Chapter 2
The Lies in Our Ears
As the wind whistled through the trees outside, the digital clock on Dipper's beside table quickly blinked the time. Besides the occasional street lamp, it was pitch black outside. Heavy clouds veiled the stars, masking the sky in deep swirls of gray, and the moon wouldn't even be rising until later that night. It was the perfect night for ghosts.
Any other night, the ominous atmosphere outside would've had both twins tense and alert. But inside the apartment it was warm and cozy; the mysteries and dangers of the outside world were the farthest from their minds than they had been in months. Both of them were supposed to have been in bed an hour ago but it was Friday night and they both were in that warm place between feeling exhausted and not being quite ready for bed yet. Mabel's flashlight lit up the space beneath her bed as she stuck purple stickers to the underside of her mattress, and Dipper's phone still illuminated his face as he lay half asleep on top of his covers, only one of the earbuds still lodged in his ear.
"Psst, Dipper," Mabel said. "What do you think? Cupcakes? I'm thinking cupcakes!" She held up a sheet of pink and purple stickers from her scrapbook.
Dipper cracked open one of his eyes and tapped something on his phone, glancing down at her stickers for barely half a second. "I don't think Mom's gonna go for it either way. Remember last time?"
Mabel huffed, a strand of hair fluttering in front of her face. Of course she remembered last time. They'd spent three hours cleaning all the stickers off the car. "This won't be like that."
"Of course it won't, Mabel." Dipper glanced down at her again for a second, sticking the other earbud into his ear. "But wait — wasn't that what you said that time too?" He smirked at her from the bed then went back to his phone, sleepiness evidently pushed back to the edges of his focus.
Mabel stuck her tongue out at him, then looked back at her stickers. She shook her head, and pulled out another sheet from her sticker collection. "Nah. I think dolphins are better in this situation."
The lull in their conversation only lasted a few minutes before Dipper's sheets rustled sharply as he sat bolt upright.
Mabel glanced behind her. "What's wrong, bro-bro?"
A sharp crease formed between his eyebrows. "Do you remember Grunkle Ford calling us earlier?"
Mabel rolled out from under her bed and propped her head up on her hands. "No. Why?"
Dipper swallowed as he stared at his phone. "I've got a voicemail from him." He glanced down at her, his eyes wide. "Didn't he say he wouldn't call us unless it were an emergency?"
Mabel stood up slowly, her stickers hanging half-forgotten in one hand. "Play it," she said firmly.
Dipper looked back at his phone then, after a second's hesitation, yanked out his headphones and pressed the play button.
"Listen, kids. I don't have much time." Grunkle Ford's voice was staticky and slightly panicked, but it was undoubtedly him. "He's back. I have no idea how he survived the memory gun but he did, and he's here. And he's looking for you two."
Dipper's knuckles had gone white as his hands clenched the cell phone. Mabel felt something sharp digging into her palm, so she looked down at her hand: She had crumpled her sticker sheet into a ball and a metallic dolphin sticker had lodged itself in the skin of her hand. She slowly released her fist, then glanced back to Dipper. He was staring at the phone as though his life depended on it.
Ford took a shaky breath, then continued. "Dipper, you need to get the unicorn hair I gave you last summer. That will keep him from tracking you. Do not stay in your house. Bill knows where you live. It'll only be a matter of time before he finds you.
"And if he finds you, he will kill you."
There was a long pause, and a quiet thumping started up in the background. "I'll buy you as much time as I can," Ford said quietly, then he checked himself and his voice shifted to a falsely cheerful tone. "I'll meet you at the Mystery Shack. We'll figure out how to beat him from there." Then there was a loud crash, and the line went dead.
Mabel glanced towards Dipper, her eyes wide. "What are we going to do?" She whispered.
Dipper's face was blank and he leapt out of bed, shutting his phone off. "What we always do." He said shortly.
"But Dip… If it's really Bill… If he's actually alive..."
Dipper swallowed, and turned his back to her. "We'll do what we always do." He repeated. "We've beaten him before, we can do it again."
After a moment's hesitation he added, "We're the Mystery Twins, right?"
Mabel opened her mouth to say something more. Then her eyes went wide. She tapped Dipper on the shoulder and silently pointed out the window. All along the street, one after another, the street lights were flickering out.
Dipper's eyes went wide. He threw open the door of their closet. "Mabel! He's coming!"
Mabel sat bolt upright in the car, her heart beating through her chest. She glanced around wildly, then relaxed somewhat: It was just a dream. Granted, it had happened. But it wasn't happening now. She pulled her knees to her chest, and her heart rate slowed somewhat. She decided a trip to sweater-ville wasn't necessary.
Just a nightmare.
Dipper glanced over to her in concern. "You okay?" He mouthed.
She gave him a quick nod, and hugged her knees closer.
The man in the driver's seat cleared his throat, glancing back at them. "So… forgot to ask. Where in Gravity Falls do you two want to be dropped off?"
Mabel opened her mouth, but Dipper beat her to it. "Just by the welcome sign, thanks."
Right, she remembered. 'Trust no one.'
The thought brought a wry smile to the back of her mind; she'd thought they'd moved past all that. But now that he was back, it made a twisted sort of sense. She tuned back into the conversation.
"Aw, it's no trouble." The man was saying, grinning back at them, canines sharp in a clearly plastic smile. His gold tooth caught the light of the setting sun. "What's a little favor between friends?" Something was off about his voice, she realized. It was too bright, too friendly.
Mabel felt her shoulders tense. She glanced towards Dipper. He was sitting up straight in his chair, his fingers slowly reaching for their backpack. "No really," he said slowly. "By the welcome sign is fine."
The man's smile did not reach his eyes, and his gold tooth glimmered again. This was not good. Mabel started reaching towards her seat belt.
"Greasy's Diner's good. There's Hoo-Ha Owl's. The Mystery Shack." The man's grin grew wider. "I've heard that place in particular has… sentimental value for you two."
Not good. "Actually, I think you can let us out here." Mabel's voice sounded unnaturally high in her ears. Dipper was fumbling with the zipper on the backpack, probably trying to find the knife.
"Oh, Mabel. You really think I'd let you two slip away?" The man's eyes flicked black. "The boss has been looking for you."
He jerked the steering wheel to the left, and the car swerved into oncoming traffic. Mabel screamed once, then her face hit the window, and everything went black.
The crash itself only lasted a few seconds but, to Dipper, it felt like an eternity. Logically, he knew that it was his brain taking in as much information as possible, trying to give him any opportunity to escape. But in all honesty, it just made the agonizing dread in his gut last that much longer.
There was no screech of tires as the demon jerked the wheel. Just a dull thunk as Mabel's head hit the window, and a low chuckle from the front seat as the car swerved into oncoming traffic. The real noise started when other cars started swerving away from the pickup truck, half a dozen smaller wrecks and crashes blocking half the interstate.
Miraculously, the truck didn't get T-boned by a car going the other direction, instead opting to crumple around a lone tree at the edge of the interstate. A low-hanging bough flew through the windshield like it was made of toilet paper, the tip crushing the release trigger of Dipper's seatbelt and barely missing his stomach.
And then it was over.
Dipper blinked slowly, still dazed. But his eyes shot open when he caught sight of Mabel. A small spiderweb of cracks expanded from where her head had hit the window and the force of the impact had caused half of it to shatter completely. Shards of glass glittered in her hair and all over her sweater, a green purple bruise bigger than Dipper's fist already swelling along one side of her face. She wasn't moving.
But the slight rise and fall of her chest meant she was still alive. She would be okay. She had to be okay.
The demon twisted itself around in its seat, black eyes flickering across Dipper's face. A thin trickle of blood leaked out of one corner of its mouth, and the demon probed the area with its tongue. A cracked smile spread across its face.
"Y'know," it said, reaching down to unbuckle its seat belt. "I was never told to track you and your brat sister down. I was patrolling the highway, sure. Making sure you didn't show your filthy little faces. But I never actually expected you two to show."
Dipper stayed silent, and his gaze strayed to the half-opened knapsack. It had slid down by Mabel's feet during the crash. And with his busted seat belt, it was just out of his reach. And so was the iron knife hidden inside.
"I mean, they told me you were smart." The demon continued, the smile on its face widening into a smug smirk. "Guess the higher-ups overestimated you."
Mabel shifted slightly, her eyelids opening a hair. Dipper glared pointedly at the backpack, then turned his attention back to the demon. Out of the corner of his eye, Mabel gave a half nod.
Keep it talking.
"Yeah… uh… So you found us when it wasn't even part of your assignment?" Dipper was talking a bit too fast, but at least the demon's attention was back on him now.
The demon's smirk grew. "Exactly. The big man's sure to promote me now. I mean, I know I wasn't one of his followers the first time around but…"
"The first time around?" Dipper kept his eyes on the demon, not daring to watch as Mabel's fingers slowly twitching back the zipper of the backpack. Just a few more seconds.
The demon's smirk faded into a vicious scowl. "Yeah, but I'm on the right ship this time," it muttered. "Screw Lilith and her damn apocalypse. She couldn't make it work last time, and it won't work this—" The demon paused as the zipper squeaked in Mabel's hand. It cocked its head at her and both twins froze. "Like I said. I'm on the right ship this time. Just gotta prove it to the boss man."
There was a rustle of fabric as the demon whipped a knife out of its jacket and slit Mabel's throat in one smooth concise motion. Blood spurted out in a spray of red, and the demon held his palm to her neck as it started dribbling down her sweater. Her hands scrabbled uselessly at the bloody gash at her throat, then fluttered down to her sides.
The demon shrugged. "The boss never said he wanted both of you alive." It cupped its hand close to its chest, swirling it around with a single finger, muttering phrases in Latin.
But Dipper could only stare, wide eyed, as Mabel's hands fell weakly to her sides and her eyes became unfocused. He blinked hard, his chin trembling and his hands curled into fists. Mabel had dropped the iron pen knife on the seat beside her, well within his reach.
His eyes narrowed as they fell upon the muttering demon in the front seat. He knew exactly what he was going to do with it.
"Mabel, please wake up."
They were a couple hundred yards deep into the forest on the side of the road. The pine needles underfoot were spotted with blood, and the patch of ground right underneath them was sticky with syrupy red. In the distance, the police sirens were getting louder.
"Please, Mabel. Please, just…" Dipper let out a half-strangled sob, and pulled his knees into his chest. "Just wake up," he whispered.
Mabel stared at the trees overhead, unseeingly. The green bruise from the crash was on the other side of her face and, if Dipper half squinted, he could almost pretend that she was still —
But she hadn't blinked in the last five minutes. Not since Dipper had managed to drag her from the crumpled ruins of the truck. And the red gash in her throat was impossible to ignore.
Nobody could've survived that.
Dipper swallowed and stared at his knees, pointedly avoiding the crusty redness along his hands. "I-I killed that guy, Mabel." He shut his eyes, and tried to keep the tears from coming.
"I'm a murderer," he whispered. "I'm a murderer, and my sister is dead."
"A-And I know he was possessed. I know that." He squeezed his eyes shut. "But there was still a person inside there. And I killed him. I really did kill him." He couldn't bring himself to care about the police cars barely six hundred feet away. Instead, he muffled a sob and buried his head against his knees. "Mabel… what am I going to do?"
He could still hear the sizzling sound the knife had made when he'd jammed it in that man's neck. Could still see the bloodied grin the dead man — oh why, oh why wasn't he dead? — had given him before that black smoke — demon, that was the demon — had whooshed out of his mouth into the sky. Could still hear the dying gurgles of the man he'd killed. It was all playing on repeat through his mind. Over and over and over and —.
Dipper breathed into his knees and opened his eyes, staring at the slightly blurred fabric of his jeans. There was a streak of dried blood on the thigh of his pants. He couldn't remember who it had belonged to.
Teeth streaked with red, a smile too wide for the face it belonged to, the blood flowing freely from the knife still stuck in his neck — no, don't think about that. He took another deep breath and clenched his teeth, forcing his eyes to stay open.
He kept talking, his eyes still fixed on the stain of blood on his pants. "I'm scared, Mabel. I'm sure you'd laugh and give me a stupid sticker or something but I can't do this alone, I can't do it. That's why you have to wake up. B-Because you c-can't be…" His pants started blurring again, but he didn't wipe the tears away. "You can't be dead," he whispered.
He shuffled over to her body — no it's not a body, it's Mabel — and knelt beside her. He blinked furiously and his hands curled into fists. "I won't let you be dead."
Grabbing the backpack, Dipper unzipped a side flap and pulled out a piece of paper, the one crumpled into a tight ball around a box of matches. He uncurled the paper carefully, pulling a few matches from the depths of the almost empty box. "I found this in Grunkle Ford's journal, under the 'emergencies' section," he said, staring at the bundle of matches in his fist. His fingers tightened around it. "And I don't care if it's stupid, or deadly, or any of that. It's the only chance I've got."
He dragged all six of them along the zipper of his jacket, watching as the flames flared into existence, and hurriedly stuck them in a circle around Mabel.
"It's not candles," he muttered, "But it'll have to work."
Then he cleared his throat and shakily read from the crumpled paper clutched in his hand. "Triangulum, entangulum. Meteforis dominus ventium. Meteforis venetisarium!"
The matches flared high, yellow flames glowing neon, and Dipper fell to his knees. His entire body felt like it was burning, but his eyes. Oh God, his eyes actually were. Blue flames danced along his vision, staining the empty spaces a dark, murky gray. He felt his mouth move with words he couldn't control, but he couldn't focus on that. Then the flames vanished completely, leaving him in a world stained entirely with black fog.
"Hey Presto! The magic words!" A yellow glow filled the area, emanating from just above the circle of matches and cutting through the fog in front of his eyes. "I was wondering when you were gonna call me, Pine Tree."
Dipper jumped to his feet and scanned the woods around him, blinking his eyes furiously to clear the remainder of the spots from his vision. It didn't work. The area just above the matches remained a darkened blotch.
He cleared his throat, and forced the words out: "Bill, I need your help."
"Oh, Pine Tree, I've heard all about your little problem." Bill's metallic voice danced around him in circles, feet crunching in the blood soaked needles. "And you went and did a fancy summoning. I mean, if I knew all I had to do to get your attention was kill your sister, I would've had one of my minions do it ages ago! Then I could've just skipped murdering your parents and—"
Dipper's eyes widened and his hand dropped to the still bloody knife in his pocket. "You what? You killed my parents?"
"Aw, don't be that way! What's a little homicide between friends?"
"Mabel is dead, Bill. Don't test me right now."
"Exactly," Bill said. "You're desperate. I hold all the cards. Not you. I̴͜ ̵c̨̡͟aĺl̷ ͘t̨̀h̵̶e͞ ͝s͞h͘҉o͜ts͜҉.̛͘͜" He leaned in close and Dipper blinked hard again, trying to catch a glimpse of the demon's vessel. He caught the barest trace of a grin, of a smile too wide for any human to manage, and Bill cocked his head, wreathing his face in shadows again. "Understood?"
Dipper felt his chin start to tremble and he quickly clenched his teeth. He took a deep breath and looked down at his shoes, waiting until he knew he could produce the right words. "I need you to bring Mabel back," he said softly.
Bill's voice swooped down to right next to him. "Sorry? I didn't catch that."
Dipper didn't look up. "Bring her back to life. A-And I don't want her to be a zombie or a monster or something. I want you to bring her back, and I want you to take us to a hospital far away from here."
He could hear Bill grinning, a sickly popping sound of skin stretching too far. "And in return?"
Dipper swallowed and shut his eyes, wincing as the face of the man he'd killed swam into view. He forced his fingers to release the knife in his pocket. "I'll do whatever you want," he whispered. Then he looked up at the demon in front of him. "Just bring her back. Please."
The grin stretched wider and wider — too wide, that's way too wide — and Bill stuck out a hand for Dipper to shake. Blue flames flared to life around it, cutting through the last of the black fog in Dipper's eyes.
Dipper grabbed it, then looked up at the demon's face. Slitted yellow eyes bored into his, and that godawful Joker grin stretched wider, tearing the skin at the edges of the mouth a little further, a little bit too far.
A five o'clock shadow flecked with blood and front teeth a little too big, crowding all the others to the sides. That nose, a permanent blotchy red from allergies that never quite left, that he and Mabel had made fun of so many times. Behind the blood, behind that twisted, red-stained smile —
No. Nononononono… It couldn't be him.
Dipper screamed, and the forest disappeared around them. The blood-spattered pine needles underfoot faded away as the random scatterings of sticks and leaves shifted into an organized checkerboard of off-white linoleum tiles. Rough expanses of bark and tree trunks smoothed themselves out just before the sterile calm of a waiting room faded into view.
A woman near the front desk shrieked and Mabel started coughing, spitting out chunks of blood onto smooth linoleum tiles, and — oh God — it was the loveliest sound Dipper had ever heard in his entire life. And then the tears came and he buried his face in the blood-soaked fabric of her sweater, trying to ignore the disembodied, metallic voice of Grunkle Stan as it whispered into his ear: "I'll be back in an hour to collect my payment. Don't make me wait."
Hey! Sorry for the long wait. I had some technical difficulties with my beta (most of which were my fault) so it took a little longer than I expected. Speaking of my beta, thanks so much to the awesome WordsAblaze, for beta-ing this chapter! She really helped improve the flow of the dialogue and description, especially in the first few scenes. So, much thanks to her.
Next chapter will be a while, but I promise it will be posted eventually. I just have a difficult time motivating myself occasionally. Thanks so much to everyone who left reviews on the last chapter, and if you liked this one, leave a comment! It really makes my day every time I see somebody's commented on my work and it motivates me to keep writing.
I feel like I'm using too many exclamation points in my author's notes lately. And just in my life in general. Anyways, until next time!
-Jam
