It ... it's mine—at last—mine! Listen—you guys can have the shoebox—I'll take this! 
Appearing in "Ghost Story"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Edward Redditch
- Frank Parkins
- John Creach
- Mrs. Redditch (first name not given)
Other Characters:
- Tommy and unnamed companion, boys
- Mr. Carstairs and Miss Blevins, employees of Municipal Services
- Edward Redditch, Sr. (First appearance) (Corpse, skeleton or other remains)
- NYPD
Locations:
- New York State
- New York City
- Long Island
- Brambles (First appearance)
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "Ghost Story"
Near the small town of Brambles in upstate New York, two boys approach a large house. Tommy tells his companion that the Red Hunter haunts the place and that he's going inside to find a ghost. A shadow passes over them. Tommy sees a ghostly silver figure floating down to the house, and both boys run away. Moon Knight (the "ghost") has followed John Creach and Frank Parkins to the house. These two small-time crooks have followed their partner, Edward Redditch, to his family home to get his "treasure." In the backyard cemetery, Parkins (another Brambles native) tells Creach that Redditch's father died years ago. According to rumor, Redditch Sr. was responsible for four disappearances, and they stopped when he disappeared too.
Earlier that day, Redditch saw in the paper that his mother had been declared legally dead. After his father's death, he had had to commit her to Bellevue. She left behind a shoebox containing $500,000 and a valise, and Redditch, despite Parkins's warnings, was determined to collect his inheritance.
Parkins and Creach break into the Redditch home. Moon Knight reflects on his day: he told Frenchie that, when he walks past the statue of Khonshu, "I get a chill when I pass the thing ... I could swear I'm in contact with something inside it ... with its ghost, I guess." Moon Knight enters the house. Parkins and Creach encounter a floating white figure and flee from it. Moon Knight follows the shouting and finds the same "ghost": an owl wrapped in a curtain. Earlier, Redditch went to the Municipal Services building for the shoebox and the valise. When a clerk pleaded that she had to take care of her mother, Redditch said, "Shut up about mother!" and shot her. Outside he shot a policeman but was wounded himself. Lockley heard about the incident via police scanner and headed toward the Municipal Services building, but the getaway car sideswiped his cab into a parked car. He called Frenchie to pick him up in the helicopter. Parkins, driving their red Ford, managed to evade the police.
Parkins and Creach find shelves of canned goods in the kitchen. Something moves, and Parkins shoots at it. It's only a cat. Moon Knight hears the shot, sees the food, and realizes someone still inhabits the house. Earlier, the getaway car stopped for gas. Redditch got the valise open. He told the others that they could keep the money, he had his treasure. He got out, carjacked a customer of the gas station, and headed for Brambles. Parkins and Creach followed, wanting their shares of a treasure worth more than a half million in cash.
The two hoods break into Eddie's room. They find four skeletons and a trail of blood, which leads into another room. In that room is another skeleton dressed in hunting gear, with a shotgun on its lap. The shotgun fires, straight at them! They flee. This mystery is explained by strings leading from the shotgun's triggers to a pair of flesh-and-blood hands in a closet. Parkins and Creach find the basement, where Parkins believes they will find the treasure. Moon Knight calls down the stairs, impersonating the police, to convince the crooks to surrender. Parkins believes they can escape punishment if they dispose of the evidence, so they start a fire in the furnace to burn the money. The old furnace explodes, uncovering a trap door in the floor. They crawl through a tunnel and wind up back in the cemetery. A voice says, "Freeze, murderers!" Moon Knight is standing behind them. He drops Creach with his truncheon and throws a dart into Parkins's hand before he can fire the shotgun. Moon Knight kicks Parkins and knocks him out, and his fallen flashlight shows the gravestone of Edward Redditch.
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when grannies attack
In the grave lies Redditch, his hair turned white. He died, not from the policeman's bullet or his father's shot, but from fright. An old woman in hunting gear appears, carrying a shotgun. "All you can see is the red," she repeats, and says that Redditch died in a hunting accident, that she had to bring him home, that he would always leave again, that Eddie was the same way. "Still don't know why he claimed I was dead." Moon Knight finds Eddie's "treasure": the deed to the house, which is in flames.
Notes
- The story never explicitly states whether Redditch Sr. or Mrs. Redditch killed the other four people. Parkins says that Redditch Sr. was killed by his last target in self-defense, but he calls that a "theory." If it's true, Mrs. Redditch may have gone insane when she learned that her husband was a serial killer, and she never killed anyone. On the other hand, if Mrs. Redditch were already insane, she could have killed the other four and her husband. The fact that she could set up the shotgun trap and shoot her own son points to the latter.
Trivia
- The car used by Redditch, Parkins, and Creach is consistently referred to as a "green Ford," but it is colored red.
- The shotgun in Redditch Sr.'s lap should fall when it's fired, due to recoil. Presumably Mrs. Redditch secured it to the chair.
- The story never explains how Moon Knight knew to follow Parkins and Creach from the basement to the graveyard. Presumably, after the fire started, he left the house and came across them.
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