Arc II, Chapter 81: The Tape (unedited)

Kimberly and the monstrous Lillian were back Off-Screen for a moment.

Before I could even yell with Flashback Revelation, Kimberly pointed to the Die Cast and said something.

On-Screen.

Lillian looked confused at first. She saw the buildings and booths around the Centennial burning, and the fire reflected in her crazed eyes.

“You!” she screamed. “It’s you.”

The Deathwatch screen on the red wallpaper flashed back. Some fancy editing between shots of Lillian lying on the floor of the burning Mansion staring up and the Die Cast in that same mansion. It gave the impression that she had seen him on the day the manor burned, even though she didn’t really.

Lillian Geist was no longer the gasping young woman who had been burned in the Manor Blaze. It had been eight years for her. Eight years of mutation and experimentation. What remained of her was a true force to be reckoned with. She was almost as high of Plot Armor as the Die Cast. With her tropes, she was even stronger, at least physically.

Of course, there was a catch. She was only strong against enemies who had harmed her in the past. Her fragile psyche prevented her from being a real threat to the average passerby.

But the Die Cast was not a passerby. The Die Cast had burned her.

“You killed my family,” she screamed. “You did this to me!”

The wriggling worm that had been grafted onto her face writhed and rattled to punctuate her scream. She was o longer human and she meant to prove it.

She attacked.

Her A Woman Scorned trope must have activated because her Plot Armor jumped up seven points.

“You’re the reason they did this to me!” she screamed as she tackled the Die Cast to the ground. “I’m a monster because of you!”

The Die Cast tried to throw her when she grabbed her arm, but she grabbed his arm back and, with screaming effort, snapped it backward.

The roided-up monster Lillian just might win the fight.

Everything was doomed. We were too late.

The Die Cast eventually managed to throw Lillian back into Dina. Dina landed on the ground. She seemed fine, but one of the long, smoky tendrils of the spirit controlling the Die Cast reached up to a large hit the bell game. Suddenly I heard a bolt snap.

The entire tower with the bell at the too fell to the ground.

With a loud dinging sound, Dina’s head was flattened.

Gale screamed out at the sight of it, losing whatever control he had over his old body. Without Dina’s sweet nothings, he was ejected off his body and the spirit reigned once again.

Lillian was up.

She and the Die Cast squared off.

I hoped the Die Cast could kill her with some combination of brute force and bad luck, but I had forgotten that Lillian had the trope called Animals are Psychic, which gave her preternatural instincts.

She could dodge any bad luck that came her way.

A propane tank zoomed through air like a missile. She dodged it.

An electric go-cart from the go-cart track zoomed by with no driver and sparks flying out of its motor. It had no chance of hitting her.

Luckily, the Die Cast was not without his own physical prowess. He managed to catch her in the side of the head his led pipe when she was dodging a live wire that danced around on the ground.

The pipe hit her with a loud, satisfying thwack.

The Die Cast was on her. His hands were around her throat.

She wasn’t down, but things were looking hopeful.

And then, I heard the snarling.

A large dog, a great beast, jumped from nowhere and clamped down on The Die Cast’s arm.

The dog was dragging on him with force and power. The Die Cast had to let go of Lillian.

He couldn’t shake the dog. That wasn’t surprising.

The dog, after all, was undead.

Bobby jogged into view moments later.

On-Screen.

He stood next to me and said, “A few years ago, a home invader shot one of my dogs. Thought I would pay him a visit.”

And then it hit me.

Bobby’s license.

It gave him the right to use the Coles’ dogs from the Permanent Vacancy storyline. It never said it only applied to the living ones. One of them had been ghost-zombified when Bradley Spiers killed it.

If there was any storyline where a ghost dog could get some play, it was this one.

The dog held the Die Cast’s attention absolutely.

Bobby and I went Off-Screen.

He smiled at me, obviously proud of his impressive improvisation.

Dina reappeared, this time as a ghost, hand in hand with Gale, her movie husband’s spirit.

Together, they worked to free Gales body from the spirit that bound it.

Lillian clawed at the body. The dog was nearly ripping his arm off.

We were winning.

Lillian was going to survive.

On the red wallpaper, I saw, to my horror, Antoine and Cassie (who was having trouble breathing from some old smoke damage she had gotten somewhere).

Roderick Gray was turning tail and running.

They had the flask.

The fresh cement that was being used to erect the Bartholomew Geist statue next to the Now buried time capsule was still liquid. Liquid enough to pour in a flask.

I had to act.

What could I do? I had no lines for Flashback Revelation to describe what needed to happen.

I had one option.

“Bobby!” I screamed.

He looked at me startled by the fact that I wasn’t smiling at our winning efforts.

“Lillian has to die,” I said. “This was all a trick.”

He looked at me like I had three heads.

“What are you talking about?” he asked. “She’s supposed to live. To die in the second storyline.”

How was I supposed to give him the same revelation Isaac and I had?

I tried my best.

“Remember the Stranger?” I said.

He nodded, still unsure of what I was wanting.

“He told us this was a trap, but we didn’t believe him, not the right way. We thought we knew what he was talking about. He was using that weird trope, you know the one?”

Bobby thought back. I saw confusion spread on his face. He must have been realizing something too. He was a ghost, after all. He fell to his knees.

“Why are you… What does it mean?” he asked. “What is happening with my head?”

“You’re realizing you were under the effect of at trope,” I said. “The true ending to the story is a trap somehow. You have to believe me.”

He sat back, dazed, possibly thinking through all of the things that mind-altering trope had caused. How many things had we overlooked because we were unable to believe this was all a trap?

The whole Tutorial took on a new light.

“Bobby,” I said. “We don’t have time for this.”

As I spoke, I heard a loud sound accompanied by a blinding light.

The spirit of vengeance, the creator of the Die Cast, had been split from Gale Zaragoza’s body.

We had won. I saw Antoine filling the flask with wet cement to rid us of it for good.

And in doing so, we were going to fail.

“Bobby!” I screamed. “Have your dog kill Lillian before the movie ends. Do it now!”

Bobby shook his head. “I need time to think! I don’t understand.”

“Bobby, you have to trust me!”

Isaac stepped in. “Bobby, if we are wrong, there are no consequences. We know that the Tutorial can be replayed until you get the true ending, but if we are right, we have no idea what might happen to us.”

Great point.

Bobby seemed to think so too.

He stood and called to his dog without speaking.

The dog let go of the limp Die Cast and looked at his master.

Without hesitation, it jumped at Lillian Geist’s throat.

Really hoped we weren’t wrong about this one.

Lillian was so strong because of her A Woman Scorned trope. That applied to the Die Cast, but not to Bobby’s dog. Her stats dropped.

She screamed in anguish.

Dina and Gale turned and yelled at Bobby.

But it didn’t matter.

Just as the needle on the Plot Cycle clicked over to The End, Lillian fell dead.

~-~

“What did you do, Bobby?” Dina screamed. She was alive again.  We had beaten the storyline.

I looked at my hands. I lived too.

We were out of the storyline. I was back in my hoodie. Oh, how I had missed its soft embrace.

“Don’t yell at him,” I said. “I asked him to.”

From the distance, Antione arrived, confused to see the dead Lillian Geist.

“We failed?” he said. “I thought we were doing good?”

He cursed.

I couldn’t explain it to them all at once. There was one thing I thought that might shine light on things.

“Dina,” I said. “Do you still have that tape you stole from the carriage that picked us up?”

She reached into her purse that she used her luggage tag on.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Have you listened to it?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I was tempted a few times, but I could never find a tape player.”

I grabbed the tape from her hands. It was unassuming. Made from white plastic.

Everyone was there with me. They gathered close.

“We were told by Carousel to listen to this tape,” I said. “It was on your stealing trope, remember?”

Dina nodded.

“Then, we were told by Constance, the librarian—”

“The Paragon,” Isaac interrupted.

“—that we should not listen to it because it was a trap. We would steal Carousel’s thunder, yada yada. We obeyed because we thought she was smart. Because we trusted her. I think she used some kind of trope to control us.”

The silence as they considered what I had said was deafening.

“Here,” I said, “Retrieving my off-brand Walkman. I took out the headphones so that the audio would play out loud. “I think we should listen to it.”

I put the tape int, rewound it all of the way to the beginning, and pressed play.

The tape came to life with a familiar voice. We all listened intently.

~-~

"Greetings. I am Silas Dyrkon, your Narrator through three separate tales of horror that may not be so separate after all.

In the stories I have before you this evening, the people of the town of Carousel are anxiously awaiting its Centennial Celebration. However, time has twisted into a nightmarish loop where all known things become unknown, forcing its residents into a bizarre reality where every day is the day before its anniversary.

As dawn's first light creeps over the horizon, the cursed history of Carousel unravels. A death that was never meant to be has shattered the threads of fate in this humble little town. Now, horrifying lab experiments are lurking beneath the streets, and ghostly apparitions are whispering secrets of the past to the players of a vintage board game. The curse, more than just disembodied magics, is harnessing fate itself and seeks blind revenge, trapping the townspeople in an unending cycle of terror.

At the heart of this mystery lies the enigmatic Geist family, whose darkest day holds the key to breaking the loop. Will Carousel break free from this endless eve or remain forever on the cusp of a celebration that will never come?

Step into the twilight of Carousel, where destiny stands still, horrors lurk beneath the streets, and the eve is eternal.

Welcome to 'The Eternal Eve.'"

Silas’ voice cut out and a polite, well-spoken woman started to speak.

The Eternal Eve Throughline begins with three Centennial storylines centered on the Geist Family. With these three stories completed to satisfaction, you will be signed on in the employ of one of Carousel’s most beloved Narrators, Silas Dyrkon. Mr. Dyrkon will send his players on an unguided quest to locate the fabled Missing Geist Storylines.

To join “The Eternal Eve,” please keep listening after the chime as you make your way to the Carousel Downtown. As always, be sure to keep your eyes peeled as you go because the town you see might not be the one you know.

Now, onto the Featured Throughline!

A chime rang out.

Then, it started playing the recording we had heard before.

"Ah, good evening, my esteemed guests," boomed Carlyle's voice. It had been so long since I had heard it.

I stopped the tape.

Antoine cursed.

Isaac clapped. “I don’t know what it means, but I am excited.”

In the distance, a robotic voice told us we had won a ticket, but we were not so concerned.