Mike was still wandering the town as more people began to out about their daily business. The townsfolk seemed pretty friendly, most giving him a slight smile and wave as they passed him. That was the nice thing about small tourist towns, they were used to seeing strange visitors. Still, Mike didn't want to push his luck and head back to his hotel room. Turning on the tv for background noise, Mike pulled his laptop and began browsing the web. His laptop is one of the few things he bothered to actually splurge on as it was something he used often and was often his only contact with the outside world. It might not be the newest model anymore, but it still worked beautifully.
Mike spent a few hours checking the various blogs and chat rooms for any sign that a murderous animatronic had surfaced. There still wasn't anything, hadn't been for months and Mike was beginning to get paranoid about it a little. With multiple animatronics still roaming around, much to his dismay and frustration, usually, there was some word of an attack by now. (Mike hated that he couldn't predict where they would attack as they were too random, hated how he couldn't prevent more people from dying to his father's creations, hated that he was stuck trying to clean up and repair the things they destroyed.) But everything was quiet and Mike had no leads to continue his hunt for them until he had some clue where to go.
Once he finished checking everything, Mike passed the time between browsing the web and actually watching whatever happened to be playing on the tv (Ducktective was surprisingly enjoyable). But as night began to fall, Mike became a little sick of being in this room for so long. He didn't plan to sleep tonight, not after his nightmare the night before, but he didn't think he could stand to be in this place all night when he'd probably be stuck in it most of the day tomorrow.
So with all that in mind, Mike decided he was going to walk around town again. He could use the fresh air and he could use the opportunity to get used to the town's layout. It was an unfortunate fact of his existence that he'd either be run or chased through every place he was in eventually and knowing possible escape was just a matter of survival. Forgoing his mask, Mike pulled the hood up on his jacket, combining that with his hat, and the darkness of the night meant know would be able to see his face anyway. He had been walking for a few hours and was passing by the museum when he noticed there were still lights on inside.
That's weird… Mike thought to him see as he glanced it over. The museum had been closed for hours already and there shouldn't be anyone there except for maybes a security guard. He was debating whether this was something he should be concerned with when he heard voices shouting from inside.
They sounded young…
They sounded scared…
There are terrified children in there!
Mike didn't waste any more time thinking, bolting up the steps, and slamming through the door. He was both grateful and worried that the door had been unlocked but quickly focused on where he could hear the terrible shouts. He would not fail another child in danger (he's failed too many already). He burst onto the scene, barely registering the group of people in robes and focusing only on the man with a tattooed head pointing some sort of gun at a group of tied-up kids.
Mike immediately tackled the man, sending both of them sprawling onto the floor. The tattooed man had the wind knocked out of him, something that Mike didn't have to be concerned with, and Mike used the opportunity to wrestle the strange gun away. The room erupted into chaos after that, especially as a hillbilly showed up to untie the group and gave them random weapons to try and fight back. Two of the robed guys managed to wrestle the gun away from Mike, only for the boy to snatch it away. A game of hot potato started with the gun as the two sides tried to keep it away from the other.
At some point, one of the robed guys got a lucky hit to Mike's head, knocking his hood back and his hat off his head. In the lit room, Mike's face was clearly able to be seen. His sunken-in glowing eyes, his purplish dead skin, the scars and holes in his cheeks, all of which clearly marked him as something that was no longer human. (No one ever got past the horror of his undead face to see the wires visible in the holes of his face that were the only thing keeping his jaw connected to his head.)
The chaos paused for a moment as everyone processed the sight of Mike's face and then the one currently holding the gun, a larger man with a southern accent, turned it on his own head.
"No, you don't!" Mike shouted, leaping for the gun. "I know I'm monstrous, but shooting yourself is a bit too extreme!"
The chaos started again, but it wasn't long before the men in robes were subdued. Mike was a bit surprised to find out the gun was actually used to erase memories, but it still wasn't the weirdest thing for him to deal with. He let the kids erase the men's memories, hanging back in the shadows to make sure that he didn't attack attention, and the men were safely let free to return to their normal lives.
Once they were gone, the remaining kids and adults turned to Mike, watching him with wariness and a little bit of suspicion. Still, those actually pretty mild reactions compared to how most people reacted to seeing him, so Mike wasn't offended.
"So…" Mike began, really unsure where to go from here. He hadn't had any real interactions with people in years and didn't really know how to deal with someone that wasn't running and screaming or trying to finish killing him.
"I'm Mabel!" the younger girl greeted cheerfully, even bouncing over to shake Mike's hand. "That's my brother Dipper and we're the Mystery Twins. Those are our friends Wendy and Soos and their pretty great and usually join us on our adventures. That's Old Man McGucket, he's this crazy awesome inventory and we're helping him out. So what's your name? Why are you here? It was awesome that you helped us! Are you secretly a superhero that goes around helping kids in need and-"
"Mabel what are you doing!" Dipper hissed in frustration and worry, pulling his sister back. "That's a zombie! What if he'd tried to eat your brains!"
"It's rude to just assume things about people!" Mabel argued back. "Besides… if tried to eat our brains we'd just have a reunion tour of Love Patrol Alpha."
"For the record," Mike interrupted before the twins could keep arguing. "I have never eaten anyone's brains and don't plan on changing that any time soon. I'm also not a zombie, but I can understand the confusion… Oh, and my name's Mike by the way…"
"Ha! I was right! He doesn't eat brains! Nice to meet you, Mike!" Mabel replied happily, sending her brother a smirk before turning back to Mike. " And would you be interested in one of my signature Mabel Makeovers?"
"If you aren't a zombie, what are you?" Dipper asked, looking a mix of curious and suspicious. "Because you are clearly some form of undead, but you don't look like a vampire…"
"And what are you doing here dude?" Wendy questioned, looking over Mike like she was assessing a threat. "It's the middle of the night, why were you hanging around so late?"
"Are you one of those vengeful spirits that won't rest until an ancient evil is defeated," Soos wondered, sounding very serious about what he was saying. "Oh, I know! You got cursed and can only break it by battling the one who cursed you!"
All the questions and attention were starting to overwhelm Mike and he slowly began backing up towards the door.
"Look, I just happen to be passing by when I heard you yelling and decided to help out," Mike explained, holding his hands up in defense. "Everything else about me isn't important. In fact... it's probably best if you forgot all about me."
"But-!" Dipper started to protest, but Mike didn't stick around to hear what he was going to say. Mike bolted out the door and quickly ducked into a side alley. From the shadows, Mike watched as the others came out onto the front steps, looking around to see if they could spot they didn't, they headed back inside presumably to do whatever they had been doing before the guys in robes showed up.
Feeling confident they lost him, Mike headed back towards his hotel room. Once safely inside, Mike sank into a chair with a sigh, running a hand through his thin hair. (He used to have such thick hair, but most of it had fallen out when his body began to rot, and honestly, he was surprised he still had as much as he did.) Getting involved with kids had not been the plan, but he couldn't regret trying to help them. Hopefully, anyone they told wouldn't believe them enough to try and drive him out of town already. With any luck… they would never run into each other again and those kids would forget all about him.
After all… there's no way a couple of kids would become obsessed over some random stranger that they knew wasn't human enough to somehow track Mike down to find out all his secrets.
Right?
