The Foley Maneuver

The Foley Maneuver
by Bluemoonalto


Right in the middle of a battle is no time to take a phone call, Tucker thought, as he swung the Thermos into position to snare yet another target.  This would be the eleventh weasel-shaped ghost the three of them had managed to capture in about ten minutes; a pretty impressive tally considering there had only been six weasels at the beginning of the fight.  But Tucker was trapping them as quickly as Danny could fling them away, and a quick glance at his beleaguered friend showed that there were at least a dozen more to go.  It was impossible to get an exact count as the sinuous weasels were swarmed all around Danny, writhing and wiggling and winding in a blurred mass around legs, waist and neck, pausing only to snap at his fingers or claw at his belly as he frantically tried to grab the slippery creatures by a tail or a leg.  Their keening cries rose and fell in an undulating drone, occasionally punctuated by a frustrated “Get off of me!” from Danny.   

The phone went silent as the voice mail kicked in, but seconds later it rang again.  From the ring tone (“That boy needs therapy”) he knew the caller was Jazz; Frontier Psychiatrist seemed a very odd yet somehow appropriate soundtrack for the fight.

“Tucker, will you just talk to her?”  Sam was short-tempered, anxious for Danny’s safety and frustrated that she had so few targets for her Jack o’ Ninetails.  

“I’m kind of busy right now,” he snapped back.  To be truthful, at the moment he was doing little more than watch the carnage.  It wasn’t safe to use the Thermos within a thirty degree arc of Danny’s position during a fight, which meant that he had to wait for Danny to hurl the critters away before he could trap them.

“Right.  And that’s the third time she’s called, which means she’s not going to give up.  So just answer the phone already or I’m gonna smash it!”  She flicked the whip playfully in Tucker’s direction, though they both knew he was safely just a few feet out of range—positioned just as they had practiced in their many covert training sessions.  

Only fifteen minutes had passed since they had first discovered the six ghostly creatures in the park, tormenting the little kids at the playground after school.  Sam and Tucker had been content (and even a little bit amused) to watch Danny take them on.  Sam had even expressed a little concern for the ghosts’ well-being, as they seemed to be nothing but dumb animals—and rather cute ones, at that.  They were a little on the large side for weasels, but had that distinctive long, sinewy shape with the delicate face and sharp nose, as well as soft green fur and beady little red eyes.  Stoats, maybe, or martens—or maybe just some kind of ghost creature that didn’t have any earthly counterpart.  Danny had even laughed at their playful antics as he took to the air, intending to round them up and Thermos them quickly with as little violence as possible.

Unfortunately, the weasels had a different agenda.

In less than two minutes Danny had to toss his Thermos down to Sam so he could have both hands free to fight the nasty little savages.  Tucker covered her at close quarters with his lipstick-shaped mini-blaster while Danny fired frantically at the little weasels overhead.  Sam quickly captured three of them but the number of available targets seemed to grow exponentially with each passing minute and Danny was soon overwhelmed within a wriggling horde of biting, clawing vermin.

Using his ghost ray at such close quarters should have made short work of the fight, because there was almost no direction Danny could fire and not hit a target.  But he didn’t seem to be making any progress; the more he fired, the more furiously the weasels swarmed.  It was Sam, watching Tucker shoot a loose weasel with the lipstick, who finally realized the fatal flaw in their tactics: the creature simply absorbed the energy from the blast and used the power to duplicate itself.  By this time the original six weasels had multiplied into nearly two dozen, not even counting the ones that had already been captured, and Danny was oozing ectoplasm from a score of shallow wounds.  

It had been quite a challenge to get Danny’s attention over the piercing screams of the writhing mob of weasels, but Sam and Tucker had finally got it across to him that he needed to stop shooting them and rely exclusively on his enhanced strength and agility to catch the critters and throw them into safe Thermos range.  Sam handed the Thermos off to Tucker and deployed her Jack o’ Ninetails instead, and the three kids finally started to make some progress.

And then Tucker’s phone started ringing.

And ringing.

“Just answer it!” Sam yelled as she entangled an approaching weasel with the Jack and, with a sharp sweep of her arm, smashed it into a puddle of goo on the grass.

Tucker vacuumed up the remains with the Thermos in his right hand while he flipped open the phone with his left.  “This is not a good time, Jazz!”

“Yeah, like I kind of noticed,” she replied coolly.  “Did you realize that Danny’s on TV?”  

Tucker glanced around and quickly spotted the tall mast of the Channel 8 microwave truck at the top of a hill about two hundred yards away.  The camera crew beside the truck seemed to be enjoying the show.  “No, but thanks for the heads up.  Sam and I’ll try to keep a low profile.”

“Don’t hang up!” Jazz added hastily.  “I’m not the only one who was watching—you’ve got parents on the way!”

Tucker’s heart sank.  “Please tell me you’re talking about my parents. . . ?”

“I wish!”

Tucker glanced up.  Danny seemed to be taking a breather, just hanging motionless in midair as the remaining weasels took advantage of his momentary stillness to nibble at his fingers and scratch at his shoulders and back with their razor-sharp claws.  Danny’s head was drooping and Tucker could see a new, jagged gash on his forehead that was slowly dripping ectoplasm into his left eye.  “How much time do we have?” he asked despondently.

“Not as much time as you would have if you answered the phone the first time I called.”  

“Jazz—”

“They took the RV, and Dad’s driving,” she snapped.  “Do the math.”  

“Great,” he muttered.

“I’m on my way.  Good luck!” she said and clicked off.

Tucker stared at the phone and muttered, “Thanks.  Thanks a lot.”  He tucked it back into the case on his belt, and focused again on the battle.  Danny had drawn his second wind and was re-engaged with the beasts, which were screaming louder than ever as he grabbed at their tender bellies and sensitive tails.  

“Danny!”  Tucker yelled, moving in as close as he dared with the TV crew watching.

He didn’t seem to hear.  

“Danny—your parents!  Your parents are coming!”

“Incoming!” Sam barked, as another critter came hurtling through the air in their direction.  She quickly raised the Jack o’ Ninetails and prepared to put the smackdown on the weasel before it could engage them with its claws or teeth.

There was no time to get clear of her backswing, so Tucker dropped to the ground just as the nine whiplike tentacles whistled inches above his head.  This was one of the moves they had practiced before, and Tucker rolled out of range and got back on his feet seconds after Sam had the little weasel entangled.  He fired the Thermos to intercept the whip and capture Sam’s prize and then, in a sweeping motion that cut a brilliant arc across the sky, snagged two more little beasts that Danny had just flung away by their tails.  Tucker did a quick count and it looked like they were down to ten or so weasels remaining—from the original six.  Make that nine, he thought with satisfaction, as Danny kicked another one far enough away for Tucker to safely scoop up with the Thermos.  

“Sam.”

“Not now, Tucker.”  

“I don’t think Danny heard me.  And his folks are going to be here any minute!”

“Great.  I’m open to suggestions.  Morse code?  Telepathy?”

Tucker took a deep breath.  He had an idea, but it was risky and he knew she wasn’t going to like it.  “The Foley Maneuver.”

For a moment Sam stood stock-still, the Jack o’ Ninetails hanging limply from her hand.  “The Foley Maneuver?”

“Yeah!” Tucker answered defensively.

“But Tucker—” she said doubtfully, “we never practiced that one.  We never even worked it out on paper.  It’s just a crazy idea you had, not like an actual move.”

She had a point.  That was what their weekly training sessions were for: drawing up battle plans and working out moves that they could execute without having to constantly remind each other what to do.  Sam had become an expert with the Jack o’ Ninetails, Tucker had perfected his aim with the lipstick blaster, each one could cover the other in a fight and use a Thermos without endangering Danny’s safety.  But the Foley Maneuver was nothing more than a radical concept, a daring flight of fancy, a last-ditch Hail Mary play that could end in disaster if it wasn’t executed perfectly.

Suddenly Tucker heard the distinctive ‘whoop-whoop-whoop’ of the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle’s new siren, a sign of favor only recently authorized by the city council for the exclusive use of Amity Park’s official ghost-safety consultants.  Danny had sourly blamed the new mayor for that indulgence, knowing that Vlad would certainly enjoy having plenty of warning whenever the Fentons approached.  

But if Danny could hear the approaching siren over the keening cries of the nine remaining weasels, he didn’t seem to register it.  He made a labored back flip to catch another weasel by a rear leg, all the while struggling to fling away a second creature that had sunk its needle-sharp teeth firmly into his left wrist.  

“He’s slowing down,” Tucker hissed at Sam.  “Can’t he hear the siren?  He’s a sitting duck!”  

“DANNY!” Sam yelled.  “THE FENTONS ARE COMING!  YOU HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!”

But Danny’s attention was fixed on the battle.  He gave the weasel in his right hand a vicious shake and flung it away; Tucker captured it with the Thermos as soon as he could deploy the beam at a safe angle. Eight left.  With an anguished cry Danny managed to rip the other weasel off his wrist, leaving a jagged new wound that stained his white glove bright green.  He swung  that critter like a truncheon, batting two of its fellows toward the ground; Tucker swept up one and Sam snared the other with the Jack o’ Ninetails and with a quick jerk smacked it to the ground.  Tuck vacuumed up the remains with the Thermos and adjusted the count: seven, six.

“It’s useless, Tuck,” Sam panted.  “With all those things screaming in his ears for so long, he might not be able to hear anything.   You could set off a bomb right next to him and he might not notice.”

Of course, that’s exactly what happened, not two seconds later—except the “bomb” was an ecto-grenade and it exploded just two feet away from Danny’s left shoulder, sending him and the remaining weasels flying in seven different directions.  Tucker scrambled to target the quick little creatures before they could catch up with Danny, and managed to catch three while the source of the grenade swooped in on her rocket sled.  Five, four, three.  

“Oh wonderful,” Sam muttered.  “Why doesn’t somebody give her a siren?”

Valerie had a shoulder-mounted energy weapon deployed and charged before anybody could register what she was doing.  She neatly picked off two weasels on her approach, which hungrily absorbed the attack and duplicated in bursts of pink light.  Tucker swore under his breath: they had gone from six ghosts to three and then back up to five in less than ten seconds.  The newly duplicated weasels were fresh and fast, and they swooped in like little green bolts of lightning to renew their feeding frenzy on Danny’s arms and legs.  

“No. . .” Danny tried to warn her.  “No energy. . . weapons. . . you just make more—”

“Shut up, spook!” she snarled and took a shot directly at his head.  In an act of instinct and desperation, Danny spun around in place to form a spherical shield that encompassed both himself and all five weasels, bouncing Valerie’s energy beam harmlessly into the sky.  Cursing, she swerved her rocket sled around the shielded ghosts and prepared to make another pass.  

Meanwhile, Danny was cocooned inside the shield with his ghostly tormenters.  That didn’t look like such a good idea to Tucker, but Danny continued to spin inside the shield, like a figure skater at the end of a long program.  He pulled his arms in close to his chest, which helped him spin faster and faster until his form became nothing but a blur.  Tucker was perplexed, but Sam figured it out as soon as she saw one of the weasels suddenly appear splayed out flat against the inside of the whirling shield.  “It’s— it’s that centrifi-whatsit.  And it’s working.  It’s working!  Danny’s a genius!”  Even as she spoke, two more weasels lost their grip and were smashed flat against the inside of the shield.  

“Centrifugal force,” Tucker prompted. “I guess he was paying attention last week in science class.”  He gaped with astonishment at the sight of the flattened weasels, then braced himself for the impending critter-explosion.  

It only took a few more seconds for Danny to dislodge the last of the beasts.  Then he abruptly dissolved the spinning shield, expelling all five weasels as though they had been shot out of a gun.  Danny continued to spin wildly for several more seconds from sheer momentum, and when he finally slowed down he looked more than a little queasy.

Tucker was ready with the Thermos.  High and to the left. . . four. . . low and to the right. . . three. . . directly overhead. . . two. . .  From the corner of his eye he saw that Sam had already snared the one that had shot directly towards them, and Tucker quickly trapped that one, too.  

One.

Where is it?  

Tucker searched frantically for the last weasel.  But a garbled scream told the whole story—the creature had whipped around and caught Danny by the throat while he was still dizzy and disoriented.  Having used up every ounce of his remaining energy spinning, Danny was struggling for his life with just this one remaining opponent..  

WHOOP!  WHOOP!  WHOOP!

Except, of course, for the Fentons—

“You are going down!”

—and Valerie.  
  
The Ghost Assault Vehicle screeched to a halt just a few feet in front of the TV crew.  Mrs. Fenton was already standing on the roof, holding one of the vehicle’s antennas for balance, and her husband tumbled out of the driver’s seat as soon as the vehicle was stopped.

“There’s no time!” Tucker yelled, tossing the full Thermos to Sam.  “We have to do the Foley Maneuver, it’s the only way!”  

“It’s too risky!”

But Tucker was already dashing toward the sandbox, where he had dropped his backpack early in the fight.  “No choice!” he shouted as he ran.  

Sam clutched the Thermos with her left hand and the Jack o’ Ninetails with her right as she carefully monitored the situation overhead.  Danny was well out of range of the Jack, even if she dared use it, so she dropped the whip and braced the Thermos with both hands, prepared to take out the last weasel as soon as Danny could tear it loose.  The sight of a growing green stain on his white collar made her bite her lip in alarm.

Danny turned intangible and swung to the left to avoid another shot from Valerie’s weapon.  He fired back—no more weasels in range except the one clamped to his throat—and knocked her off the sled.  That would keep her busy for a minute.  He grabbed the weasel behind its neck and squeezed its jaws until it released its bite, and then flung it toward the ground with an almost animal howl of defiance.  

Sam Thermosed it.  

The battle abruptly finished, a heavy silence settled over the park.  Danny hung in the air: eyes closed, arms limp, oozing copiously from wounds on every part of his body.  

“I got him!” Mrs. Fenton cried, lifting the Fenton Bazooka onto her shoulder.

“I got him!” Jack bellowed triumphantly, as the Fenton Ghost Peeler’s armor formed around him.

“I got him!”  Valerie echoed as she leapt back on her sled, charging a phased-energy weapon and focusing its laser-sight on the ghost boy’s left-upper chest.  

I got you, Tucker swore silently, as he dropped to one knee and braced his empty Thermos in front of him.  He aimed low and slightly to Danny’s right, knowing from long experience which direction he was most likely to dodge first.  All three ghost hunters prepared to fire their weapons simultaneously, and Danny did finally make a sluggish dive to his right, whipping the air with his long tail.  Tucker held his breath and squeezed the trigger firmly, sending a blinding blue-white beam into the sky that caught the tail just inches from the tip.  Danny struggled briefly but didn’t put up much of a fight; Tucker wasn’t sure but when they locked eyes Danny might have silently mouthed the word, “Thanks.”  And then he faded from sight as the beam overwhelmed him.  

Valerie’s mask covered her frustration as her sled shot through the empty space where Danny had just vanished.  Over at the Ghost Assault Vehicle, Jack was momentarily disappointed about being outgunned, but Maddie was jubilant enough for both of them.  “Tucker!” she shouted with gleeful astonishment as she waived enthusiastically at her son’s best friend. “Tucker, you did it!  You captured the Ghost Boy!”

Tucker looked down at the Thermos in his hands, and numbly dropped the cap to the ground at his feet.  He had done it, all right, and now things were going to get very, very interesting.  Timing was crucial, nothing less than flawless execution would do.  Already Mrs Fenton was jumping down from the roof of the RV and Mr Fenton was retracting the Peeler back into its hand-held base unit.  Tucker set off toward them at a dead run, keeping one cautious eye on Valerie, who was the wild card in this game.  

He would only have one chance.  He had positioned himself so that he would have to pass behind the Amity Park War Memorial to reach the RV, so the five tall, granite slabs would shield him momentarily from view.  The eighty-year-old weeping willow behind the memorial should give him cover too, if he could time it right.  His heart was pounding and his legs started to feel like jelly as he forced himself to run faster. . . and faster. . . .    He had to gulp air with every third step, then every other step, then every step as his lungs started to ache from the exertion.    

Just as he reached the shelter of the memorial, with Valerie approaching from his left and the Fentons just ahead and to the right, the toe of Tucker’s left boot caught on an uneven crack in the sidewalk.  His momentum sent him flying—well, not flying exactly, he knew what flying felt like and this was definitely not that.   As he hurtled headfirst toward the sidewalk there was just enough time to think, Oh man, this is going to hurt.

And it did.

From their several vantage points, Sam, Valerie and the Fentons saw Tucker trip, and for just one second there was a brilliant flash of blue-white light behind the tall granite memorial, beneath the sheltering branches of the weeping willow tree.  Valerie kicked her sled into a sharp turn, and Maddie sprinted across the grass, Jack lumbering right behind.  They converged on Tucker’s position almost simultaneously.

They found him lying face down on the pavement, chest heaving, his arms outstretched in front of him.  They could tell he was conscious because he was groaning in pain.  Just a few inches beyond his right hand lay a battered Fenton Thermos.  

Maddie knelt beside him, murmuring motherly reassurances as she checked him for broken bones.  

Jack pulled up behind her, huffing and puffing from the run.  He picked up the damaged Thermos and checked it over; after a moment he shook his head gravely and announced, “The inner lining’s shattered.  It’s empty.”

Valerie snarled in disgust and kicked her sled into a high-speed ascent.  

About fifty yards away, Danny emerged from the ground behind a screen of azalea bushes.  He endured a quick hug from Sam before collapsing in the grass at her feet.  

As for Tucker. . . he slowly lifted his head, blood flowing freely from a two-inch-long gash across his chin.  He had sprained his left wrist trying to break his fall and he could feel harsh sting of deep abrasions on his knees, chest and palms.  He was having trouble getting a deep breath, but he wasn’t sure whether that was because of the exertion or because he had hurt his ribs in the impact.  He peered up apologetically at Mrs Fenton and whispered weakly:

“Ooops.”