It was about three in the morning when a noise like a gunshot roused the residents of the Mystery Shack. Waddles, having been comfortably asleep on Mabel's stomach, squealed and scrambled in a panic off the bed and then under it as Mabel yelped and jolted up, pulled violently from sleep by a combination of the noise and the impact of flailing hooves.
Across the room, Dipper was grabbing wildly for the journal on his bedside table.
"What the heck was that?" Mabel asked, climbing out of bed and kicking on her shoes.
Dipper started rifling madly through the pages of the journal. "I don't know. Maybe a Vociferous Strido? They make really loud noises sometimes just before they –" he stopped reading and grimaced. "Then again, let's hope it's not."
"Should we go downstairs?" Mabel asked, trying to crane her neck to get a good look at the journal page Dipper was on to see exactly what a Vociferous Strido did after it made loud noises, but Dipper shut the book and tucked it under his arm before she had the chance.
Dipper snatched up a putter still on the floor from their game of attic golf the night before and handed it to her before picking up the baseball bat leaning against the wall. If it was a Vociferous Strido, they were going to need something to hit it with. If they struck the one purple spot among the red ones it had all over its body with enough force, it would immediately fall asleep and they could get it far away before it woke up again three days later. "Okay, let's go."
The twins crept down the stairs in the dark, holding their makeshift weapons at the ready. The shack was completely silent now. It made Dipper uneasy.
When they reached the last step Dipper signaled they stop. The Vociferous Strido, if what had made that noise was in fact a Vociferous Strido, had very poor vision in the dark but was excellent at detecting motion. "We can't move too fast," he whispered. Mabel nodded, her eyes narrowing as she gripped the putter tighter and swept her gaze across the hall, barely making out shapes in the dark.
And that was when they heard the creak of floorboards behind them.
The twins screamed and turned, trying to hit their attacker with everything they had. Mabel was yelling "Fore!" over and over again as she wacked whatever it was with her putter and Dipper was mindlessly screeching as he assaulted it with his bat.
"What the—! Hey! What the fu—heck do you think you're doing?!" The angry, disgruntled voice of the creature that had snuck up behind them asked, and Mabel felt the putter being yanked out of her hands.
Dipper, who was gearing up for another swing, stopped. "Grunkle Stan?"
Mabel snorted, trying to stifle a laugh, as their great uncle turned on the light, looking a bit more ragged in his t-shirt and boxers than usual and holding the putter in one hand (which can happen when one has just been hit repeatedly by two twelve year olds with a putter and a bat).
Dipper looked slightly mortified with himself. "Sorry, Grunkle Stan. We thought you were a Vociferous Strido."
"A vulcanivous what?" Stan asked, looking confused. "Well, whatever it is you thought I was you wouldn't have taken it down with those pathetic blows. Somebody ought to teach you kids how to swing."
Fortunate for him, though, that their attacks were so weak. He was still pretty hardy, but a good blow with a baseball bat could have done some serious damage.
Stan handed the putter back to Mabel and rubbed his neck. "Was that you two making that awful sound earlier?"
"No, we came to investigate," Dipper explained.
"It scared Waddles so bad he hit me with his feet trying to get away!" Mabel elaborated.
Stan stared at his niece. She and that stupid pig… "Anyway, something made that noise. We'd better figure out what it is."
Stan led the way into the living room, ignoring Dipper's pleas to keep the lights off in case the culprit was a Vociferous Strido. Nothing. They proceeded to the kitchen and then to Soos's break room. Both were clear of any monsters.
It was in the gift shop that they found anything out of the ordinary. A laptop computer, or what had been a laptop computer, was lying on the ground in a smoldering heap.
"What's that doing there?" Mabel asked. "Was it on fire? Should we get the fire extinguisher?!"
"Mabel, stay away from the fire extinguisher!" Stan snapped. He could only imagine what havoc that child could wreak...
The vending machine abruptly swung open and the kids leapt back, but Stan remained where he was, looking very unamused. He was starting to get an idea of what had happened.
Stanford came into the gift shop from the secret door, a stack of books in his arms. He paused when he say his brother, niece, and nephew already in the room staring at him.
"Great Uncle Ford, what happened?" Mabel asked, pointing at the laptop.
"Yeah, didn't you just get that?" Dipper asked.
Two weeks earlier, enthralled by the newfangled internet that he had missed while in the dimensional portal, Stanford had tried to order a computer as he remembered them before Dipper had explained computers were now much smaller and easily carried around. Ford's new laptop had arrived only three days ago.
"Ah. Yes. Well, I was doing some research on physics breakthroughs that I missed, when I got a message that the computer was infected with some sort of virus and I had to take immediate action," Ford explained easily. "Naturally, I eliminated the threat. I'm hoping these books can tell me how to cure it, and whether or not the virus is contagious."
The room was silent for a moment.
Mabel burst into hysterical laughter and Dipper turned to look at the mangled laptop remains with an expression of mourning. Ford was quite oblivious to the hilarity of the situation and started to realize there was something he was missing here. "What?"
Stan sighed heavily. Everything he wanted to say would probably scar the kids. So what he did say was, "I'm going back to bed," before trudging out of the gift shop.
Later, after Mabel had gotten her hilarious laughter under control and she and Dipper were going back up the stairs to bed, a thought occurred to her. "Hey, Dipper?"
"Yeah?"
"What do you think Great Uncle Ford destroyed his laptop with?"