Stan drove slowly down the town's high street with trepidation. They were all pretty shocked by what they saw. True, it didn't seem like anybody was dead or anything - but it was carnage. The town had never been the most presentable set of structures in the first place, but in one short night, had been reduced even further into decrepit, teetering structures of ashen, crumbling wood.
Whatever was going on, the day had only seen the already beaten structures suffer further - like they were wearing away, baking under the sun like structures from a ghost town, baking in insistent, incessant desert heat. Shopfronts seemed to be on the brink of collapse, houses leaning, picket fences collapsing, even more plastic flamingos torn apart by the rabid creatures.
Pacifica held Dipper's hand and scooted a little closer to him as they oversaw the harrowing scene of carpentry hell. She was beginning to realise the whole savage beaver thing might be a little more sinister than she had bargained for.
Dark redwood shades had grown dark, grey and gritty, the bitemarks and savage gnawing having seemingly drained every ounce of life and colour from them - almost rendering the colourful structures into unpleasant, shadowy renditions of their former selves - shadowy renditions that were creaking, leaning, threatening to topple.
It was grim. It was grim and, even in the light of the Oregon Summer, it felt dark, unpleasant and foreboding. Like the town was losing its life before them.
People cried over their plastic lawn flamingos. Shopkeepers quivered at the sight of their ruined window frames. Fishermen mourned the loss of Tate and Backle's Bait and Tackle. It was a dark, dark day for Gravity Falls.
Tyler flagged the El Diablo frantically. "Oh thank goodness, I was hoping you'd get here!"
"Well, what seems to be the problem, Mr. Mayor?" Ford asked, leaning out of the passenger seat with a suave smile.
"Not you, hot Stan!" Tyler replied, running to the rear windows.
Stan erupted into laughter. "HA! Not you, hot sta- wait."
"Dipper, Pacifica, Mabel! Thank goodness, where are you headed? Are you investigating this- this- this woodshop nightmare?!"
"We're working on it, Tyler." Dipper beamed, completely overjoyed by the recognition. "We're heading to Scuttlebutt to have a look."
"You kids be careful, keep an eye on your Grunkles and-"
"Wait. We aren't making a chart?" Pacifica interrupted.
"We can make the chart after," Ford said, simply. "May as well see what evidence we can find there first."
"Great. So much for the quiet start to the day." She huffed, collapsing back in the seat.
"Y'know, we don't know squat about this island." Mabel said. "Like, we've been there but it was basically pointless. Apart from the beaver with a chainsaw."
"Afraid even I don't have much," the old scientist chimed in. "The place has been a no-go zone for long before my time. Long before Abuelita's, too."
"Whoa." Mabel clapped her hands onto her cheeks. "Secret histories!"
"Come on, guys." Pacifica said. "Surely you didn't spend your entire time on the island looking for a dumb robot and a beaver with a chainsaw? What else was there?"
Dipper and Mabel looked at eachother sheepishly.
"Oh my god. You're kidding."
Dipper stammered in response. "L-l-look, it was pretty foggy and we were still fairly new to Gravity Falls-"
"So you didn't even, like, look around?!"
"We were after the Gobblewonker, not a history lesson!" he replied, firmly. "Like, you try seeing anything in that fog! We were just trying to get a decent photo of-"
"Of a robot." Pacifica finished their sentence with no small level of sarcasm. "Built by McGucket.".
"We didn't know it was a robot then, though." Mabel said. "Besides, in retrospect, I think that's waaaay cooler."
"So what, you think McGucket knows about the island?" Stan asked, turning to his brother. "Should we pay a visit?"
Ford shook his head. "We only have so long to get things done, Stanley. No, we need to get there as early as we can and take notes. We might find at least something by ourselves before evening."
"Right, right. Boat it is, then." He grinned, peering back at the ramshackle vessel on his equally ramshackle trailer.
"You kids be careful!" Tyler shouted as the car started back up - with its usual protests. "Good luck!"
They rattled along the wood studded road towards the lake's dejected, greying, demolished jetty - still protruding from the water in a shapeless gaggle of timber. The timber from the lakeside building was in no better state; though the workmen had tried to at least arrange its dishevelled planks, joists and pillars, they had greyed and withered away into a darkened, shadow that felt grim and foreboding.
Stan and Ford got out of the vehicle and prepared the boat, glancing at eachother in concern at the sight of the bait shop's wrecked location.
Ford twisted his lip. "Tate must be heartbroken. He loved that bait shop. I think. I never heard him actually say it, but-"
"Sure, it was a well organised shop." Stan huffed as he untied the boat. "Still, it's not like McGucket can't afford to build more of 'em."
"You sure that thing is watertight?"
"Sure I'm sure. Besides, the wood's probably too rotten for any beavers to give a crap about."
"Very reassuring."
"Look, I know what I'm doing, alright? If there's one thing the past year or so has taught ya, it should be that."
"It's less about trusting you than it is trusting a boat partially made of banana crates."
"If those bananas got here from Madagascar or whatever, the crates can get us to Scuttlebutt." Stan replied, letting it slip into the water. "Sheesh."
Ford considered educating his brother on the logistics of banana transport but decided against it, instead beckoning the kids over to the now floating (mostly) little vessel as it bobbed against the lake's bank.
Pacifica, Mabel and Dipper followed, smiles on their faces - but it wasn't without hesitation. The island was never the most appealing sight, but seemed a thousand times more foreboding this afternoon...
Drenched in thick, white clouds of fog - not dissimilar to its usual appearance - the jagged pines and sharp rocks jutting from the calm surface of water like hideous fangs, swaying in the breeze as if they were loose and being poked by an outsized tongue.
Which… wouldn't be that outside of the realm of Gravity Falls, to be fair.
For Dipper and Mabel, it was startling. They had always known the island to be an odd place, but as they chugged closer thanks to the boat's rattling motor, it only seemed to grow darker and more foreboding around them. The bright blue sky seemed to ebb into one of shadow, the flow of the waterfall disappearing into a soft rumble. The wind grew cold and whistled through the branches of the island's flora.
The smiles on their faces disappeared into expressions of concern. Even Ford seemed inclined to lift his jacket's collar in a vain hope of blocking the otherworldly, icy temperature that bit the tips of their noses, chilled their ears and stung on their fingertips.
Scuttlebutt Island was always bad, but this bad…? It was as if the state's toasty sunshine was unable to permeate the mist, fog and eternal shadow the island existed inside.
It was like an overflowing shroud of icy cold silk, grey and translucent.
That accursed place seemed to sap any optimism from the family. Drained them of any positive feeling. It was astoundingly odd - as they bobbed closer, the island's peaks, volleys and trees only seemed to grow more leering and exaggerated, as if they were trapped inside a fish eye lens. It leaned over them judgmentally, warning them to leave. The island's silence seemed to swamp out all other noise, to such an extent that even the clapped out petrol motor quietened into a dull judder that sounded pained and hesitant to propel them further.
Finally, with a dull thump and a creak, it hit the gravel outcrop that acted as the island's beach, soaking the air with a thin splash of inky black water and sand.
Stan rubbed his nose as he dismounted the tumbledown tub. "Reckon we can Moor her on a tree or somethin'?"
"May as well." Ford murmured. "I doubt we'll be here very long. Doesn't look like there's much to see…"
The kids clambered out carefully and stood at the foot of the poorly defined gravel path that trailed in a thin stream into the grim forests, with drainage ditches on each side, filled with leaves, refuse and washed soil.
"Jeez." Mabel whispered. "This place is creepier than I remember-"
"Mm." Dipper didn't really reply. He was rather taken aback by the atmosphere. Uncomfortable. Truth be told, it reminded him of the odd places he had seen in his nightmares. The entire island was like a grotesque doodle from someone in an asylum. It felt like everything was bending into its most sinister angle whenever they turned their head.
"Grunkle Ford? What's this?" Mabel called out, standing at the foot of a rusted structure of metal and timber.
The wooden and corrugated iron of the structure was eternally creaking in the cold breeze that bled up the pathway, swaying from one side to the next, groaning in complaint. Inside, there were the remains of a conveyor, lathes and rocking gear, still linked and built around an antique buzzsaw - blunted and softened by the air, oxidised in a deep orange.
The kids peered at it curiously.
"Gross." Pacifica huffed. "Looks like tetanus to me. You think they cut up bodies or something?"
Dipper recoiled. "Paz. Seriously."
"What? I'm just saying, like, this is a bit serial killery, right? You're the one who makes us watch all of those dumb B-movies, it's only natural that I'd-"
Ford finished tying up the boat and followed slowly, rubbing his sore back. "Looks like a cutting shed, to me."
"Told you." She shrugged. "Serial killery."
Ford laughed. "No, no, for lumber. Cutting tree bark, that sort of thing. Probably used to be a camp of some sort here."
Stan followed him and rubbed his unshaven chin as he peered over the decrepit, long abandoned machinery. "Bit of a weird place to slice up trees."
"Special variant of tree perhaps?"
"Sure. 'Creepy', by the looks of it. This place is the first joint I've seen that's weirder than the Principal's Office at Glass Shard High."
"So if that's a cutting shed, I take it this is the thing that ran it, right?" Dipper asked, pointing towards another of the island's industrial ruins. This time, it was a rusted dome, riveted all over, with the odd pipe or gauge still hanging precariously on its side. The fire door of the antique boiler was hanging from a single hinge. A tall funnel sat perched atop it like a crooked, rotting top hat, shrouded in thick vegetation and moss.
Giant pistons lay bent and misshapen like a trail of centripetal mechanical limbs. Bolted plates leaned and creased over themselves like thin cardboard.
It was pretty intimidating. A bulging, misshapen piece of rust that at points seemed no thicker than a sheet of paper. Whatever wood processing had gone on here, it was long, long finished, and left only these gigantic, towering iron golems to the environment's whims, lost amongst spickets, ivy and saplings - drowning in the cold, eternal, unseasonal fog.
"On the money, Dipper. Quite an edifice, isn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess…"
Pacifica shuffled closer to him. "This place is giving me the creeps, Dip."
"Yeah… something's off."
They looked forward to see only further wrecks of industry. Old, narrow rails lay strung across the island's ground like rusting cobwebs, occasionally punctuated by derailed wagons or small, rotting locomotives with large, permanently extinguished headlamps. Wooden structures teetered uncomfortably; large, greying buildings that had succumbed to the same disease that now spread across the town.
They were peppered in bite and gnaw marks. Scratched and bitten. Scraped by evil, shadowy claws.
Dipper figured that the beavers had, at least, been sampling their local produce before spreading their sights elsewhere. Credit where it's due.
"Well, this joint is only gettin' creepier." Stan grimaced as he glanced at the old axe hut. Which was full of rusted axes and at least one forgotten skull. "Ya think we can get outta here?"
Ford trudged along, making notes of each building and taking small samples of the wood like - well, a scientist with an obsessive streak. "There has to be something we're missing. An abandoned lumber camp? There's plenty of trees, no people, why would these things be coming into town? It seems like a perfect home for the damned… beaver revenants."
"Beavernants." Mabel corrected him, matter-of-factly.
"Of course, Pumpkin." He chuckled. "But regardless, what exactly is there to see? This place is about as empty and decrepit as Gravity Falls can get."
Pacifica and Dipper had gone a little further forward, and, in the process, had come upon a clearing. It was enormous. A giant, hollow, empty space seasoned with hundreds of stumps and forgotten branches. A regular woodland massacre, the sort of thing you'd see plastered on preachy PSAs.
She held his hand tightly and tried not to freak out about just how… creepy the place was. It felt so unworldly, so bizarre, so cold and frigid - she just wanted to be back in the armchair with him, her hand up his shirt, her face against his ne-
Click.
Dipper jumped back and grabbed onto her. "Oh no, nonono- I stepped on something!"
"Like what?"
"It felt like a switch-"
With a metallic crash, a giant floodlight - filthy and rusted though it was - lit up in a horrendously bright glow. It was enormous, towering over them, its frame obscured by the swaying, sinister pines and redwoods. The two were almost blinded and stumbled back in a panic. It was as if the hands of fate had shoved them into eachother, as they landed in a tangle on the floor.
"Holy hell, what th- owf!"
"S-sorry."
Pacifica giggled awkwardly as Dipper knelt over her. "Sheesh, you're getting a bit forward, aren't you?"
"H-hey, I was just-"
"Whathappenedwhathappenedwhathappenedwhat-oh. Oh." Mabel gave her widest grin as she arrived on the scene and put her hands on her hips, knowingly. "Look, you guys can fool around at home, you'd better get your stuff together before the Grunkles get here."
"We fell!" Pacifica snapped, standing up hurriedly. She was feeling pretty confident in flirting before Mabel showed up. Now she felt like a flustered mess who was caught doing something wrong.
"Sure, and Kevin just fell on my neck." Mabel winked, shooting finger guns. "You're safe with me, guys!"
The young couple scrambled to their feet and tried desperately to dust themselves off, hot with embarrassment.
"Good god." Ford gasped as he walked into the clearing, mouth agape. "A floodlight? An electric floodlight? Here?!"
"Jeez. This place planning a floor show or something?" Stan said, wincing and shielding his eyes.
"Well, Pacifica and Dipper clearly were-ow!" Mabel frowned as her brother jabbed her firmly in the ribs with his elbow and pouted.
"Well found, you two." Ford said, seemingly pretty impressed by the massive device that shone through the branches. "The plot thickens."
"More than that, Sixer. Is that a freakin' dock?"
The old man squinted. Behind the glare of the floodlight was the clear silhouette of a small harbour - crooked, wooden and precarious, but still standing. Jettys, barrels and jib-cranes peppered the waterside, old donkey engines and more tiny railroad equipment surrounding it.
It was a dock alright; a fully fledged one, abandoned for over a century and battered by the elements - while remaining utterly recognisable and distinguished against the island's setting. It was clearly, once, a pretty impressive structure.
The only thing more bizarre was what stood within its shielded waters.