Chapter Twenty-Two – "What A Swell Party This Isn't!"
Previously: Inside the Big Black Building, smack in the middle of the Pine Valley Dump, Ethan Cambias is throwing a party for the people he has kidnapped. Oblivious to Ethan's true malevolent intent, the Pine Valley Veterans are eating, drinking and partying, as they watch four huge monitors showing Bugs Bunny Cartoons and listen to every Beatles record ever made. Tad is the only Vanished who has a hard time believing Ethan has only arranged the kidnappings to shock the Powers That Be into using the Veterans more frequently on the Show. Everyone else is happy with Ethan's efforts on their behalf. Except for Zach and Kendall of course, who realize how dire the situation truly is.
"Take another rice cake, Kendall," Ethan, the ever attentive host urged her. "They're quite safe. Really."
"But we're not quite safe, are we, Ethan?" she asked him, already knowing his answer.
"Sorry, Schweetheart," he said in his best Bogart imitation. "It's curtains."
Kendall thought that through while observing her Mother and the rest of their friends merrily eating, drinking and laughing, totally oblivious to the danger they were in. Except for Tad. Tad look worried. Bright boy. For a second Kendall stared at Bugs Bunny outwitting the Martian as the Beatles sang "Strawberry Fields Forever". Then it dawned on her.
"What's to stop us from telling everybody what's going on?" she demanded suddenly. "Everyone will be out of here before you can do anything to stop them!"
Ethan actually simpered.
"Not a chance, Schweetheart. I've got the Remote right here in my coat pocket, next to my heart. If any of my guests make a move on me or the door, I press the button and the room is instantaneously filled with poison gas. Don't you love it?"
"And how do you plan to pin this mass murder on little me?" Zach was asking, sounding maddeningly nonchalant.
Ethan threw his head back and laughed.
"I've written your confession, Dad! See?"
He handed Zach a neatly typed note in which Zach took full responsibility for the slaughter.
"Why should I sign this? What do I gain? You're going to kill me anyway, I take it."
"No doubt about it," Ethan said in a voice that made Kendall, who had once loved that voice, shudder. "Here's how it goes. If you sign the note, you and your lovely wife die painlessly along with all your friends and neighbors."
"And if he doesn't sign it?" Kendall prompted.
"Plan B," Ethan replied. "I'm pretty certain neither of you would be that crazy about Plan B."
Zach had heard enough.
"Let's make a deal, Ethan," he proposed. "I sign your note and everybody goes home safe and sound, including my lovely wife."
"Do you really imagine I'd let everybody go unharmed? Including you, Dad?"
Zach shook his head. "Nope, not including me, Son. But everybody else goes home."
"What happens to you?" Ethan inquired.
"Plan B, I guess," Zach said as easily as if he were stating the correct time. "I take all the blame and you can have all the revenge you want. Sound good?"
Kendall felt so faint, she had to grab onto Zach's arm to steady herself.
"Not good," she managed. "Very, very not good!" Not knowing what else to do, she appealed to Ethan's better nature. "Ethan, you can't be serious! This isn't you! You're not a cold hearted maniac! Are you doing all this as payback? Is this all an awful, elaborate practical joke?"
Zach was reading the note.
"What does it say?" Kendall asked him, none of her wanting to know.
"Standard suicide note and full confession," Zach said, scanning it. "Extremely well-written." He took out a pen and scribbled his signature. "Done! Now, Ethan, let all these wonderful people out of here!"
"Why should I do that, Dad?" Ethan inquired, scrutinizing the signature. "Now that you've signed the confession, why shouldn't I kill everybody? What's to stop me?"
The Beatles were singing "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and Kendall was doing her best not to scream.
"Ethan, look at it this way," Zach urged him as if they were speaking about something that didn't threaten the existence of everyone he knew and/or loved. "You have become a Hero to Pine Valley's Veterans. Everybody in this room considers you the answer to countless prayers. Why kill all that?"
Ethan looked down at the floor as a dubious Daffy was considering Bugs' latest con.
"If nobody dies, there are no victims," Ethan explained, as if to a child. "If there are no victims, what good is your confession, Dad?"
"So I confess to attempted mass murder," Zach improvised.
Ethan's eyes narrowed as he considered the possibilities.
"Foiling Zach's dastardly plot will make you an even bigger Hero," Kendall chimed in excitedly, suddenly seeing a way out for them. "You'll own this town, Ethan! And nobody has to die!"
Ethan face took on a somber cast. "Somebody has to die," he decried. "Or else what's the point?"
The Beatles were singing "She Loves You". Kendall looked toward Bugs, as if for inspiration. They were almost home, if only she said the right thing to Ethan to close the deal.
"So I die," Zach said before she could come up with anything. "I've already signed the note. So where's the problem?"
Ethan knew.
"The note says you brought everybody here to murder them," Ethan reminded Zach, punching it with an index finger for emphasis. "But if I let them live, they'll all say I brought them here to force the Powers That Be to realize how drab Pine Valley would be without its Veterans, which is what I told them all when they regained consciousness. It doesn't square, Dad. I have to kill them or else the note doesn't make sense. What else can I do?"
Zach looked at Kendall and Kendall looked at Zach.
"Change the note?" they asked together.
Which is exactly what he did.
"Anything interesting going on over here?" Tad asked, sauntering over. He was still troubled although he couldn't put his finger on why, except that Ethan had drugged them all one by one and dragged them to a catered Bugs Bunny/Beatles concert. And there wasn't much of an explanation of why.
"We're revising my suicide note," Zach said matter-of-factly.
"Tad, did you enjoy the canapés?" Ethan broke in.
"Ever so much," Tad replied, trying to decipher what Zach was really saying to him.
"Ethan's going to kill Zach and make it look like suicide," Kendall told Tad pointblank. "Plan A was to kill all of us and make it look like Zach did it, but he's moved on to Plan B, which means only Zach has to be murdered."
Ethan whooped with laughter and slapped Tad on the back.
"Very funny, Kendall! Isn't Kendall funny, Zach?"
"She's hysterical," Zach deadpanned.
The Beatles were singing "She Loves You", Bugs Bunny was dodging every bullet fired by an increasingly frustrated Elmer Fudd and Tad Martin decided to take Kendall Hart Slater seriously.
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Can Tad help Zendall foil Plan B? Where's Derek and the Posse? Where's Ryan? Please come back next time when at least some of these questions will be answered even as other questions will be posed! Reviews are always read, answered and truly appreciated!