Act Twelve: Understudy
While horror as a genre, in all its mediums, possesses many cliches and tropes within its trappings -monsters and madmen, strange phenomena and disturbing imagery- there is an entire end of the spectrum that goes woefully undervalued and unnoticed by all but the most careful critic and avid reader: the protagonist. Many people focus so intently on the villain, the danger, and the visuals of a ‘proper’ horror story that their only concern when it comes to the main character is that they aren’t a bland, inorganic fill-in for any John Doe who might have happened into whatever unfortunate circumstance would happen to befall them.
A proper protagonist is a difficult trap for any writer to fall into. Some writers rely on a familiar framework set in motion by their predecessors, finding a template that has proven popular and empathetic to the scenario, applying their own spin and careful touch to their ‘hero’s’ creation. There is nothing wrong with this approach, technically speaking. If it is to be believed that there are no ‘original ideas’, then the next best option is an ‘original combination’; an individual take on a popular recipe that falls perfectly in line with the rest of the menu. It is the responsibility of the author, of course, to ensue that even if the character they commit to the page is an ‘homage’ to a previously existing entity, no matter how far-reaching or how tentative the relationship, that there is enough individuality in their creation to both hold the attention of the reader and generate an emotional connection that drives the audience to root for the hero’s success, no matter how slim.
For some characters, it seems, the best way to a reader’s heart is through a healthy blend of humor, compassion, and the well-developed capacity to be an absolute pain in the ass. “I’m just saying that we need to be wary of the possibility that this entire house is a bear trap with your name carved into the pressure plate,” Treble said politely, addressing their more-than slightly frustrated employer. “If you walk around in a hell hole like this, thinking that you’re just here to do a load of laundry and leave quick as you like, you’re gonna end up with your head in the dryer.”
Raven Inkwell, to her credit, understood exactly what DT was trying to say. In his own weird, overly descriptive way, he was showing concern for the idea that she might become complacent in light of the idea that her grandfather had brought her here under the impression that she was to do something good with all this evil. What she did ‘not’ appreciate, however, was the boy’s rather disturbing proficiency in listing all the ways her new house could kill her if she so much as sat in an armchair incorrectly.
“As much as I would enjoy hearing more of your theories on how my obituary could be a wonderfully colorful affair, I’m going to have to ask very nicely for someone in this room to shut you the fuck up,” she finished tersely, leaning her head into the back of her seat and redirecting her rather narrowing attention span to the ceiling situation. Which seemed to be the most generically uneventful thing in the room. She took at least a little bit of comfort in the fact that, even in a haunted house, something could be boring.
Treble’s response, whatever it may have been, was immediately drowned out by the sudden presence of a rather well-stitched throw pillow all up in his face. “Gladly,” Dusty groaned, holding the fluffy gag in place with a single arm and only a modicum of actual effort. He was, after all, much stronger than the resident ‘pretty boy’. “Look, he has a point. Especially with you walking around with a head injury, which our resident creepologist will tell you is a massive handicap in a haunted house, keeping you in one spot is probably our best bet.”
“And who exactly is going to show you around the house?” Inkwell countered, rather perturbed at the idea of being benched. Indigo had long since forfeited the argument, rather well-practiced in letting bone injuries heal. She was also completely in favor of any idea that kept her the hell away from the rest of this creepy-ass house.
“Twilight is,” Treble said cheerfully, much to the dismay of Miss Sparkle herself.
“Ex-cuse me?!” Twilight shrieked, nearly falling out of her computer chair. “H-how...what… absolutely NOT you two-toned snake charmer!”
Dusty and Rubble exchanged smirks. “Snake charmer,” Rubble chuckled. “That’s new.”
“Strangely appropriate, given his neighbors,” Dusty agreed.
“Sirens are part fish, not snakes. You’re thinking lamia,” Bones interjected. The group stared at him for the half second it took to realize there wasn’t really any point in commenting, then returned their attention to the conversation at hand.
“Well, who else is going to show us around?” Treble asked calmly. Almost infuriatingly so. “None of us has read the most recent blueprints, and the only device you trusted me with in the field is currently… indisposed.”
“You mean demolished. Annihilated. MURDERLIZED,” Twilight growled, holding up the loose bundle of wires and plastic that once was the EMF reader. “So who’s going to sit here and watch all of my equipment?!”
Raven raised a hand. “While I won’t pretend to know what each and every thing you’ve dragged into my house under the false assumption that it would survive the experience, Miss Sparkle,” a comment that elicited a weak moan from the scientist, lamenting her poor, sweet, uninsured computers, “I do know my way around a computer or two. I promise to do little more than alert you when something goes ‘ding’ rather alarmingly, and stand at attention with a fire extinguisher.”
“And it’s not like I’m a complete idiot, you know,” Indigo growled. “I may not be the scientist you are, but I am one of the highest-ranked students at one of the most academically inclined schools in the county, thank you very much.”
Twilight gave them both very careful, highly appraising looks. Unable to think of an argument that didn’t sound both highly degrading and extremely pompous, she pressed her argument in a different direction. “So what, I’m just supposed to follow you around with my tablet and read the map to you while you boys swing wildly at anything that looks even remotely out of place?”
There was a soft thud as Spooks closed his book and set it on the table. Treble noticeably scooted away from it. “It’s what I do almost all the time. Listen, Twilight, I know you don’t know us anywhere near enough to be comfortable. But I would like to point out that I have, on multiple occasions, depended on these three to save my life on multiple occasions, and have never been disappointed. I can assure you, with no hesitation, that under the current circumstances there isn’t a safer place in the house. The way I see it, our best option is for you to come with Treble, Dusty and I, while Rubble stays here with these two.”
Rubble groaned loudly. “And why, exactly, am I staying on the bench?”
“Because stairs,” Spooks said simply.
“Oh.”
“Um...” Twilight said slowly. “Stairs? Why? All of the cold spots are on this floor, or immediately adjacent. Even given the one staircase he’d have to traverse to go down a floor, I sincerely doubt he’d be much of a hindrance.”
“Except when we have to run away,” Dusty said pointedly.
Indigo chuckled. “I thought you guys were the type to never back down from a fight?”
All four of the boys, in a comfortable moment of camaraderie, exchanged amused looks before bursting into laughter at all four corners. “Please!” Dusty howled. “Why do you think I wear sneakers with wheels in them?!”
Rubble held his stomach as he gasped for air. “Sugar, we’ve run from pretty much everything we’ve ever fought, at one point or another. I mean, I love a good fight as much as the next guy, but we’ve run afoul of the kinds of things that make your eyeballs hide somewhere anatomically improbable.”
Spooks nodded politely, still wearing a small smile that would look almost sad on anyone else. “He’s right. We need to be ready to run -to OR from- at a moment’s notice. But besides that, Twilight, I can understand your primary concern. You’d much rather stay here, hiding behind the safety and familiarity of your machines, right?” he asked, not unkindly.
Twilight nodded, still taken aback by the outburst of laughter. “Yeah. But if you trust these guys as much as all that, then… I guess I’d be just as safe on my feet. I mean, I doubt anywhere here could be considered ‘secure’ or anything like that, but at this point it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other, right?”
“Exactly!” Treble agreed, all too loudly. “Now then, if we’ve an accord, I’d like very much to get back to walking around and sticking my face where it most annoys our esteemed host! I don’t know about you lot, but I’m feeling rather emboldened by a sudden urge to find the most disagreeable anger of this so-called Marie and shove my foot so far up it it comes out the other end well-buffed!”
Dusty rolled his eyes and rifled through their bags. “Oh, boy, he’s feeling heroic And here I thought tonight couldn’t be long enough.”
Twilight assembled a smaller bag full of equipment the boys hadn’t even bothered to look at let alone try to learn. “And where was this heroism when our school was neck-deep in extradimensional alien flesh?”
There was a light shuffling sound as Spooks sidled up next to the departing party with nothing more than a rather disagreeable book in his shoulder bag. “Probably ALSO neck-deep in extradimensional alien flesh.”
“...point,” Twilight muttered.
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After the boisterous entourage had left, Rubble sank back into the largest couch available, after doing what little he could to help the ladies move some furniture and computers around to make monitoring them more practical. Not to mention within reach of the snack cooler. They’d even repositioned the cameras to keep watch down the hallways so nothing like the little girl-doll could sneak up on them again. Assuming it hadn’t just materialized.
It was getting later and later, and despite their enthusiasm and assorted machismo, even the boys were feeling the wear and tear of the night shift. “Alright, that’s it. If I keep forcing my eyes open like this I’m gonna break the hinges. We gotta do something about sleeping,” Rubble whined.
Indigo coughed indignantly as she fiddled with one of the more hopefully simplistic computers, which looked an awful lot like some kind of radar. “You want to SLEEP?! In this death trap?!”
Raven gave her a baleful sideways glance, but grunted her agreement. “Indeed. I aim to live here and I wouldn’t dream of closing my eyes for any length of time. So unless one of the skills on your surprisingly long list of things I’m not sure a teenager should be able to do is sleep with your eyes open, then I doubt any of us is going to feel anything close to rested before we leave this building.”
“Nah, Spooks is the eyes-wide-open sleeper. But we could, you know, do it in shifts?” Rubble offered.
Indigo blinked. “Isn’t that how people get offed in horror movies? One person stays awake and gets killed while the rest of the room is unconscious?”
He shrugged in response. “So two of us will stay awake. You only need 45 minutes at a time to recover a little energy. Fifteen to reach REM, fifteen to actually rest, and fifteen as a buffer. Look, I’ll even stay awake first and second, as long as I get to sleep sometime.”
“As good as that sounds, one of the few things I do know about head injuries is that you shouldn’t let yourself fall asleep That’s how comas happen. But if you two want to take turns napping on the job, be my guest. Just don’t expect to get paid for snoring,” Raven chided.
“I don’t even WORK for you!” Indigo protested.
“Hmmm. Fair point. So you get to sleep first. I’ll keep an eye on the machinery, and Rubble can watch the doors. Sound fair?” Inkwell offered.
“Fine with me,” Rubble grunted, sitting up in his couch so his gaze met the entire room.
Indigo shuffled around, maneuvering her bad shoulder around the sharp metal edges and heavy wood surfaces, finding solace in the loveseat under the window that she wished to the high heavens would just open. Laying herself out and putting extra pillows under her bad arm, she let herself get as comfortable as possible. She only wished she had more room to get comfortable. Like the hospital bed she -and with a side note, Rubble- ought to be lying in right now.
Zap had done a fine job of ignoring Rubble’s blatant disregard for his well-being. She understood not being able to afford the bills: her athletic prowess had earned her the scholarship she’d needed to get into Crystal Prep, which was only the first step in her rather lengthy and demanding life plan. Even so, before Crystal, when she was just an adolescent kicking the ball as best she knew how so that her parents didn’t have to couch-dive for loose change , she knew the value of taking care of yourself. She knew little to nothing about Rubble’s own plans for his life, his own goals, but he knew no one ever got where they wanted by breaking their foot through sheer stupidity and bullheadedness. If Rubble didn’t seek professional help for his injury -beyond the therapy and occasional appointment- he might lose the calf muscle altogether.
Of course, in the time it took her weary mind to reach that conclusion, she’d found enough of her exhaustion to douse the flame of consciousness.
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“I swear to god if Rubble is asleep when we get back I’m waking him up with a goddamn hysterectomy,” Dusty growled as the troupe stomped their way to the library. Even with all the talk about stairs, nobody had wanted to venture more than a floor in either direction, and Twilight had been rather dour about missing out on the vast collection of knowledge presumably less than half a kilometer away. Spooks was still a little spiteful about his grandfather’s secrecy, and had decided to dig around for any other mentions of his family’s name, while Treble simply wanted a big giant fuck-off room in which he could see the bad guys coming, and Dusty had little interest in exploring the rest of the house anyways, for fear of digging up more kids’ corpses. Or worse, running afoul of them.
“I don’t think that’s how being a guy works,” Twilight said with a distasteful look.
“It’s certainly how being a pu- OW,” Dusty barked, as Treble elbowed him in the ribs. “Jesus, ok. I’m just saying, if he’s gonna be all gung-ho about getting checked out AMA and diving right into another case, the least he could do is stay awake for the goddamn thing.”
“...wait, he did WHAT?!” Twilight shrieked, as they rounded the corner to the open area that marked the entrance to the grand library.
“Oh yeah,” Treble said, with a hollow laugh. “His mom was pissed, even with how little money hey have. I mean, I’m pretty sure any parent would gladly shoulder whatever debt they needed to to see their kid happy and healthy, but Rubble’s… well, Rubble.”
Spooks shook his head. “Personally, I think he just hates doctors.” The other thee looked to him for further elaboration, and found none. Instead, he simply pushed the doors to the library open, and gasped slightly at the sight before him.
Treble and Dusty rolled their eyes at him at first, mistaking his surprise for awe. Then something occurred to them. They looked around, unsure of what to look for, or what was different. Then Treble looked back to Spooks, who was still staring, wide-eyed, up at the higher levels of the room. Following his gaze, he quickly found the answer to his question. The light. It was the light that was different. It had paled in some areas, focused in others. Where once there was a gentle blanket of even yellow light, offered by luminescent bulbs, there was now an eerie, sickly glow.
The source of which was not difficult to find, as Dusty and Twilight soon caught up with the others and saw as they did: each lamp, each hanging bulb, each candle on every table, now shone out of the hollowed out cavern of a dead child’s head.