh," I said. "You stopped messing with us a while ago. I noticed. You've just been following us for the last, what, forty minutes? Just floating there."
The eyes blinked.
"I bet most people run. That guy earlier with the Shinx was gone before you probably even got started. And then what? You just wait for the next one? Sit in the dark until someone else walks through?"
The purple mist shifted.
"That sounds really boring, honestly. Just the same thing over and over with nobody who sticks around long enough to even see what you actually are."
The Gastly drifted forward. Half a metre out of the shadow.
"Deino almost got you twice. That probably doesn't happen a lot, does it? Nobody sticks around long enough to try. But he couldn't even see you and he still nearly caught you. And you kept coming back to him. You could've stayed away after the first time but you didn't."
"Gas." Quiet.
"I'm not going to throw a ball at you. That's not how I do things. You haven't decided if you like us and I haven't decided either. I'm not catching you because you happen to be here. If you come with us, it's because you actually want to. And if you don't, that's fine too. Go scare the next person. I hope they give you a better reaction than I did."
The Gastly floated there. Half in shadow, half in light. Eyes steady.
I closed my eyes. Deino's head was warm on my knee. Rhyhorn was breathing like a distant engine. Prinplup was preening by her puddle, muttering "Plup" at something that displeased her.
I didn't check if the Gastly was still there. That was its decision.