A/N: And we're back!
Hope everyone's enjoying the story so far, because this is where we catapult ourselves into the murkiest depths of insanity. Well, a little deeper into the realms of insanity... compared to the vast plunge into insanity we've done on our last Gravity Falls outings. Look, everything's going to go slightly mad, take my word for it.
As always, feel free to let me know if this isn't making sense even by the standards of a mystery or the codes don't make any sense at all... and by all means, share your wonderful views on characterization and your theories on plot direction in your reviews.
Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter: read, review, and above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Gravity Falls is still not mine... neither is the crossover. Any ideas what it is?
Meanwhile, the soundtrack choice for this chapter is Owen's Theme, by Murray Gold.
Not for the first time that day, Dipper could only boggle in confusion at everything he'd heard so far. At present, he was sitting on a fallen log next to Mabel and Grunkle Ford, listening as Grunkle Stan finished his explanation of what had just happened; the three of them had seen parts of it already, having managed to catch a few discreet glimpses of the woman in room 13 from their hiding places, but now that Stan was filling in the blanks, the situation was looking gloomier by the minute.
Eventually, Ford gave Stan a bewildered look and demanded, "What do you mean you just left? Why didn't you ask about the portals?"
"Because I don't like questioning suspicious women with guns!" Stan exploded. "She didn't want me hanging around, so I hightailed it outta there: last thing I wanted was to get her mad all over again."
"And she didn't explain what was going on with the motel?" asked Dipper.
"Of course she didn't. I know I'm good at conning people, but sad to say I'm not perfect. She didn't want to be bothered and she expected me to know what was going on anyway, so if I'd made myself look like even more of an idiot than usual, she'd have gotten suspicious. Suspicious equals angry, angry equals violent, violent equals gunplay in a roadside motel gone Mad Max. We don't need that kinda trouble."
"Maybe we should try again," Mabel suggested. "I mean, maybe she'd be happy to tell us all about the portals if we made friends with her, helped out a little here and there. I mean, she doesn't seem all that bothered by being out here in the middle of nowhere – maybe she'd help us on the scavenger hunt if we gave her some time and friendship?"
"And how would we do that, exactly?
"I was thinking I could have a talk with her! A bit of the old Mabel charms, a couple of glasses of Mabel juice, a little talk about home and pet pigs, and-"
"No."
"Aw, come on! It'd just be a few minutes of chit-chat-"
"You and your brother are in enough danger just being here, Mabel; I'm not gonna put you in any more by letting you negotiate with the crazy lady, okay?"
Mabel groaned loudly and massaged her temples. "Then what are we supposed to do? Just head to this Kingsmouth place and hope they've got what they need?"
"Looks like that's the only option for now. With any luck it's in better condition than this place."
"And you're certain she didn't see us?" Ford asked hesitantly. "I mean, I'm pretty sure she looked right at us back there."
"Believe me, if she'd seen you, she'd be on the attack again. Still not a good idea for you kids to try for a closer look," Stan added, eyeing the younger twins disapprovingly.
"Sorry," Dipper and Mabel mumbled in near-perfect unison.
"Ah, nevermind. We're all still alive, that's the main thing. Let's just get going while the going's still good. I'm sick of smelling rotten eggs on the breeze, and I've had enough of this heat: if this is Maine, hopefully it'll be a little cooler once we make it to Kingsmouth and-"
A deafening BANG echoed across the parking lot.
Even at a distance, there was no mistaking the sound of a gunshot… or the fact that it had issued from room 13.
Immediately, Grunkle Stan threw himself flat against the ashen ground, grabbing Dipper and Mabel by the collars and dragging them down with him as he fell – immediately resulting in Dipper accidentally getting a mouthful of ash and dirt in the process.
By contrast, Grunkle Ford drew his blaster and ran straight towards the source of the noise. Stan hissed frantically after him, ordering him to get down before someone took a potshot at him, but the aging scientist was too caught up in the spell of an adventure to listen and probably too far away to hear him anyway.
For about three seconds, Stan remained flat on the ground, as if hoping Ford might come to his senses and hurry back. Then, once it became clear that Ford hadn't been paying attention, he leapt to his feet with a pained grunt; "stay right here," he ordered, and took off at high speed in the direction of room 13.
This left Dipper and Mabel once again brushing dirt off their clothes and wondering what the hell had just happened.
Several seconds ticked by in silence. Normally, the two of them probably would have started talking by now to while away the time until Stan and Ford returned, but their hearts just weren't in it; even Mabel seemed a little bit on the subdued side. Quite apart from the danger and uncertainty of being lost in a strange new world full of people trying to shoot them, something about this place seemed to smother all attempts at conversation before they could start. It wasn't the carnage or the Weirdness of the place – after Weirdmageddon, ruined buildings and hellish scenery were easy to deal with. No, what made the Overlook Motel so unnerving was much subtler and much harder for Dipper to put a name to: it was the sense of… emptiness, the inexplicable atmosphere of desolation, despair, and hunger. He'd no idea where this feeling had come from but seemed to be issuing from everywhere he looked.
Weirdmageddon had been much like Bill Cipher himself: wild, crazy, unpredictable and luridly colourful, every minute of it sparking with manic energy and frenzied imagination. This place, whatever it was, felt desperate, lonely and starved. Dipper couldn't imagine who or what could have caused all this destruction, but he knew at once that he didn't want to meet them.
And then, just as the two of them were getting used to the unnatural silence, there was a loud groan from somewhere very close by.
As one, Dipper and Mabel turned to face the source of the noise, too scared to wonder aloud at what they'd just heard. Behind them, through the smouldering trees and ashen dunes beyond the reach of the parking lot, something was scuttling along the dirt. Whatever it was, it was travelling on all fours, and though it probably would have been a lot taller if it stood upright, Dipper could already tell it was bigger than him.
He wasn't certain which of them started running first, but at some point, Dipper and Mabel grabbed each other by the hands and charged straight towards room 13 as fast as their feet could carry them.
Stan must have heard them hurrying up, because there was a series of panicked mutterings from behind the broken-down door, followed by a shout of "Wait, wait, don't come in here! Don't come in-"
Stan appeared in the doorway, trying to block their view of the room beyond, but too late; Dipper was frantically peering over his shoulder for any sign of the monster, so Mabel saw inside the room first and let out a choked gasp of horror. Dipper, meanwhile, had just enough time to realize that the creature following them had apparently broken off pursuit at the parking lot before he crashed headlong into Grunkle Stan's left leg – and as he belatedly turned around, finally saw what Stan hadn't wanted them to see.
Room 13 of the Overlook Motel was a cave, a charred hollow in the carcass of the building that bore only a cursory resemblance to an actual motel room; most of the furniture had been smashed, the carpet had been burnt off, and the floor beneath it looked like volcanic rock, complete with glowing orange cracks and clouds of sulphurous gasses.
If it had been warm outside, it was like an oven in here; Stan and Ford were sweating waterfalls after only a few seconds, and Dipper almost swooned a little in the heat as he took in more details of the room ahead and realized that something very wrong indeed had taken place here. He could already feel that the atmosphere of hunger and desperation was much thicker here, and the things decorating this room just confirmed this impression.
In the middle of the room, past the lumps of smashed tables and chairs stacked against the wall, a single mundane-looking doorway stood in thin air, attached to absolutely nothing. It simply stood alone in the very heart of the bedroom, solid as a rock and every bit as undeniably real, and yet inexplicably wrong for all that.
Scant inches away, a backpack (presumably Lorraine's) had been left slumped across the floor, its contents spilling everywhere. Dipper couldn't see most of them, but he could just about recognize some rather ominous-looking shapes that Stan probably wouldn't want him touching with a barge pole.
A rug had been rolled away from the floor nearby, revealing a strange ritualistic circle daubed in white paint, dotted with arcane-looking symbols…
…and just across from it, another circle had been painted – this one much newer from the looks of things: rendered in a distinctive-looking shade of red, it had been drawn much quicker, much more aggressively. Candles had been placed and lit around the circle, and a small collection of bloodied tusks and needle-sharp fangs had been arranged in patterns inside it.
At the centre of the circle, Lorraine was lying on the moth-eaten bed in an expanding pool of blood: a gaping hole had been torn through the top of her skull, spraying the bedhead with gore and dyeing her hair a rich shade of crimson. Her once-pristine white uniform was now rust-red from the collar to the shoulders; her beret had been placed on the ruins of the bedside table; of the gun she'd been armed with, there was no sign.
Even from here, with Stan trying to hold him back and the heat pouring down on him, there was no mistaking the fact that Lorraine Maillard was very, very dead.
Dipper's stomach lurched. He hadn't had too much experience with death, and though he'd seen plenty of ghosts, monsters and other horrific things and had his life threatened so many times in the last few months in the last few months, this was the first corpse he'd ever seen (well, the first fresh corpse he'd seen). Horrified as he was, he couldn't help but edge closer despite Stan's best efforts to push him back to the door – absently knocking over one of the nearest candles as he did so.
Mabel, on the other hand, looked utterly incredulous, maybe even a little sad: perhaps she'd genuinely been hoping to make friends with Lorraine, or hoping that she could have helped them if Stan had given her the time. Whatever the case, she clearly couldn't believe her eyes.
"What happened?" she whispered.
Ford looked up from examining the body, his face downcast. "She-"
Grunkle Stan coughed loudly and shook his head, quickly crossing to the opposite end of the bed before Dipper could get too close a look at the body lying on it.
"…she's been shot," Ford amended. "Point-blank range from the looks of things."
"But why?" Dipper asked. "Who could've done this? I mean, you didn't see anyone around here, did you?"
Again, Stan gave Ford a pointed look before allowing him to respond, absently kicking something under the bed as he did so.
What don't you want us to see, Stan? Dipper wondered. What don't you want Ford to tell us?
"No," said Ford at last. "I mean, maybe the gunman left via this… uh, door just before we got here, but there's no evidence to support the claim."
There was a pause, as the four of them stared in silent horror at the grisly tableau, almost imperceptibly inching towards better vantage points as they did so. As much as they wanted to look away, their curiosity kept getting the better of them: Dipper kept trying to get a closer look, while Stan kept trying to block his path to the bed, all while peering down at the body atop it in horrified fascination. Mabel, on the other hand, seemed inordinately interested with the things that had spilled out of Lorraine's backpack in the confusion and was now absently rifling through them in search of anything that might make sense of the weirdness.
"Can we-"
"No, Mabel, we can't."
"But it's just standing right here! We could just open it up for a second and take a look-"
"No still means no, Dipper," Stan grumbled.
"But someone's… someone's just been murdered! Someone we were just talking to has been shot dead! Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"Of course it does," snapped Stan. "It means that there might just be a crazed gunman around here waiting to shoot anyone who overstays their welcome around this motel, and he's probably hiding inside that door over there. Long story short, kids, it means we should get moving before things get any worse! We can take this up with Sheriff Bannerman once we get to Kingsmouth and get Lorraine a decent burial, okay? Until then, we're done here! Now, come on…"
Under the normal run of things, Dipper would probably have taken this as a cue to ask what had gotten Stan so worried: after all, he hadn't seen him this cagey since the time Dipper had started asking questions about his secret tattoo. But of course, this wasn't the normal run of things, and Dipper soon found himself grabbed by the collar and dragged straight for the door.
A bone-chilling hiss greeted them from the parking lot.
Looking ahead of them, Dipper immediately recognized the skulking four-legged shape that he and Mabel had fled from a few minutes ago, perched atop the abandoned car. From here, Dipper could see that it looked vaguely human – in the sense that it had the usual number of arms and legs, even something close to a face – but there the similarities ended: even squatting on all fours it was obvious that it would have been over seven feet tall if it stood upright, and when it opened its hideous jaws to hiss at them again, fangs like chunks of broken glass jutted from its lipless gash of a mouth. Its sickly grey body was pockmarked with old wounds and poorly-healed scars, its arms and legs had been bound with vicious-looking leather belts, and its eyes were hidden behind a thick black band threaded through the flesh of its skull. It hissed a third time, and to Dipper's ears, it almost sounded like it was laughing at them.
Worse still, it wasn't alone: three other monsters just like it were scuttling in from the surrounding woods, lining up alongside it… and not too far behind them, there came the sounds of larger creatures marching to join the pack.
Stan immediately reversed direction, thrusting Dipper and Mabel behind him as he did so. "Where the heck did they come from?" he demanded.
"Best guess, that portal activity I've been detecting from behind this place," said Ford. "If all this volcanic activity is a symptom of an invasion of this world, then maybe these are the soldiers; either they're investigating the sound of the gunshot… or maybe they're looking for something to eat.
"Well, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. Okay everyone, change of plan: we're gonna have to fight our way out. Pick up anything you can use as a weapon and get ready to kick six shades of sh- of something outta these things!"
As Stan readied his knuckledusters and raised his fists in a boxing pose, Ford readied his blaster once again, this time attaching a few extra gadgets from the depths of his coat pockets. Dipper borrowed a magnet gun from Ford's coat and took careful aim, while Mabel took up her own grappling hook, arming her free hand with a sharpened chair leg from the wreckage of the dining table.
The four of them braced themselves as the creatures began to scuttle towards them. As improvised as their defence was, the odds seemed pretty evenly balanced to Dipper, for though any one of these monsters was taller than Grunkle Stan, none of them were armed, least of all with the brutal assortment of ray guns, magnet guns and grappling hook guns they were packing. Surely they'd be able to win this battle with a little effort.
And then the fifth attacker lumbered into view.
Standing at roughly nine feet tall, it had skin like cooled lava and a physique that would have made Manly Dan Corduroy look a bit on the dainty side. Its face was hidden behind a stone helmet, but its eyes shone with an unearthly orange light in the shadows beneath the horned visor, while its bare chest and clawed feet glowed with cherry-red cracks.
Worse still, it appeared to be armed with a sword that was almost as long as it was tall.
"Ooooooh crap," Stan muttered.
Lorraine's anima form exploded back into noncorporeal existence, the anima well behind her whooshing and roaring as her spectral body stumbled out into the ether. Still, she kept her eyes determinedly shut for as long as possible, hoping against hope that when she finally opened them, she'd be looking at a different world entirely.
But in the end, she opened her eyes to find herself standing in the desolate grey wasteland of the spirit world, less than ten feet from where she'd just died. The Overlook Motel still loomed grotesquely over the surrounding landscape, now shrouded with the restless spirits of murdered locals and the faint shadows of demons wandering the grounds… and somewhere inside, her body was still in there, just waiting for her to return to it and start the nightmare all over again.
"Dammit," she sighed wearily.
The ritual had been a failure, exactly as she feared it would be. After all, she'd been improvising a routine based on a procedure that hadn't been used in over thirty years, minus most of its original components: was it really so surprising that this last-ditch effort had ended in yet another defeat? At least her efforts down at Tabula Rasa had been met with some success before the Bees had fucked everything up. This, though… this had been a long shot, even after she'd borrowed the mystical equipment from Innsmouth Academy.
Still, at least everything was still in place. With a little effort, maybe she could get the ritual working on the second try; it wasn't as if she'd have to journey back and forth to every single nightmare that had been needed for her more ambitious efforts. All she'd have to do was return to her physical body (or reconstitute it at the well, but that probably wouldn't be necessary; apart from the massive hole in her skull, it was still in one piece).
And yet…
Did she really have to return to her body already?
Did she really have to wake up so soon?
It was peaceful here, peaceful in a way that only her final dreams and the bed at Tabula Rasa had ever matched. The buzzing pain in her head was muted, the endless clamour of the world smothered by the barrier between life and death, and even the crushing aware of Gaia relentlessly chipping away at her was softened until for once she could barely notice it. It was like being becalmed on a vast grey ocean, undisturbed by the wind and tide, untouched by rain or storms, with nothing to fear of what lay in the depths beneath the sunlit waters. Here, in this realm that she only visited unless she had no other choice, she was free.
Can't I just sleep? Just for a little while?
No.
She couldn't give up, not even for a moment: she needed to return. She needed to get the ritual right this time. She needed to face the consequences of her actions once and for all… or risk plunging blindly into madness.
Sighing, she took to her spectral heels and began the march back to her physical body…
Peering down from atop the highest peak of his kingdom, a spindly figure in a top hat surveyed the island, absently tapping his cane against the railings as he watched.
The Old Man regarded the Overlook Motel with annoyance at the best of times. Theodore Wicker's little party trick back in 1987 had proved an unwanted drain on his usual harvest of tourists and thrillseekers, and even after the initial frenzy of interest had faded, the abandoned building still drew in a fair number of curious morsels that had been his by right and sent them scurrying away in fear. With Solomon Island already overpopulated with monsters, the Old Man didn't need the competition.
But now it seemed as though the Overlook could serve a purpose after all: it had lured in a few enticing morsels that could still be his… and maybe, if he had enough energies stored, it could be something else – perhaps the start of something new.
The boy standing over Lorraine drew his attention once again; there was potential to this boy, a hint of a story that could sew up all the loose ends in the park's history. With a little help from Lorraine, this pockmarked brat might just be what he needed.
The night pulsed with unearthly power as the Old Man went to work, licking his pallid lips in anticipation as he began preparations for the ritual that would pave the way to eternal glory. And as his magic oozed across the island, he sang idly to himself, crooning the words of a mocking lullaby he hadn't given voice to in over thirty years.
"One little duck went out one day…"
The creatures didn't charge in.
Instead, the four-legged lurkers slunk towards the door from the left and right, while their giant ringleader with the sword marched languidly – almost casually towards them. Worse still, it was plainly obvious why: with the windows boarded up and the only other doorway out of the question, there was no chance of escape for any of them. The monsters could afford to take their time.
Almost on instinct, the two Grunkles pushed Dipper and Mabel as far behind them as they could go and took up defensive positions at the door. The twins, meanwhile, looked for a vantage point they could aim from, hoping that it'd be enough to keep them from accidentally hitting Stan and Ford when the shooting started.
So, while Mabel clambered onto the charred remains of the armoire and took aim, Dipper awkwardly crossed the circle and took up a position on the bed, trying not to shudder as he edged past Lorraine's body. It wasn't his first choice, but right now, he was out of options. Hopefully, the magnet gun wouldn't bug out on him again, and with any luck, there'd be enough metal nearby to be useful in this fight.
As he crawled onwards, though, his left hand sank into the decaying bedspread with a squelch, and Dipper let out a moan of disgust as he realized that he'd just stuck his hand right into the bloodstain now half-soaked into the mattress. Muttering a few words that would have gotten him grounded back in Oregon, he quickly wiped his hand on the only semi-clean bedsheets he could find within reach and hoped that he wouldn't lose his grip on the trigger.
But as he did so, a low whispering sound from his left drew his attention, and he turned just in time to witness perhaps the most unlikely thing he'd seen all summer.
Lorraine's corpse was beginning to twitch and shiver, the dead muscles trembling gently as the gaping wound in Lorraine's skull began to seal shut. As Dipper watched in astonishment, the pulped brains swiftly renewed themselves, fresh grey matter bubbling up like seafoam to replace what had been shot out; bone inched outwards from the edges of the crater and covered the newly formed brain, looking for all the world like a clay pot being moulded by invisible hands; skin grew and stretched itself across the bone, and fresh brown hair sprouted across it.
In a matter of seconds, Lorraine Maillard's body had repaired itself so well that it would have been impossible to tell that she'd been shot dead a moment ago – except of course for the bloodstains on her once-immaculate uniform. In fact, though her body was still as cold and lifeless as ever, she looked more like she was asleep than anything else.
Then, before Dipper's astounded eyes, Lorraine's mouth opened ever so slightly and inhaled – almost inaudible over the hissing of the oncoming monsters, but impossible to ignore. A second later, she exhaled.
The woman, whoever or whatever she really was, had started breathing again.
She was alive.
"Uh, guys?"
"Not now, kiddo."
"This is kind of important…"
"So's this!" Mabel shouted. "Get the magnet gun ready, Dipper!"
By now, the monsters had given up on drawing out the tension and were now well and truly inside the room: the lurkers had clambered onto the exterior wall and were scuttling in from the left, the right and even above the door, and though Mabel and Ford were trying to get a bead on them, it was almost impossible to aim through the heat and the smoke. All they could do was launch a few stray potshots in their direction, enough to ward them off – but not for long. This left Stan in a losing battle against the giant, unable to get within striking range what with the colossal sword it was carrying and unable to dart in from the side with only a few feet of room to spare.
All in all, they couldn't have picked a worse place for their last stand.
And then, just as Dipper was wondering if the four of them were actually about to die in an abandoned motel in Maine everything they'd been through, Lorraine's eyes fluttered open.
For a split second, her face registered something like disappointment, as if she'd been woken from a pleasant dream. Then her eyes flicked in Dipper's direction; for a moment, she could only stare in wonderment, her face chalk-white with shock.
"Callum?" she asked softly, her gaze sweeping him up and down, lingering on his face – and his cap, for some reason.
Dipper opened his mouth to correct her, only to be interrupted by an angry hiss as Mabel landed a direct hit on one of the lurkers, her grappling hook dealing it a stunning blow to the forehead. Snarling, it rushed towards her, brought up short by a hail of blaster fire from Ford.
"Callum?"
There was excitement in the woman's voice now, though she didn't appear to have noticed the brutal melee in the background.
In desperation, Dipper took aim with the magnet gun, hoping that it was strong enough to work on the giant's sword, hoping that he wasn't too late to save Grunkle Stan's life.
"CALLUM!" Lorraine shrieked.
And suddenly the previously dead woman was on her feet and in motion.
Dipper didn't even have time to react before Lorraine barrelled into him at high speed, scooping him into her arms and pressing him to her shoulder as if he weighed no more than a porcelain doll. Then, as the magnet gun went flying out of Dipper's hand, Lorraine reached out towards the oncoming monsters with her free arm and…
Lightning tore through the room, sending the nearest of the lurkers crashing to the ground in a smouldering heap.
Another bolt of electrical force exploded out of Lorraine's hand, sending another charging creature cannoning into the opposite wall with a sickening crunch – where it promptly slid down and landed right on top of Mabel.
Left and right, the monsters fell, erupting into flame as the voltage sliced through them, their bodies thudding to the floor in a haze of charred flesh and ozone.
The giant rumbled in something like alarm and shoved Stan aside, zeroing in on Lorraine; once again, though, she was already in motion. Dipper couldn't tell where she'd drawn the sword from, but it was an ugly, machete-like thing clearly not meant for Errol Flynn-style duels. The next thing Dipper knew, the two of them were flying across the room, straight at the giant, and Dipper had just enough time to let out a yowl of terror before Lorraine's blade lashed out at high speed – over the giant's sword and right at the giant's head.
There was a swish, a sound like a shovel being driven into a heap of gravel, and suddenly the giant's stony skull was flying past them in an expanding cloud of debris.
As the body collapsed to the ground behind her with earth-shaking thud, Lorraine landed elegantly in the parking lot with Dipper still clutched protectively in one arm.
Then, before Dipper had a chance to ask what had just happened, to see if the others were all alive, or at the very least to wriggle out of the strange woman's grip, she took off again; with an impossible burst of speed, she catapulted herself away, galloping across the asphalt and into the woods…
…with Dipper still in tow.
A/N: Anyone to guess what's going on and what's going to happen next? Are the codes any good? Feel free to share your theories and ideas in review form :)
And now for the code:
Kviszkh blf'ev svziw gsrh yvuliv:
Hsv rh mlg dszg hsv hvvnh.
Gsv nlmhgvi rh mlg dszg rg hvvnh.
Gvvgs zmw glk szg.
Lmv rh nliv rnkligzmg gszm gsv lgsvi.
