"Ugh, what is with this? My ghost sense is going haywire, but there's nothing here!" Danny fumed. He sat in the passenger's seat in phantom form, keeping lookout.

"Maybe it's just a ghostly glitch," Jazz suggested. 

"But it always goes off just before I find a ghost. Now," another cloud of steam hissed out, "there's nothing here and I can't stop!"

"Well can you turn it off? People are going to think it's really weird if you walk around breathing steam all day."

Transforming back to normal, Danny concentrated. He could feel another alert trying to go off. He resisted, pushing it back. 

"Uh... yeah I think I can get it under control. But you've gotta help cover for me if it slips out."

"Pfft. I always cover for you Danny." 

They drove aimlessly for a few more minutes. Gravity Falls was a small logging town. Surrounded by tall pine trees, it had a secluded, secretive feeling.

"What do you think uncle Dan meant when he said Wendy fights ghosts? Does someone in this town have a ghost portal?"

Steam escaped again. 

"An annoyingly open portal?"

Jazz shrugged. 

"I don't know. There aren't many portals and I don't think anyone who built one would do it without the right precautions. Maybe it's just a temporary rift."

"Can't be that temporary if Wendy's been fighting all summer. Let's see if we can find her."

Jazz nodded, turning into the small town square. There wasn't much to see. A grocery store, diner, museum, library, and a church were all the entertainment it had to offer. 

A second later, Danny's head slammed into the windshield. Jazz had slammed on the brakes as an old man hurtled out into the road in front of them. With a bent body and unfocused eyes, he looked totally insane. Cackling wildly, he looked right at Danny and squawked, "Going Ghost!" 

Vaulting out of the road with surprising agility, the old man continued on his way as if nothing had happened.  

Danny's face drained of color. Jazz just sat in shock. 

"That's... He's just a crazy old man Danny," she reassured him. But something in her eyes left him worried. 

"Yeah. Yeah, we've never seen him before. Crazy." Danny agreed half-heartedly. As they drove on, Danny watched the old man in the rear view mirror. Surely... surely nobody in this backwoods town knew anything about him. Even his hometown didn't know. How could an old man halfway across the country identify him? 

No. Jazz was right. He was just babbling and came across the wrong words.