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Ghostly Business For FriskeCrisps By Draconicon

Crisp came from a long line of professional hunters, or at least, so his grandfather had told him. The wusky was a bit fuzzy on the details, considering that his dad was just an accountant and his grandfather had died before getting further into it, but the idea had been planted in his head firmly enough that he believed it.

He grew up in a school of completely normal kids, surrounded by those whose dreams were no more than being a doctor or being a teacher. The only other students that he got on with were the fellow weirdos that were interested in being something different, like a bounty hunter, or a soldier, or something that went out to protect people. The wusky liked them, but they were always on the outside of things, and it didn't take him long to realize that they were playing make-believe rather than having those dreams as real ambitions.

Crisp stayed on the outside of the social circles as he went through elementary school, then middle school. When he got to high school, he had learned how to hide some of his weirdness, and was able to fit in with at least some of the other students. He even founded a fantasy club, where people that were interested in the fantasy genre could come and hang out and talk shop with each other.

The wusky's dream never entirely faded, but reality had told him what sort of person actually pursued those dreams. They were nutcases, wacko, not part of civilized society.

And slowly, bit by bit, the dream died...

College eventually came around, and spring break followed. The wusky went back home for it, renting on renting an Airbnb for the occasion. However, he'd barely arrived when his cell started ringing.

"Hello, Crisp speaking," he said as he picked up the phone.

"Hey, it's dad. What's with the professional greeting?"

"No reason. Just getting in practice." He grunted as he tossed his suitcase on the bed. "What's up?"

"You remember Grandpa's old house?"

"The one down on the corner? What about it?"

"Finally cleared through the courts. We're selling it, but we need to empty it out first."

The wusky stumbled at that, almost falling into the nightstand. He grabbed the lamp on it, keeping it from falling over before sitting down on the edge of the bed.

"Selling it? Selling gramps's house?"

"Yes, yes, I know you're not keen on the idea, but it's been sitting there for years. It's time to see it gone."

"But..."

"We're just cleaning it out for now. We still have to find a buyer, so, if you want to come down and say your goodbyes to it, you can join us tomorrow. Ten in the morning sound good?"

"I - well, yeah, I guess."

"Great. See you there, Crisp."

Click.

Crisp pulled his phone down, staring at it for a moment before tossing it onto the bed. He flopped out, his arms out at his sides as he grumbled.

His grandfather had died way back when he was only five years old, just when they started talking about the hunting business. The one time that he'd brought it up with his dad, the husky had told him that it was nothing, that the 'hunting' business was the last thing that he should get tangled up in.

When he'd told his grandfather that, the old husky had been rather disappointed, but had said that he'd teach Crisp everything that he needed to know if the young boy changed his mind. Sadly, they never had time; his grandfather passed only a few days later.

And now, they were selling off the only thing that he really had to remember the old man with.

Crisp grumbled to himself, rubbing his eyes. This was just like the family, too. Not that they were money-grubbers, but they had always said that he needed to get a good education, to find a good job, to ignore the stupid dreams that his grandfather had put in his head. Well, Crisp had done a good job with the latter, at least. They had almost completely died off.

Almost. As soon as his dad mentioned the house, they'd come rushing back, complete with the memories of his grandfather showing him the attic and saying that it was always off-limits, that the hunting gear was up there. It was not for kids, the old man had said, and if a kid ever went up there, they would come down changed more than they wanted.

Well, I'm not a kid anymore...

If nothing else, he could bury the hunter stuff forever. Or take it so that his dad didn't have the chance to sell it off like he had done with the rest of his grandfather's things. Or...

Well, he didn't know, but he could go there and make sure that he had a voice in things for once. He was an adult now, and he had some of his mother's wolfish stubbornness in his veins as well as the husky's general good nature. He wasn't just going to roll over on this one.

#

Leaving the Airbnb early the next morning, Crisp arrived at the house a few minutes before 8 in the morning. With his dad not due around for another two hours, he figured that it'd be a good time to start rooting around, see if there was anything that his father had missed during the first purge all those years ago.

A little wandering around found his grandfather's old hide-a-key. Dad never knew where it was, considering he had his own, but Crisp's grandfather had always kept one aside for him.

It put a little smile on his face, remembering how close they used to be, and then he let it die when he was forcefully reminded that the old man wasn't there anymore.

As soon as he unlocked the door, he was reminded why they needed to clean the place up as well as out. The halls were littered with dust, and the walls seemed caked with it. No mold, thankfully, but he could see the flecks of dust motes in the air catching the dawn light.

No one has been here since the Master died, he thought, the old horror movie line coming to him unbidden. Crisp shook his head. His grandfather might have been many things, but in the horror business was not one of them.

He covered his mouth with his shirt collar, stepping inside. Even then, he could breathe the motes of dust around, and he had to fight the coughing that wanted to burst from his throat. He walked down the hall, then towards the stairs at the very end of it. They'd take him where he wanted to go.

The old floorboards creaked and groaned around him, and the walls, formerly filled with bright paintings and soft lights, seemed to have taken on an old, haunted appearance from years of neglect. Here and there, the wooden boards popped out of alignment, nails and more threatening the heads and arms of anyone that walked by without paying attention. More than once, he narrowly avoided braining himself on the wooden beams, and he wondered how anyone could have gotten through the house before.

The stairs were worse, each step threatening to send him plunging through the wooden plank into whatever hell laid below. He wondered how his dad thought that they could sell the house. Maybe the land, he supposed, but the house felt like it was right on the verge of being condemned.

Nevertheless, his curiosity, his aged wonder, drew him up the stairs to the second floor, and then the third. The higher he went, oddly, the less creaking there was, almost like the high floors had been better preserved, somehow. That didn't make sense, but there it was.

Further, further, and further he went, until he finally found the old patch of wood that blocked entry into the attic. That spot had been pointed out so many times as he had been growing up, always with the warning to never go in there if he didn't want to be hunted down by the things that his grandfather had captured.

The idea that his grandfather had kept anything in the house felt silly, now, but it was still enough to keep him staring at the patch of wood for longer than he expected. He still respected the old husky's memory, he supposed.

But he needed to see it, and to do it before his dad could. Crisp reached up and grabbed the rope attached to the panel, and pulled.

A set of folding stairs dropped, flopping off of one another with a soft click, click, click. They thumped into the wooden floor, and he was surprised that not one of them had stuck or squealed as they moved. They couldn't have been undone regularly, and yet, they were in the best condition of anything in the house.

Something was off, he realized. Something was very off.

Crisp looked up the stairs, shaking his head as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He turned on the flashlight function, settled it in his shirt pocket, then started climbing up.

As soon as he poked his head into the attic proper, a chill ran down his spine. He shivered, shaking his head, but he didn't go back down. He pushed himself up, instead, even as the fur on the back of his neck stood up, even as his ears pulled back hard and his tail pushed down between his legs.

There was something inherently wrong with the attic, he realized. Something that was old, that didn't belong here. If he believed in ghosts, he would have thought about them, but he told himself that it was probably just a draft...

A draft and old memories, if he was completely honest, though the latter sent another shiver down his back. He had never been allowed up here before, but he was an adult now. He could be here if he wanted. He was allowed.

He was allowed.

Crisp shook his head, making his way away from the little hole in the floor. There wasn't much light, just a few beams that were coming through windows that had been cut out of the wall and covered over with sheet plastic. It lit the floor, and from there, the tables that stood on them.

They were as dusty as the rest of the house, but he could see that they were all covered with different boxes. He thought that they were little models, at first, but when he picked one up, he realized that they were fully made of metal, and they were heavy. He couldn't pick one up one-handed, and he supposed that they were probably at least thirty pounds each.

What the hell was gramps doing with these? he wondered, putting it back down. Leaning in for a closer look, he saw little scratches across the top of the blocks of metal, like old letters from a fantasy book.

Was he...

The old stories of the hunters popped into his head again, but he pushed them down, not daring to hope. He had been teased and humiliated so many times for thinking that it would be cool to be a hunter of other things, not men, but...monsters. He had thought about it so many times as a kid, shared the dream almost as many times, and every single time, the teachers and the other students knocked him back down.

He wasn't going to find anything like that up here. He knew that. But he could at least look around, at least...

At least pretend.

Pretending is okay, if you don't go too far with it.

He walked down the tables, the lettered boxes fading to be replaced with other things. He saw various styles of bow-ties that were also marked in gold lettering along the outside. Once more, it wasn't English, but rather something different, something that he couldn't read himself.

Whatever it was, it was bright, bright enough to shine and reflect the light from his phone. He held it up, cocking his head to the side -

Wear Me...

The echoing words caught him by surprise, and he whipped around, sure that there must have been someone behind him. Yet, there was nothing. Nobody.

Crisp shivered, turning back to the bow-tie. It was gleaming, still, but the gold looked slightly sickly, as if the burnished brightness had faded and turned into something else, almost looking like fool's gold instead.

Wear Me.

This time, there was no mistaking that there was a voice coming from somewhere. The back of the bow-tie perhaps, but he wasn't going to check. Crisp dropped it and took two steps back, shaking his head as fast as he could.

"Nooo, thank you."

This was getting weird, and more than a little creepy. A smart move would be to leave the attic and come back later with his dad, to prove that this was all up here, but...

But at the same time, he knew that his dad wouldn't listen. The old man never had, and his grandfather had died alone, disrespected. If there was anything here that would improve his legacy, it wouldn't be found with his father helping out. It would just be buried all the further.

If he was going to find anything interesting, anything worthwhile, he had to do it alone.

Why does he have so many bow-ties? the wusky wondered as he walked down some of the other tables. Some were trimmed with silver, others with gold, and others still with a metal that he didn't recognize. They were all different, all somewhat off from the first one, but they all had the same weird aura as he passed by.

The mutters of 'wear me' continued, too, and he shivered as he felt a slight compulsion to pick them up every time that he looked at one for more than a split second. He walked further down the line of tables, only to find another workbench that was filled with, of all things, shoes.

Crisp blinked, looking at the different sneakers that were on the top of the desk. There were high-tops as well as running shoes, all of them slightly different in style and make, but all of them with threaded, slightly metallic shoelaces rather than the usual synthetic or cotton ones that he was used to seeing.

He took a step toward them, too, only to hear a thump. Like a footstep. He whipped his head around, sure that there had to be someone in the attic playing jokes on him now, but there was nothing to be seen.

Wear me...

Walk me...

Fill me...

Wear me...

The voices were getting louder, and worse, there were more of them. How that was possible, Crisp didn't understand. There couldn't be that many people in this small of an attic, not without someone showing themselves.

As he turned about in the middle of the room, something else thumped. Something had fallen off a table, and he turned to see what it was.

It was a book. A very large, leather-bound book that looked like it was tied together with a single strand of leather rope. Crisp blinked, kneeling down by it. There was a note that was tied to the cover, and he pulled it out and unfolded it.

_To Crisp,

It looks like I'm not going to get to tell you about the Hunters of the family after all. Death is calling quickly, and I've only just been able to put this together for you in hopes that you might learn about it when you have time. If my failure of a son hasn't passed it on to you, hopefully your curiosity will eventually lead you here. Lord knows I told you about this place enough; if the world didn't stamp out what you wanted to be, then you will be here, one day.

If you have, then I bet you're very confused about everything up here. Bow-ties, shoes, dress-shirts, long stockings -_

Stockings? He hadn't seen any of those yet, and yes, those would have really confused him. He shook his head, going back to reading through what his grandfather had left for him.

But all of them have a purpose. The hunters in our family, you see, weren't hunters of monsters or beasts. They didn't go out there to find trophies or to do anything of that prideful sort. No, our family hunted something far more mischievous than anything that normal hunters would track.

We hunted ghosts, and ghosts always need a place to stay once you catch them. I spent my life developing a more modern fashion for the ghost hunter, various accessories to hold them when they were finally caught. Clothing works well for this, since it keeps the ghost close to you so you can control them, but you know how quickly that goes out of style.

Crisp groaned, rubbing his head. Fashion. Fashion would go out of style so painfully fast that it wasn't even worth thinking about. Yet, at the same time, this whole thing was ridiculous. Was his grandfather seriously saying that the different items in the room were all possessed, or used to hunt ghosts? He kept reading.

We'd go out as bait, the clothes pulling the ghosts in and driving them into a frenzy. If you could survive their humiliations and their attempts to possess you, they'd be stuck in the clothes. And once we returned, we would purge them from the clothes into the metal prisons. They're still in there, all things being equal. I hope they are; we haven't found a way to send them on, just yet.

If you're here, and still reading, then a part of you still wants to be a hunter. If you do, then there's a way for that to happen.

There's an old suit that still works, possessed, in the back of the attic in a chest. If you can put that on and wear down the ghost inside, you'll know that you're able to be a hunter. If you can't...well, then this place will keep you here so that the ghost doesn't go back out into the world. If you're interested, then that's the way to prove it to yourself.

I am sorry I can't tell you all of this in person, Crisp. I missed the chance to give you the education that you needed for the family business, and I am sorry that this is all I can do. I wish you the best, whatever your decision, and I hope that you can always dream. The world needs more people able to wish for the impossible.

Sincerely,

Grampa Red

Crisp didn't know there were tears in his eyes until he reached the end of the letter and realized he could barely see anything else. He rubbed his eyes, shaking his head as he put the letter down with a shaky hand.

It hit him harder than he thought, knowing that his grandfather had genuinely hoped to give him something, and he didn't know what to think. It was like having his grandfather back for a moment or two, and it...it had been wonderful.

Yet, at the same time, he didn't know if he wanted to take it further. After all, the ghosts here were...if there were ghosts here, that was, they were definitely dangerous. He could hear them when he was walking by, and that meant that they were probably barely contained, if that. If they could do all the things that his grandpa said in the letter, then they could make him do things that he didn't want to do, and if he couldn't get away from them...

The letter had said he'd be locked up here until he could deal with them. Was that a risk that he was willing to take for a dream that had been dead until just a moment ago?

The answer was more obvious than he expected. The wusky could still remember the days when he had gone to school, when he had been humiliated when he said that he wanted to be a hunter after everyone else had said that they wanted to be a doctor or a teacher or a writer. The normal jobs against the crazy job.

And now...now he had a chance to validate those dreams, to say that it was real. Even if he couldn't do it, he could say that it was real.

Crisp looked down at the letter one more time, then tucked it into his pocket. If it was real, then he needed every reminder of his motivation to stay free.

Let's see...a chest in the back of the attic...

That was easy enough to find. It was big enough to come to his waist, and he could see it rattling ever so slightly. His grandfather seemed to have been serious about there being a ghost in it still, so, he hoped that it was one that he could handle. The wusky took a deep breath, then pulled the bar free on the front of the chest, throwing it open.

The first thing to come flying out was a pair of high-top sneakers, shooting over his head and thumping down hard on the floor. He'd have almost thought that someone had thrown them, or that they'd been spring-loaded, except that once they landed, they started walking on their own. They turned around, the toes facing him again, and the laces started to rise off the floor.

Who...disturbs...my slumber...

Not one voice, but two, talking over each other. One ghost per shoe, perhaps? It was possible.

He glanced in the chest again, wondering what else was there, and he immediately groaned.

Seriously, grandpa?

It was a horrible mix of formal and non-formal at the same time. The sneakers were completely casual, but the socks inside, thigh-highs, were as formal as one could be...for a by-gone era, where they wore striped socks that were fancy and silky. There was a pair of shorts with suspenders, followed by a t-shirt, but the t-shirt was obviously meant to be worn with the dark jacket inside.

What the hell, what the hell?

The only saving grace to the outfit was that it was moving, proving that there were even more ghosts to deal with. The sleeves of the jacket floated up from the bottom of the chest, lifting and lowering like waves, while the t-shirt floated up completely. No underwear, thankfully, but that was something that he had expected.

Suddenly, the rest of the clothes leaped out of the chest, almost hitting him right in the face. Crisp ducked at the last second, whipping his head around as the clothes spun around him in a tornado.

Wear me...

Wear me...

Wear me...

It was a cacophony of whispers, and he knew that the clothes were going to take him one way or another. The only choice he had was whether they did it over his clothes, or under them.

Well... The wusky gulped. Might as well...do this properly...

He pulled his own t-shirt off, then slowly kicked off his shoes. They thumped on the floor as loudly as the other pair had, but the ghost clothes seemed to slow as he continued undressing. They seemed...curious, more than anything else.

Hope this works, hope this works, hope this works, he thought, trying not to get too worked up. If he panicked, he swore it would be the worst possible mistake. He didn't know how or why it would be, but he felt like it.

Naked down to his socks and his underwear in short order, Crisp stood on one foot, then the other, taking off his socks and throwing them on top of the nearby pile. The clothes had completely stopped spinning by that point, almost like they were looking at him, studying him. Or maybe they were merely leering over him the way that predators would over eager prey.

"Well?"

Crisp looked around, looking at the horribly geeky, silly clothes.

"...Do it!"

He held his arms over his head, and the t-shirt slammed down so hard that he almost got the air knocked out of him. He couldn't believe the force behind it, and almost lost his footing right there and then. He stumbled forward, stumbled back, and only just caught his footing in time for the shorts to come for him.

The t-shirt squeezed around his middle, somehow lifting him up slightly, making him float just enough for his toes to leave the ground. The tight black shorts zoomed under him, then pushed up his legs.

"GAH! Tight! Tight!"

The wusky gasped as the shorts crawled up his legs, wiggling from side to side around his hips and his butt before pulling themselves into place. The possessed gear zipped up, barely managing to make it up around his crotch, and then buttoned...and pulled tight.

"Gaaaaaaaaah..."

He wheezed as his breath was pushed out of him by the t-shirt and shorts at the same time, gasping for breath so hard that he barely noticed the suspenders pulling themselves up his arms and over his shoulders. Crisp would have fallen over save for the floatation aspect of the shirt, and the tight grip the shorts had on him.

The jacket came next, his arms swung out to the sides by the t-shirt to make it easier. It was surprisingly heavy silk, but as it settled around him, he swore that the weight started to shift. It must have been the ghost in it.

Yet, as he waited for the socks and shoes, he realized why his grandfather had done it like this. All the different ghosts were unlikely to want to work together, and he could already feel the t-shirt and the jacket arguing, pulling his arms this way and that, trying to fight each other for control of his body. They were not able to work together.

And the more that they fight, the more tired they get...

Which was why the clothes could hold them and why they could be put somewhere else! That was brilliant.

Of course, it was less brilliant riding it out, particularly as the ghosts in his top and jacket were fighting hard. His arms were windmilling all over the place, slapping at each other, and at him, in a vain effort for the two possessed items of clothing to hit each other.

Then, the socks came.

One slithered over like a striking snake, the opening at one end 'biting' at his toes in a gumming motion. He jerked, yelping, his eyes going wide as the sock opened wide and pushed itself around his toes. It...tingled, for lack of a better word, as it went up his foot, moving further and further back towards his heel before pulling up and around along the underside.

The silk sock was, at least, comfortable, even if it did start heating up his legs as soon as it got past his calf. It was still moving up when the other sock pulled the same trick, gumming at his toes and making him jump.

They made him lift one leg, then the other, alternating between stepping and pinning one sock while letting the other crawl up his leg. They gummed at his calves, his knees, and then his thighs as they inched and wriggled their way up, covering his legs completely with thick, striped silk.

And then, the shoes hopped over.

The laces were waving back and forth in the air over the shoes themselves, and Crisp surprised himself as he started getting a boner. The tight shorts didn't show much yet, but they sure as hell made him feel it as his cock started rising up in his briefs.

The shoes hopped closer and closer, and the nearer they got, the stronger his boner became. It didn't take long before the possessed shorts started squeezing him, pulling at him, forcing his boner forward.

Boner man...

Wear us...

Wear us...

Dance with us...

Crisp shivered, the hissing voices in his head making him lift one foot without even thinking about it. The shoe leaped for him, hopping across the floor before grabbing his ankle with laces and aglets at the same time.

"Ah!"

He gasped, his eyes going wide as the shoe pulled itself around, wiggling the open mouth of the sneaker against his toes until it was properly aligned. Every little wiggle was followed by a tightening, almost like it was trying to consume his toes into its depths. The aglets tightened around his ankle, pulling his foot into a better position -

POP!

And then the shoe forced itself back, the sneaker dragging his toes deeper into the depths of the footwear. It kept wiggling back, pausing around his heel for a while before grinding its way past it, and then up to his ankles. Then, and only then, did the aglets let go of him.

The shoe stomped down, HARD, sending a clicking feeling all the way from his heel up to his teeth. He gasped, his boner jumping in his shorts, only for the shorts to finally get in on the action.

The possessed shorts grabbed his boner in the folds of cloth and fabric, pushing it up and then grinding on it from either side. He hissed, biting his lips as he slumped back, finally falling flat on his ass.

Not that it stopped the shoes or the shorts from doing things, nor did it stop the jacket and shirt from pushing him around, making him roll about. One shoe was all the way on, the other one was most of the way on, and the voices were coming again.

Boner man.

Weak man.

Hunter is prey.

Make him hard.

Make him dance.

Dance.

Dance.

Dance.

Crisp could hear them all, and a shiver went down his spine as they pulled him to his feet once more. The laces had pulled tight against his shoes, trapping his feet inside them with a rasping, slow hiss as the laces came together.

Shall...

we...

dance?

Click went the heels of his shoes, and the wusky meeped softly to himself. Things had just gotten much, much more complicated.

The End