Rumbelows

(July 13-16, 2016)

7

From the Journals of Stanford Pines: Thursday, 14/07/2016: It is morning now, let me check, 0835 hours, and we have found no trace of Mason and Mabel except for the pigs tracking them to the paranormal structure that my brother calls "the outhouse of mystery."

I must not panic. Unreasoning fear is the enemy of rational thought. Let me see if I can clear my mind a little. I have had very little sleep in the past 24 hours. All right, mundane matters: Stanley and Sheila are on their way back to the Falls from Portland, having just landed. I have apprised them of the situation. They will help Soos cover the activity at the Mystery Shack today. The show must go on.

I have consulted my Journals. They offer no clue that I can grasp. I do have an alternative, reluctant though I am to employ it. The face-stealing demon is currently in stasis in my secret bunker. I can release him from stasis and offer him freedom on two conditions: First, he must help me find a way into the Crawlspace. Second, he must ply his trade elsewhere, not in Gravity Falls.

But I have had bad experience trusting demonic entities before. However, I have wrestled with the problem since last night and see no other approach. Therefore, despite my trepidation, I will go to the bunker and release him in the containment room. When I "froze" him, he was in a screaming rage, and I expect he will emerge from stasis in the same state—though he went into suspended animation four years ago by our count, no time will have passed for him.

However, my examination shows he has no paranormal abilities that might enable him to escape the containment room. He cannot teleport, he has no mind-control talents, and so on. I may have to let him work out his anger, but there is nothing in the containment room he can either break or use as a weapon.

So—here I go, to discover if it is even possible to reason with a creature whose very existence is unreasonable. I hope I can succeed all on my own. Fiddleford's too old to take with me, and—there is no one else.

I feel so lonely.

"You shouldn't even be here," Stanford said to Wendy Corduroy.

"Nuts to that," she said grimly. It was a turn of phrase she'd picked up from her father. "My boyfriend's trapped in some dumb underground dungeon or some biz, and I'm supposed to let you go find him on your own? No way, Dr. P."

"I shouldn't have even told you where I was going when you first got out of your car and saw me setting out on the trail."

"Water under the bridge, man. Want me to climb up the tree and move the lever?"

"No, that won't be necessary. I—wait, what?" Ford stopped in his tracks and stared at Wendy. She was dressed for work, tan slacks, white shirt, green blazer and did not, at the moment, look like a formidable lumberjack girl. "You did that?"

"Yeah, it's how me and Soos and Mabel and Dipper first got down there. When we found the Shapeshifter was loose."

"I—that is remarkable," Stanford said. "That lever was literally a last-resort failsafe, in case the electronics failed. No, I have a remote to unlock the bunker, but thank you."

"Your idea to put in the lever?" Wendy asked.

"Um, actually, it was Fiddleford's. He always believed in back-up systems to back-up systems. How did you even learn about the emergency lever?"

"Meh, the tree's made of metal, man. And that one limb doesn't look natural if you concentrate on it. By the way, you need to touch up the paint job on the trunk." Wendy pointed. "See, there's some streaks of metal showing through."

"I'll get a crew on it," Ford said. He reached in his pocket and took out his keyring. One of the keys was a blank—black rubber guard on the head, but no teeth at all on the shaft. Instead of using it as a normal key, Ford aimed it at the fake tree and squeezed the head. It chirped, and the ground quivered a little as a circle around the trunk irised open and heavy wood beams chunked out of the walls of the resulting hole to form a spiral staircase.

Ford's key also controlled the lights, and he and Wendy walked down and into the anteroom, even dustier than it had been on Wendy's first trip down. She muttered, "Uh, there was a fallout shelter sign on the wall here. I kinda ripped it off. It's hangin' over my bed if you want it back."

"No point, really," Ford said. "It was originally intended to keep any possible intruders from exploring farther, but save for you and your friends, there have never been any intruders. Come on. We have to go through the Symbol Trap room, and that means we have to move quickly. Step only on the tiles where you see me step or the walls will close in."

"Tell me about it," Wendy said.

They avoided triggering the crushing walls, though it involved tricky footwork. Fortunately, as Dipper, Mabel, Wendy, and Soos had discovered, once you were through into the main laboratory space of the bunker, the door on this side closed, the device re-set, and going through it from inside to outside did not trigger the death-trap.

Mr. What's-His-Face had been ensconced in a cryochamber separate from that of the Shapeshifter, a smaller one. "Ew," Wendy said as she and Ford entered the control room. "Is that thing him?"

Ford made sure the vault-like door into the chamber was closed and locked and then switched on all the lights. "That's him. I undressed him to examine his body. Um, you probably shouldn't look."

"Dude," Wendy said, "he just looks like a purple big-mouthed frog!"

Which was true. The creature, frozen in mid-stride, had a slim froggy body with tiny webbed feet, skinny arms ending in five-fingered hands stretched out as though ready to clutch something—the fingers ended in what looked like sucker pads—no neck distinct from the body, and an enormous mouth full of teeth—eight incisors (one of which, on the top right of the mouth, was gold), the rest molars, no canines. No visible eyes, nose, or ears.

"It may come out of stasis in a blind fury," Stanford warned. "It could rip a human to bits."

"You think?" Wendy asked. "Dr. P., the teeth are those of a herbivore."

Stanford had turned a key in a panel and had pressed a series of buttons. His six-fingered hand poised over a massive lever. "Indeed," he said, his voice full of surprise and wonder. "Do you know, I failed to notice that before? You're an observant young woman, Miss Corduroy."

"I'm gonna be your grand-niece by marriage one day," Wendy said. "I think you can start calling me 'Wendy' at any time. Come on, get that critter movin'. We gotta find Dipper."

"Very well." With a grunt of effort, Stanford threw the switch. The lights dimmed a little. Then energies crackled in the containment room, the cryo-tube opened wide, and the monster lurched forward, screeching—only to screech, literally, to a halt. Even without eyes, it seemed to look around wildly.

Ford spoke into a microphone: "You're a prisoner in a room from which there is no escape. However, if you will be reasonable, we can discuss terms of your release."

The creature darted right up to the heavy window and threw himself at it, which was a mistake, since the window was made of armor-piercing-shell-proof glass (one of Ford's more lucrative patents, in fact). It bounced off, rolled on the floor clutching its head—probably its head, anyway—and then gibbered before staggering back to its feet and suddenly doing a double-take. "There's a girl in there!"

"You got it," Wendy said into the mike. "And one that's chopped up uglier things than you!"

"Where are my clothes?" the monster wailed, hunkering down and hugging its knees, though it lacked visible genitalia, just as it lacked visible eyes. "Please give me my clothes!" it begged.

"The clothes you were wearing," said Ford, "are hanging on the rack directly beside the cryotube, which is the device immediately behind you."

"Get dressed, I won't look," Wendy added.

The creature scuttled back, found the rack of clothes, and grabbed them, sending coat hangers flying—black trousers, a green-plaid short, swallow-tailed jacket with an enormous hood that covered most of his head, shoes with—spats? Yes, black shoes, white spats. And brown gloves. Dressed, it stood up and, possibly, stared at the window that protected Ford and Wendy. "I had a hat," it said plaintively.

"A derby," Ford replied. "Yes, I forgot about the hat. It's—oh, here it is, on a shelf." He took down a child-sized hat, at least twenty-one sizes too small for that blunt head. "Listen to me: You collect faces."

"It's not personal," the creature said defensively. "It's strictly business."

"Why do you do it?" Ford asked.

The creature wheedled, "I got to make a living, don't I? Stranded here in this weird dimension—"

"You came from a different dimension? Which?" Ford asked.

"You wouldn't have heard of it. It's called 618/F. I was just minding my own business one day and everything buzzed, and then here I was in this valley. No family, no friends, none of my own kind to mate with—I had to do something!"

"Hmm. Listen, there's just a possibility that I can find a way to return you to your own realm," Ford said. "I can't promise anything, but I swear I'll try. However, at the very least, I can offer you your freedom, if you agree to certain conditions. First, you won't be allowed to collect human faces any longer. What you do among the paranormal creatures is outside my jurisdiction, but no more human prey, all right?"

"Aw. Those faces bring the best prices."

"Dude," Wendy said, "think about it. You say no, you stay here, no more collecting anything, get it?"

The creature sagged. "Yeah. OK. I guess I have to face up to it. So are we good?"

"Not quite. Next, you have to take me to the Crawlspace. Something bad is happening there, and our friends appear to be trapped underground."

The monster became alert and wary. "What bad?"

Ford explained, to the best of his knowledge, and told about the rush of polluted steam he and Soos had encountered.

"Earthquakes and heat," Mr. What's-His-Face muttered. "Sounds like a Rumbelow. I heard about them, but I've never seen one. You only run into one every thousand years or so, they say. Dragons of some type, they say. That's bad. The air they breathe out has poisons in it."

"I'll take gas masks," Ford said. "Can you get us down there?"

"Probably. We can use the delivery entrance. I got a key—yeah, still here in my coat pocket."

"Very well. Give me a few minutes to gather some equipment. I warn you, both of us will be armed, and we don't fully trust you. One false move, and we will disintegrate you."

"But I didn't do anything to deserve—"

"Deserving's got nothing to do with this. We'll do it in a heartbeat, dude," Wendy said.

"You're a mean girl," the monster grumbled.

"Yeah, and I'll prove it if you give me a reason. So what's it gonna be?" she demanded.

"I'll be good," the monster promised.

"See that you do. 'Cause if you don't—I'll show you what a mean girl can really do," Wendy said, her voice level and soft, and somehow worse than any bellowed threat.

Even though he was a monster, Mr. What's-His-Face shivered a little.