Chapter 10
Scary-oke
(Peeta's POV)
It's been a week since we defeated Cato and got the Mystery Shack back, and tonight is the grand reopening party. Delly planned the after party, she even got a karaoke machine. Anyway, Gloss takes our pictures to put in his failing newspaper. Everyone loves our family right now for exposing Cato, but we'll see how long that lasts. My Grunkle has a way of getting on people's nerves.
"Hey, everybody!" Delly calls to the townspeople before they leave. "We're having an after party at nine o'clock. Bring everyone you know, it's going to be epic!... And as a special treat, my Great uncle, Peeta, and I will perform karaoke together!"
Wait, what? I never agreed to this! I can't sing in front of the whole town. My voice is terrible! The crowd leaves, promising to come back for the after party. "Delly!" I call. "Why would you tell everyone we were performing?"
"Because we're going to perform."
"You didn't even asks us," I protest.
"Because I knew you'd say no."
"You know I don't like singing in front of people!"
"It will be okay, Peeta," Delly walks away from me to set up decorations.
"Hey," Katniss calls from behind me so I turn around to meet her. "I heard you're performing," "That's what Delly is saying," I shrug.
"Are you doing the lamby lamby dance?"
"I don't even know what Delly expects us to sing, she didn't even tell us we were performing,"
"Well," Katniss says. "You can't possibly be more awkward than your Grunkle."
I shrug. She has a point there. Maybe Grunkle Mitch will distract from my awkwardness. "I guess you're right."
"Of course I am," She takes my hat off and ruffles my hair. I laugh and snatch my hat away from her, placing it back on my head. We lock eyes. Her eyes are so pretty. I could stare at those silver orbs that practically glow in the moonlight, all night. And her eyelashes are so long. I really hate this age difference. Not that I think it would make a difference if I was older. I don't think she'd like me like that. We continue to stare at each other, and for whatever reason, this doesn't feel awkward.
"Everyone out of the Mystery Shack!" I hear my Grunkle call and Katniss looks toward the shack.
"What's going on?" She says. "Mitch would never close down the shack early." We run into the shack where we find two men in suits standing with Finnick and Mitch, Delly comes in from the kitchen carrying her pig.
"Welcome to the Mystery Shack, gentlemen," Mitch says. "What can I get you? Key chains? Snow globes? These rare photos of American presidents?" He pulls out some cash and I roll my eyes. Smooth.
"We're here to investigate report of mysterious activity in this town." One says.
"Mysterious activity in the Mystery Shack?" He puts the cash back in his pocket. "You must be joking."
"Wait," I say. "You guys are investigating the mysteries of this town?"
"That's classified information." One bends down to meet my eyes. "But yes."
"Between you and me," He says. "I believe there is a conspiracy of paranormal origin all connected to this town."
"We're just one small lead away from blowing the lid off of this entire mystery." The other says.
"I'm actually investigating the exact same thing!" I exclaim. "I found this journal in the woods which has almost all the answers." I pull the journal out. Mitch gave it back just like Delly said he would. "If we work together, we could crack the case." My heartbeat speeds up. I've always wanted to do something like this!
"Well," One government man says. "If you have evidence of these claims we should talk." He hands me his card.
"We can talk right now," I say.
"I'm sorry, agents." Grunkle Mitch says suddenly. "Kid has an overactive imagination and... like... a sweating problem. Paranormal town stuff, it's just part of the gift shop lore, sell more tickets you know."
"We have other spots to investigate." One says. "We'll be on our way." They head to the door.
"Wait! No, wait!" I say. Mitch grabs my shoulder.
"I'll be confiscating this," He takes the card. "Why don't you go try to act like a normal kid,"
"A... normal kid?"
"Yeah, a normal kid. All this talk of paranormal activity isn't good for your head." He says.
"But it's real." I try to explain. "Delly and Katniss and Finnick and Annie saw it too."
"That's enough kid!" He stomps into his office.
"We believe you Peeta," Delly says.
Katniss sighs. "I forgot to tell you not to tell the adults about the paranormal stuff."
"Why?"
"They won't believe us," She says. "I don't know why, but they don't see any paranormal activity... or... if they do, they don't remember any of it."
"What do you mean?"
"Well," Katniss says. "Not too long ago, Gale was going off about a bunch of living gnomes he found, but the next day when I asked him about it, he didn't know what I was talking about."
"Something similar happened to my grandmother." Finnick says.
"We... need to get that card back." I say. "I really need to talk to those agents." We plan out everything, Delly and Finnick are the lookouts, they will tell Katniss if my Grunkle is coming and she will get me out of there in time. Once I get into his office, I frantically search for the card. Eventually, I find it, and get out of there. The plan actually worked! Finnick lets me use his phone to call the agents. I tell them to meet me in the woods just outside the Mystery Shack, and they agree to my surprise. Finnick and Delly stay behind to start selling tickets into the party, but Katniss goes with me. We both have had our share of paranormal activity, we have a better chance of the agent's believing if there's two of us.
Before we go, Delly taps my shoulder. "Peeta, whatever the agents say, don't do anything that could ruin this party." She says. "Don't do something stupid... like... like raise the dead."
"Okay, okay," I brush her off and follow Katniss into the woods.
We wait a few minutes and the agents do come. "Make this fast, kid."
"Okay," I take a deep breath. "This journal is a guide to the paranormal happenings in this town." I hand it to one of them.
He starts flipping through the pages. "You said you found this in the woods?"
"Yes," I nod. "I found it in this area, actually."
"Kid, all these look like are fairy tales," He says. "Living gnomes, ghosts, zombies,"
"I'm telling the truth, it's all real!" I take the book. I skim through the page and find an incantation, and read it aloud without hesitation. "Corpus Levitas! Diablo Dominus! Mondo Victum!" The ground starts shaking and suddenly a hand pops out of the ground, it continues to dig itself out of it's grave, until it's decomposing body is full unearthed. "There, a zombie!"
"Wow, this truly is incredible!" One agent says right before another hand sprouts from the ground, grabbing his ankle. Zombies start digging themselves out of the ground. This is going to get out of hand quickly.
Someone grabs my hand from behind, I wipe around and sigh in relief. It's just Katniss. "We need to run!" She says, motioning toward the crowd of zombies tearing at the agents. We take off running toward the Mystery Shack. We need to warn the town.
"Zombies!" I scream, hoping they can hear me over the loud music. "Zombies!" I run right into Delly, as the crowd of zombies approach the shack.
"Peeta, what's the one thing I told you not to do today?" She asks.
"Raise the dead." I says.
"And what did you do?"
"Raise the dead." I lower my head until the townsfolk start screaming. Everyone takes off in different directions. I've never seen anyone so panicked. I guess the zombie apocalypse will do that to you... Finnick comes running toward us.
"We need to get inside!" He shouts. So we run toward the doors, the zombies are all around us. We slam the front door and lock it but the zombies are pounding on the door trying to get in. Why did I have to read the incantation? The zombies bursts through the door, Finnick and Katniss immediately throw us behind them and start attacking zombies. They are both really good fighters, like they were gladiators in another life. But I still don't like our odds.
Grunkle Mitch comes out from nowhere and starts fighting zombies. "Get in the attic, kids!" He says to all four of us. We run up the stairs into the attic, our Grunkle runs into the attic and starts blockading the door.
"Well," I laugh as I push a bookshelf toward the door. "At least you can't say you don't believe me about the paranormal stuff anymore." Not that it matters, we're practically dead.
He looks at me. "Kid, I've always known," He admits.
"What?" I ask. "But why would-"
"I thought if I denied that all of this existed... You would give up on it." He explains. "I didn't want you kids to get hurt. I thought I was protecting you."
I guess I can understand this. He only did this to protect me and my sister. I can't be mad at him for caring about our safety. I forgive him.
"Why don't you see if that journal of yours has a way to get rid of these zombies," Mitch says.
"Right!" I pull the journal out and flip to the section on zombies. I've read this journal over and over, but maybe I missed something. I quickly read but don't find anything. "There's nothing."
"Are you sure?" Delly says. "Maybe you can't see in this lighting," She turns on a black light and we all gasp. There's more writing on these pages written in some kind of ink you can only see under black light.
I read the newly discovered words out loud. "Zombies can be defeated by playing a three part harmony."
"What does that mean?" Mitch says.
"A three part harmony would be three people singing at the same time." Katniss says with a smirk.
"You know what that means, right?" Delly nudges me and Mitch. "We need to perform our song."
"Why don't you, Peeta, and Katniss do it?" Mitch says. "I'll fight the zombies off."
"I can fight the zombies off." Katniss crosses her arms. "I wouldn't want you to miss out on singing with your niece and nephew."
"Fine," He crosses his arms. "What song are we doing?"
"I was thinking some Taylor Swift." Delly says.
My eyes widen. I can't perform a Taylor Swift song in front of Katniss! "I don't know any of her lyrics." I shrug.
"You liar!" Delly says reaching into her pocket and pulling a picture out. "Here's a picture of us at the 1989 Tour earlier this year. Peeta is a Swiftie."
Finnick and Mitch start laughing. "You like Taylor Swift!" They say, and I duck my head. Dang it! Why doesn't anyone understand that Taylor Swift has 133 awards for a reason!
"Hey," Katniss touches my shoulder. "Taylor Swift is cool." I smile, somebody gets it.
We climb out the window onto the roof and set the karaoke machine up. "Ladies and Gentle zombies!" Delly announces to the undead crowd. "We are going to be performing I Know Places, by Taylor Swift... Enjoy." the music starts and Delly starts.
"You stand with your hand on my waistline.
It's a scene and we're out here in plain sight.
I can hear them whisper as we pass by.
It's a bad sign, bad sign."
Delly motions for me to pick up where she left off, so I bring the microphone to my mouth and sing.
"Something happens when everybody finds out.
See the vultures circling dark clouds.
Love's a fragile little flame
It could burn out, it could burn out."
I nudge Grunkle Mitch who scowls at me before singing off key.
"They got the cages, they got the boxes, and guns.
They are the hunters, we are the foxes.
And we run."
All three of us sing the chorus together.
"Baby, I know places we won't be found
And they'll be chasing their tails trying to track us down.
'Cause I... I know places we can hide...
I know places."
Zombie heads start exploding as we sing the rest of the song together. By the end of the song all the zombies lay lifeless once again on the floor. We clean up, getting rid of all the zombie parts. "Grunkle Mitch," I stop him and he turns around to face me. "I wanted to apologize for causing trouble."
"It's alright kid, you've just got to promise me one thing." He says. "Promise me that you'll only use that journal for self defense. No more searching for trouble."
"Okay," I say to ease his mind. But I'm not sure if I'll be able to stay away from the mysteries of Panem Falls. It's almost like they're calling me to them.
I hope you guys like this chapter. Hopefully I will be able to post more chapters this week. Tell me what you think of this story so far in the reviews.