magiepie8spook won my ’60 Star Shots’ contest, and she requested a oneshot (now a two-shot) involving Valerie and the word ‘Lopeholt’ (which means, as I found out, a place of safety or refuge). Even better, she specifically mentioned the sad/horror genre, with just a tad of Jazz and Tucker.

Commence evil, maniacal laughter.

Note: not rated ‘T’ just ‘cause. This really IS a horror story.

Lopeholt
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

Athens is a real town in Ohio. It has been given the dubious distinction of one of the scariest places on Earth, as well as named as the third most haunted town in the world. There have been numerous television shows that have dwelled on the demonic-like spirits that seem to haunt the greater-Athens area.

The facts, as presented in this story, are all true.

Athens, Ohio. Officially a town since 1912, Athens was a small city about seventy-five miles south-east of Columbus. Home to Ohio University and about twenty thousand people, it was an up-and-coming town with beautiful scenery and surrounding countryside. Athens was an ideal place to raise children… until a certain family stepped out of their tricked-out RV. Whatever mockery of ‘ideal America’ the town had managed to pull over it’s muddled past was forever shattered by one blazing orange jumpsuit and a heartily bellowed, “Come on!”

I scowled and sank deeper into the seat, wondering if I could take back my promise to come with on this insane vacation. Already it was turning into a horrifying experience and we hadn’t even gotten out of the RV yet. Danny glanced over at me and rolled his eyes, unbuckling his seat belt and slipping out the door. “You agreed to come,” he informed both of us over his shoulder.

Shooting an annoyed glance at Tucker, I sighed and finally levered myself out of the car. “You promised that there would be ghosts,” I grumbled, crossing my arms and glaring around the picturesque town. “The third most haunted place on Earth, you said.” I gestured at the gleaming buildings. “This sure doesn’t fit the mental image.”

He shrugged. “Give it a few minutes, Val. You can’t judge a book… or however that goes.”

Tucker jumped out of the RV and grinned, stretching his arms over his head. “Yeah, Val, Fenton vacations always manage to blow up the idea of ‘normal’. If we don’t see at least one ghost by tomorrow, the world has probably stopped spinning.”

“Of course there will be ghosts!” Mr. Fenton shouted in my ear, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “We’re going to visit The Ridges, and Wilson Hall, and some of the cemeteries. There’s the story of that woman…”

“Thanks, Dad,” Danny interrupted, “but we heard the story on the way here.”

“Four separate times,” Tucker added darkly under his breath before shooting me a grin. “You’ll get used to it… he’s just a little excited about having someone new to blather to.”

“Yeah,” Danny said with a chuckle, grabbing my hand and dragging me away from his brightly-colored family, “Excited. That’s what he is.”

I laughed. “So, it’s just you, me, the geek, the sister, and the parents for the weekend. This will be a blast! Maybe see a few ghosts, break up a few hauntings, and save all of reality from the wrath of evil.” I couldn’t help my grin at Danny’s strange, distressed look.

“Not again,” Tucker whispered, crossing his fingers and squeezing his eyes shut. “Please, please, not again.”

I glanced over at him in confusion, wondering what he was muttering about, but Danny whapped him on the back of his head and grabbed a piece of paper out of his pocket. “First stop is the hotel to check in…” we all looked up at the small, ratty motel his parents had decided upon, “okay… and then we go check out The Ridges tonight, Wilson hall tomorrow night, and the five cemeteries before we leave on Sunday.”

Tucker moaned. “Why is it always nights? Why not noon? Or, maybe, 2:30 in the afternoon. Nothing bad ever happens at 2:30 in the afternoon. This is just asking for our brand of trouble.”

“All the better to see ghosts,” I grinned before heading around the RV to grab my backpack. “That’s the point, isn’t it?”

Both of them stared at me for a long time without answering.

“You can’t really blame her for being so innocent,” Tucker said to Danny after a moment, “she’s never been on a Fenton family vacation before.”

Danny nodded, but not before glancing over his shoulder into the slowly gathering darkness and shivering. “Yeah…” he agreed distractedly.

I pushed past them, hurrying to catch up with Danny’s sister. The two of us were bunking together at the motel and I wanted the bed closer to the widow.

Behind me, Tucker sighed. “I know that look in your eyes, Danny. Sam’s going to end up being lucky one on this trip.”

“Shadow broke her leg, Tucker. How’s that lucky?”

“Bet you a week’s worth of homework that by the end of this, you’ll admit that Sam was the lucky one.”

There was a long moment of silence. “I don’t take stupid bets, Tucker.”

The door to the run-down motel jingled as I pushed it open, drowning out anything else the two boys might have said.

In the area of Athens, Ohio, there are five cemeteries. These cemeteries are really nothing to look at individually – they are just places to bury the dead. But when seen from a witch’s perspective (from the air), the cemeteries form a pattern. Connecting the five locations forms a nearly perfect pentagram.

Travel to the exact center of this spiritual symbol, and you will find yourself in the center of the town of Athens – Ohio State University. Home to ‘Wilson Hall’ and one of the most bizarre haunting/suicide stories in history.

I followed Mr. Fenton up the path, staring at the humongous building with butterflies fluttering in my stomach. It was an ancient Victorian building made up of millions of bricks and its three stories loomed over us in the darkening evening. Black windows gazed into the cloudless night with a quiet intensity that sent chills up my back.

I’m a ghost hunter – I’ve seen some of the worst that Amity Park can throw at me. But this place was just… downright creepy. Something was very wrong here.

“The Ridges,” Mrs. Fenton said softly, then broke off and sent Danny a weird look. Danny was staring up at the building with wide eyes. He shivered a bit, then blinked before an obviously forced smile appeared on his face. I didn’t buy it for a second, but his mom just smiled back and continued up the path.

I’d kill for my dad to be that oblivious.

Tucker poked Danny in the arm and whispered, “What’s wrong?”

“Same-old,” Danny whispered back, shooting a glance up at the old building. “The entire place is haunted. And they aren’t going to be nice ghosts either.”

Jazz appeared out of the shadows, clicking her flashlight on and off to check the batteries and fiddling with her walkie-talkie. “Stupid ghosts, stupid family trip, stupid haunting, stupid…” she looked up, blinking at me with a smile before fixing on her brother’s pale face and stopping dead. “Danny?”

The siblings exchanged a loaded look and I felt out of the loop… again. Ever since I’d joined Danny’s trio of friends, this happened again and again and again. They all knew something that they didn’t want to tell me. The only thing I knew for sure was that it had something to do with ghosts.

When Jazz turned from her brother to gaze up at The Ridges, there was an awed and frightened gleam to her eyes. Jazz, Tucker, and Danny held back a few steps, the three of them clustering closer together on the shadowed walkway, a similar foreboding look on each of their faces. “We don’t have to go in,” Jazz muttered softly.

“It’s just a ghost…” Danny added under his breath.

“Nah, if it was just a ghost you wouldn’t be so pale,” Tucker whispered. “This is something else.”

I shook my head, turning away from them and picking up the pace. Their expressions were not helping the chilled and paranoid feelings that were snaking around in my stomach. I wasn’t going to listen to their groundless ramblings. I hadn’t come this far to turn back now. I was going in that building.

As long as someone came with me.

I took a deep breath and took a few quick steps to try to catch up to Danny’s parents, but something flickered at the edge of my vision and I twisted my head to stare up at the building. Nothing looked different. I hesitated for a moment as I studied the old asylum, the slight wind whispering in my ears and carrying the echoing sounds of insane screams.

I shared Danny’s shiver. This place was definitely haunted. It was a strange mix of exciting and terrified… the same kind of thing I felt on my first ghost hunt…

What was that?

Squinting up at a small window in the third floor, I could have sworn I saw a person standing, staring down at us. Maybe it was just an illusion… it wasn’t there anymore. I felt a hand rubbing my arm and I jumped in surprise, laughing softly when I noticed that my own hand had crept up unannounced to rub my other arm. “I’m not scared.”

My eyes flickered back up the window, once again catching the glimmer of some kind of presence up there. “Valerie Grey is not scared of some stupid ghost.”

I wish my voice would have come out stronger when I said that. I was not doing a very good job convincing myself of anything tonight. I’d never felt this apprehensive about going into a haunted house before. There was something seriously wrong with this place. This whole trip was suddenly sounding like a very bad idea.

A sharp click made me jump again, almost smashing into Danny. I blushed as he steadied me with a white-faced grin. We both listened to his father take the key back out of the lock and push open the heavy front door with a creak. “This is a bad idea,” Danny murmured to himself, unconsciously echoing my thoughts, his eyes seeming to glow in the encroaching shadows, “these ghosts are not happy.”

Just for a second, just for one measly little second, I thought about repeating Jazz's earlier statement that we didn’t have to go in. The little hairs on my arms were standing on end and the haunted look in Danny’s blue eyes was almost creepier than the building itself. I changed the words right before they slipped out of my mouth and into the freezing air. I wasn't the weak one of this group; I was going to go in that stupid building. “They’re just ghosts, we can handle any ghost.”

Danny, Tucker, and Jazz all raised an eyebrow and shook their heads in disbelief. “Some ghosts,” Danny said softly, “are better left alone.”

“Forty-six degrees fahrenheit,” Mrs. Fenton said, reading off of her thermometer. “Not too bad. That’s the ambient temperature of the air tonight, so we’re going to use that as a baseline. We’re looking for cold spots that are statistically different than that.” She glanced at us and smiled. “So check for places under forty-two degrees.”

“Three teams,” Mr. Fenton jumped in, his face alight as he flipped a switch on the wall and some of the overhead lights blazed into harsh existence, “just like we planned. We’ll meet back up here in two hours. Let’s go!”

“Wait,” Mrs. Fenton grabbed a handful of her husband’s jumpsuit and smiled at his pouting face, “we're not done. Walkie-talkies are for communication, I expect to hear from each of you every fifteen minutes at the most. This place is old and not up-kept, so if a sign says to stay out of a place, stay out. Don’t do anything stupid,” she hesitated to shoot Danny and Tucker a glare, “and get us some good evidence. Have fun!” She grinned up in Mr. Fenton's direction. "Now, we can go."

It took a whole of five seconds for the two eldest Fentons to vanish through a shadowed doorway. Danny, Tucker, and Jazz exchanged another loaded look. “Um… we don’t have to split up,” Tucker finally said.

“It’ll take twice as long to get through our sections then,” Jazz complained, glancing over her shoulder. “I say get in, get it done, and get back out. Danny? What should we do?”

Danny tipped his head to the side and then turned to look at me. “What do you think we should do, Val?”

“Me?” I blinked, taken aback that I was being brought into the conversation. Every other time these ‘looks’ were exchanged between these three (or four, if you included Sam), I was usually just left out to trail behind and be confused. I was kind of touched to be asked my opinion.

“You’re a ghost hunter too,” he half-smiled before suddenly looking around the room and tensing a little.

“Let’s split up and do this thing!” I pulled out a piece of equipment the Fentons had shoved at me, taking a second to realize it was an EMF reader. Deep inside, I agreed with Jazz. Sooner in, sooner out. I wouldn’t ever admit it… but I wanted out of this place.

“Two votes to split up, one to stay together.” Danny nodded, grabbing his own flashlight out of his pocket and gesturing towards the stairs. “Majority wins. Mom and Dad obviously are staying on this level, so Jazz and Tucker get the upstairs, and Val and I’ll take the basement.” He grabbed my arm and propelled me across the small space.

“You didn’t vote,” Jazz called as we rounded a corner in search of the stairs leading to the basement. “DANNY!”

I followed him for a quiet for moments before asking the question that was dying to be asked. “Why didn’t you vote?”

“Choose between my sister and my best friend? Are you kidding?” He grinned, but it looked out of place on his pale face. His eyes were still haunted and gleaming. “If you must know, my vote is to leave right now. This place is…” He trailed off, staring down the long hallway with a dubious look on his face.

What was up with him? This place was affecting everybody – even I felt the terrified paranoia that was itching the back of my throat and making me glance over my shoulder every few seconds – but Danny seemed to be affected more than anybody else. “Then why are you staying?”

“Look,” he flipped on his flashlight and shined it at the wall, completely ignoring my question. His light illuminated a water-damaged and moldy poster. “The Ridges: formerly the Athens Lunatic Asylum. Established 1873, shut down 1979.”

I wrinkled my nose at a weird smell that drifted through the air.

“An entire building full of insane, vengeful, and demonic spirits.” Danny flicked his flashlight back off and let out a deep breath. “Tucker was right about this stupid vacation.”

The ancient building now known as The Ridges was once the Athens Lunatic Asylum. This building was once a regular stop for a physician that used extreme medical practices. Nick-named ‘Dr. Lobotomy’, he was quite well known for trying radical brain surgery on the patients.

It never took too long to plunge a probe into a head, mangle around the gray matter a little, and see what happens. It was too bad if a lot of the patients died rather horribly in the process. A lot of those 'failed experiments' are reported to still be hanting the dark basement, hidden rooms, and shadowed tunnels.

I put my foot on the ancient steps, my breath fogging in the air. “Come on, Danny, it’s not so bad. They’re just ghosts.” I tried to wink at him but I’m not too sure how well it worked.

Danny just sent me a small glare and curled his arms a little tighter around himself. “Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea,” he muttered softly, once for each time his foot settled onto the dusty steps leading us lower and deeper into the old asylum.

“If you think this is such a bad idea, why come in? I’m sure you could have stayed in the car.” I crossed my fingers, hoping for an answer this time. Why did Danny want to leave so badly?

“The whole town is freaking haunted by something… and I’m not so sure it’s a ghost,” he said darkly. “Staying in the car by myself on a night like this wouldn’t have been much better.”

I mentally agreed with him just as something cold brushed against my hair. I twisted around, scanning the empty space behind me on the stairs. Nothing. I glanced down at the ghost detector in my watch. No ghosts. It was probably just a breeze.

Yeah, just a breeze.

We stepped off the bottom of the stairs and glanced down the deserted hallway of the bottom level, the half-burned-out overhead lights illuminating the place sharply. The lack of windows gave the place an oppressive feeling and each of the partly-opened doors lead off into the darkness. “Wonderful,” I said. “What a perfect haunt for a phantom.”

Danny snorted. “Not on your life,” he whispered to himself as he glanced over his shoulder.

I shot him a look at that weird statement before grabbing my flashlight and heading towards the nearest door. “Come on – let’s get those readings for your parents and get out of here.”

“I hear you on that.” Following a step behind me, Danny yanked some equipment out of his backpack and fiddled with buttons. I pushed open the door to room six and stared into the dark shadows. A shiver ran up my spine as a fresh wave of cold air breathed over me and my imagination started to run. Anything could be lurking in the darkened corners. Axe murders, zombies, blood-deprived vampires, lost lunatics, a demonic ghost… Darn it! I’m not afraid of some stupid ghost… or the dark!

Flicking on my flashlight (grateful that the beam wasn’t shaking as much as I thought my hand might’ve been), I played it quickly over the room and stifled a small sigh of relief. The room was empty, except for some insanely creepy shackles bolted to one of the walls and a cracked mirror in one corner.

“Temperature?” Danny asked, slipping around me to shine the laser into the room. “Thirty-six degrees?” He glanced over at me as his breath fogged in the air. “You okay?”

“Fine,” I whispered, backing back out of the room and fighting to keep from shivering. The temperature around my dropped suddenly and I couldn’t turn my back on the infinite blackness that was hiding beyond the doorway. Finally tearing my eyes away from the door, I stared down the long hallway with a feeling of dread boiling up in stomach. Each one of those doors lead to a patch of impossible blackness.

Each one of those pits of darkness lead unknowable horrors. Snakes, bats, skeletons, ghosts, lunatics… anything could be hiding behind those doors. Each one was a mystery, a puzzle. One I would have to solve.

“Do we have to look in all those doors?” My voice came out as a desperate squeak. I mentally chided myself for letting Danny know I was terrified, but a large part of me just wanted to leave. My eyes flicked back to the door I’d pushed open. It was slowly drifting shut again, hiding its dark mysteries from me.

Why was I so scared all the sudden? Was a ghost doing this to me?

My mind was doing its best to fill in an idea of what was closing that door in this windless hallway. I was trying my hardest to ignore my mind and focus on what the hell was going on.

“Not all of them.” Danny’s voice was quiet and strained. “We’ve got enough readings. Let’s just go back upstairs.”

My feet wouldn’t move. My eyes were darting painfully from the doorway in front of me to the large expanse of hallway to my left and then towards the shadowed stairway on my right. I felt cornered… trapped… attacked… I wanted to be able to look everywhere at once. The paranoia that had suddenly struck me was growing beyond anything rational.

“What’s going on?” I rasped.

“Val… Valerie…” he licked his lips, dropping his thermometer and wrapping his arms around his chest. “We need to leave. They don’t want…” His eyes were wide and frightened as he stared down the hallway.

“I can’t.” It came out as a pitiful whisper. Something cold brushed past me and I screamed, my wide eyes still trying to see in every direction at once. But still my feet wouldn’t move. I couldn’t even get my hands to move; only my mouth would.

A door slammed far away in the deserted hallway, and a bunch of shadows dropped from the ceiling. Bats – dozens of small bats – shrieked in anger and they flooded down the corridor and blasted past us. I slammed my eyes shut, unwilling to see what was going on. I wanted to run… but I couldn’t… I just…

“Danny?”

I cracked one eye open. Then the other. Then I spun around, my hand jumping to my mouth in horror.

I was alone.

I'm going to try to get the second part finished after work tonight since my third job is cancelled due to the holiday.

How’m I doing at getting my creepy thoughts out on paper?

-Cori