Six Feet Under Chapter 13: The Flop, or, Maxwell's Turn, a don't starve fanfic

Unlucky Chapter 13, everyone! In which Maxwell takes a shot and we find out what Mrs. Maitland meant back in Chapter 7….Sorry about missing Saturday, but life has been hectic. D:

Wendy trudged back down the steps to the adults whooping and laughing wildly, still excited over what had happened.

It was their own fault, Wendy reflected. No one was scared of a haunting when it was done to the tune of Harry Belafonte. She personally would have gone for something much more horrifying—like a broken music box. The shrimp cocktail bit had been a nice touch, though.

Her father, standing by the stairwell, spotted her first. Delia, who had been watching the stairwell, spotted her next.

"Well?" Delia asked, gasping for breath and wiping a tear away.

"They won't come down," Wendy sighed. "I think they're upset because you're not scared."

At least, that was how she had left them. Now she could hear Wilson ranting angrily and pacing the attic—she had a feeling the thing had been his idea.

"They're dead," Delia said. "It's a little late for them to be self-conscious."

Wendy shrugged, unsure as how to progress.

"They're in the attic, correct?" Otho asked. "Then let's go see them."

There was a round of agreement from the adults. Wendy did her level best to bar their way.

"I don't think that's a good idea," she told them.

"Dear," Delia said, firmly putting her aside. "If there's one thing in this life I need to teach you, it's that you can't let anyone push you around."

Wendy felt as though that was a message with a double standard there.

"Now come on!" Delia said, leading the charge. "Let's go drag those ghosts down here by the ropes they hanged themselves with!"

"They didn't hang themselves!" Wendy called, following with no small amount of trepidation.

But when they arrived at the attic, it was to find it abandoned.

"Wow," Charles noised, kneeling in front of the town. "This is incredible! Look at this!"

Some of the other adults, however, were too focused on a large machine that resembled a face or a door. "What is this supposed to be?" Delia's agent asked.

Delia, meanwhile, had turned to Wendy. "Well?" she asked. "Where are they?"

Wendy decided then and there that the best approach would be to play dumb. "Who?"

"The ghosts you were talking about! The man and the woman!"

"I thought I wasn't supposed to entertain my childish game when company was around."

Wendy was severely worried she'd ruin the whole game by smiling then and there, but managed to stay straight-faced as a dejected Delia tried to chase down her uptown friends.

"Delia," her agent said finally at the foot of the stairs. "You're a flake. You've always been a flake. If you insist on scaring people, do it with your art."

Ouch. Just, ouch—even Delia didn't deserve a slam like that.

"We'll show ourselves out," her agent said. Silence reigned for a few moments.

Wendy turned to her father, spotted Otho pocketing something—wait, what?

But Delia was already stomping back up the steps.

"Charles!" she snapped, causing him to jump as she reached for Wendy and dragged her away. "We're leaving. We're leaving!" she added, much louder—probably for Willow and Wilson's benefit.

Where were they, anyway?

To answer that question, hanging by a tenuous grip from the sill.

"I still say under the settee would have been better," Willow hissed. "I think I'm losing the feeling in my fingers."

"In retrospect, we probably should have expected them to come up looking for us," Wilson groused, sounding gravelly in his irritation.

"Yeah—because they weren't about to just brush it all off as bad shrimp."

"Or weird artwork."

She had to stifle a laugh at that. They heard Delia loudly announce their departure, and then silence.

"Do you think they're really gone, or are they playing us?" Willow asked.

"I'm not rightly sure if I care anymore," Wilson said, sounding far past peeved.

"Oh, they're gone all right—real gone!"

They looked up in alarm at the new voice—Maxwell was sticking head and pointy shoulders out the window, giving them a little finger wave as he grinned around one of his noxious cigars.

"Oooh, that was real scary!" he continued, holding the cigar so he could tap some ash on them. "Just about right for amateur hour—now why don't we turn on the juice and see what shakes loose?"

And with that, he was gone.

Willow looked to Wilson, who was vaguely undefined in the dark. "I don't like the sound of that," she stated.

Wilson was already hauling himself up as fast as he could.

Ah, bliss. He hadn't done this in ages—and it most definitely showed, he felt, considering ideas were chasing each other around in his head as he shadow-travelled down the stairwell and into the hall where the yuppies were.

But as he neared, it all cleared into a general idea of what he wanted to do. He was a stage magician in a previous life—if there was one thing he was good at, it was putting on a show.

"—Never so humiliated in my life," the redhead was saying. "Otho, can't you do something?"

"Maybe," the tub o' lard said. "If I had the proper motivation."

Ah ha—Maxwell knew a stage cue when he heard one.

Quick as a wink, he sent a pair of shadow hands snaking along the floor to trip up both men of the party. While they were distracted, Maxwell rose out of the ground in front of the redhead in the guise of what he liked to call a Terrorbeak—slim except for the sizeable maw—and roared in her face.

She reacted appropriately, and before anyone could recover, a shadow tentacle whipped around sandy-hair's leg and hoisted him up as Maxwell popped out of yet another shadow on the ground, looking much like he did normally, but in a scratchy shadow quality with luminous eyes and a distorted mouth.

"We've come for your daughter, Chuck," he sneered, before flinging the horrified man away. Cue transformation into a dragon, snapping his long whip-like tail into tubby and sending him rolling down the stairs—let's see, who else needed some?

Oh, that's right—the little girl.

He turned, snarling savagely as he reared up, with the intention of perhaps morphing into a huge hound—nice big bad wolf reference there—when he spotted the flower in her hair.

Wait a minute—he knew that sort of flower.

Before he could do anything more though, two voices loudly screamed "NO!"—

And something collided with him, sending him over the railing and towards the ground floor.

Maxwell was a lot cannier than that, though, and rather than take the fall, shifted into smoke so he could snake around to whoever's back and drive them in the rest of the way. It didn't matter if the impact could kill him or not—that sort of thing hurt, and it was the fastest way to tick him off.

Collision, roll away—let's see, dragon form from earlier would be a good one; not many people stayed calm when facing down something like that—

And then he got a good look at his recovering attacker, and decided that sort of point might very well be moot.

"Say pal, that itch need scratching?" he taunted.

His attacker hissed and lunged.

Maxwell quickly leaped up, causing the mook to ruin what might have been a very nice china cabinet in a previous life, shifting into something lighter and more agile as he slammed down on his spine—

Wings snapped up to pin him, and as he tumbled to the floor, four hands launched forward to throttle him.

He quickly merged into the shadows and shot away.

He knew a losing fight when he saw one.

"NO!"

That had been Willow and Wilson's reaction upon making it down the steps and spotting the resulting carnage, seeing Maxwell loom over Wendy—

Willow was frantically trying to figure out how to call him off when something big and black collided with him, sending both over the railing.

She blinked, stunned, turned to ask Wilson if he saw that—

He wasn't there.

"Say pal, that itch need scratching?"

She ran over to the railing, looked down—

To see something black and spider-like fighting whatever it was Maxwell was right now.

And then Maxwell dove through the shadows and vanished, leaving the thing scrabbling away searching for him. What in the world?

"Why are you doing this!?"

That anguished scream prompted Willow to turn around—Wendy was clearly having a breakdown of some sort, mouth open in a wail as tears ran down her face.

It was especially jarring when Willow realized this was really the first time she had seen Wendy exhibit any emotion.

"Go away!" Wendy wailed, scrabbling for the door and finally getting it open enough to flee inside. "Go away! Leave me alone!"

"Wendy, wait!" Willow started, but quickly abbreviated the statement when the door slammed shut. Oh boy, this wasn't good—this wasn't good at all.

An unearthly shriek told her that there were more pressing matters to deal with—like whatever that thing was.

She ran down the stairs, jumped over Otho, rounded the railing—

"Hey!" she yelled.

In retrospect, that wasn't her smartest move—especially when the thing rounded on her with a scream and she could see that it was much bigger than her, with four spindly arms and a scratchy black consistency—

And very distinctive hair.

"You've got to be kidding me," Willow muttered, which very quickly switched to an aborted curse when it charged her.

"Wilson, stop!" she yelled, backing up quickly, arms out to fend him off—no dice, backed against the wall, hands batting frantically and shoved against his face to keep that angry maw away—was he even in there? "Wilson, stop! Stop! Wilson!"

The blackness that was coating him had a horrible itchy consistency to it, and she had the horrible feeling that she was about to find out what it was like to die a second time—

And then he stopped.

She opened her eyes, realized they were moist, saw the angry looking white disks that were substituting for his eyes suddenly widen in horror—

And then he was scrambling away, backwards at first before finally turning around to flee properly—

"Wilson! Wait!" she yelled, chasing after him and slipping on the black stuff he was shedding, finally catching up to him at the door. He was lunging for the handle, finally looking somewhat normal—she lunged, caught him by the waistcoat—

And then she felt as though she were sucked into the void.