A/N: And we're back. Still trapped away from my files, unfortunately, but at least I managed to polish this old draft into acceptability.

A hearty thank-you to all my viewers, reviewers, favouriters and followers: you keep me sane in this time of crisis and universal brouhaha. Oh, and please be warned: I'm all out of backed-up stuff after this chapter, so if I can't regain access to my files by the end of next week, it might take some time to get the next one uploaded. Full disclosure; it's not looking promising.

Anyway, without further ado, onto the next chapter: read, review and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Gravity Falls and The Park/TSW are still not mine.

This chapter's soundtrack is The Lava Theme from Heroes Of Might And Magic III.


Stan muttered a few well-chosen expletives and wondered, not for the first time, where Lorraine could have possibly gone.

Beyond the Overlook Motel's parking lot, he'd found the road, a lonely country lane creeping down a hillside towards a patch of forest-lined suburbia, but there was no way of telling which way Lorraine and Dipper could have possibly gone along it. Mabel would probably know, having taken off much sooner than he had, but she was nowhere in sight and had left no sign of where could have possibly been going.

He let out a wearied sigh and massaged his temples: now he had two missing kids roaming this godforsaken island facing Christ only knew what kind of dangers. What would he tell their parents if they got hurt or worse? How would he ever be able to look at himself in the mirror, knowing that he'd let Dipper and Mabel slip out of his reach when it had been his responsibility to keep them safe? It had been bad enough when they'd been up against the likes of Bill Cipher, back when he'd been there to watch the demented triangular bastard getting ready to murder them, but now they had all but vanished into the wilderness. The island had swallowed them up, eaten them whole and left no trace, not even bones-

No, Stan told himself. Don't go there. Don't think like that. You don't know that they're dead yet; you don't even know that they've been hurt. For all you know, they're perfectly fine: Lorraine might be crazier than a squirrel sandwich, but she can definitely tackle those monsters easier than you and she probably wants to keep Dipper safe for now… and Mabel know how to look after herself; she's a free spirit, like you, but she's not stupid. So just stay calm, stay focussed, and find some way of tracking them down.

A muffled groan from somewhere nearby shocked Stan out of his reverie, and he looked up to see a lone figure standing on the edge of the road perhaps twenty feet away, possibly a woman judging by the build. It was hard to tell, given that it was still dark out and the figure had her back to him, but she looked to be wearing a tracksuit and running shoes, her face hidden by a long, tangled mass of blonde hair. Stan could be mistaken, but it looked as if she had just jogged to a stop for a moment to catch her breath; perhaps he'd stumbled upon someone who was in the same boat as him, maybe even someone who could help out if he asked nicely.

Feeling encouraged, he called out, "Hey! Have you seen a crazy women in white run past? If not, have you seen little girl in a pink sweater?"

The jogger very slowly turned to face him, and Stan immediately realized that he'd made a terrible mistake: nobody ever turned that slowly unless they were about to go for your neck.

And then the "jogger's" face crept into view, and now there was no doubt. Beneath the matted locks of blonde hair, the face was ashen with decay and caked in dried blood, the eyes glassy and vacant, the fingers tipped with crude claws that looked to have punched right through the flesh, the mouth gaping open into a maw full of jagged, sharklike teeth.

The dead eyes widened, almost lighting up with hunger as they alighted on Stan. A low, hoarse moan of hunger rippled up from the depths of the monster's throat; its arms rose from its side, slowly stretching out towards him, and Stan barely had enough time to think oh god, not these things again before the zombie launched itself at him.

Stan wasn't used to zombies moving at any speed beyond a leisurely stroll, so the jogger zombie's wild sprint caught him almost completely off-guard; he barely had enough time to grab for the first weapon in reach before the damn thing was almost on top of him. This one was too fast for his knuckle-dusters, and Stan wasn't going to risk getting his fingers anywhere this thing's jaws, so there was only one thing that could possibly save him at this point.

The first bolt from Ford's blaster caught the zombie square in the chest, tearing off one of its arms and setting its tracksuit on fire. Unsurprisingly, it just kept on running, moaning louder and angrier than ever; praying that his next shot would be enough to knock the damn thing down long enough for him to get moving again, Stan took aim one last time and fired.

This time, the bolt caught the zombie square in the head with a loud, wet plop, bursting it like a dropped melon and sending a spray of reddish-grey gunk arcing out into the night. Instantly, the rampaging zombie crashed to the ground in mid-run and lay still.

Stan immediately started running, expecting the zombie to put its head back together again and charge after him within the next twenty seconds. But after making it to the top of the hill at the north-western end of the road, he glanced over his shoulder to make sure that he still had a headstart of at least fifteen feet – only to realize that he was alone. Blinking in confusion, he stopped and peered down the road: the downed zombie was still lying in the middle of the road several yards away, dead and inanimate to all appearances. For the next fifty seconds, Stan kept his eyes trained on the body, wondering when it was going to get up, keeping his blaster at the ready just in case. But after watching it for almost a full minute, Stan was forced to conclude that he'd either been stuck with the lone narcoleptic zombie of the local horde, or the zombie was, in fact, dead.

Hot Belgian waffles, he thought. That's one thing on my side: the zombies in this universe can be killed without a three-part harmony. That's got to make up for the fact they're fast… hopefully. Question is, what the hell do I do now? And is that an engine I can hear?

Sighing, he turned back towards the north-western end of the road, toward the near-vertical cliff face and the tunnel built into its base…

…only to almost get run over by the biggest, ugliest motorbike he'd ever seen in his entire life. Its bodywork looked as if it had been made from bones and muscle; there was even a skull with glowing eye sockets in place of headlights. And for some reason, the guy driving this particular bike appeared to be dressed all in gold: gold silk tuxedo, gold leather shoes, gold top hat, gold bow tie, and even a gold-rimmed monocle, of all things.

Following close behind it was a woman in a symbol-studded white lab coat and black leather gloves, a leather-bound book strapped to her back, her face hidden behind the glaring mask of samurai's helmet; all well and good, except she appeared to be riding a glowing blue Segway.

Alongside her galloped a bewildering figure: this one was wearing a spacesuit, armed with a futuristic raygun, and sitting astride a reindeer.

And weaving in and out of the trio was a man dressed up as a ninja, complete with a sword strapped to his back… but he was riding a wheel-less skateboard that didn't appear to touch the ground.

Stan watched in bewilderment as the baffling quartet roared past him without stopping, slowing down, or apologizing for almost running him over. They didn't even bother speak to him, much less offer him a ride to the nearest down, even though Lorraine had made travelling on foot on this island sound tantamount to suicide. In the end, all Stan could do was watch as the bizarrely-dressed posse vanished into the distance, wondering if he'd started hallucinating.

I swear to God, if I smell toast, I'm gonna be mad as hell: I didn't live this long, travel this far and KO Bill Cipher just to be taken out by a stroke.

But then Stan began to wonder a bit: Lorraine had mentioned having bad experiences with strangers in weird clothes, had even held him at gunpoint because he'd looked like he might be one of them. She'd mentioned not wanting to go back, as if these strangers had been sent to retrieve her, had maybe tried once already if Lorraine's foul temper was any evidence.

But could the four riders who'd just rocketed past him be the people that Lorraine had been so afraid of? Could they have been sent to bring her back home, wherever home was? It certainly seemed possible: after all, they didn't seem afraid of the dangers on the road and judging by the terrifying assortment of weaponry they'd been packing, they probably wouldn't need to worry about being stranded on foot if the worst came to the worst – exactly the sort of people you'd send into a war zone to capture a dangerous fugitive. Come to think of it, that was probably the very reason why they'd left Stan on the side of the road: with his suit, bolo tie, fez, eyepatch and ray gun, the riders could have mistaken him for one of them just as Lorraine had.

But why do they want her back? Stan wondered. Did she kill someone? Or maybe this isn't the first time she's snatched a kid. Or maybe she's a deserter: she looked pretty weirdly dressed herself, so maybe she's one of them.

He shook his head irritably; he couldn't afford to get caught up in wondering, not while Dipper and Mabel were still missing. He needed to find them soon, before something terrible happened; he'd leave puzzling and theorizing up to Ford, maybe to Dipper if he had the time. For now, he needed to pick a direction – and quickly.

Mulling over everything he knew about Solomon Island so far, he decided to take the road north. He didn't have a map of the place, but from the looks of things, there was nothing to the south but zombie-infested ruins and far too much road with no shelter to the west; north was the only sensible option left. Besides, Lorraine had mentioned a town – Kingsmouth – north of the tunnel, somewhere safe by the sounds of things, and if she cared enough about Dipper to keep him safe in spite of the kidnapping, maybe she'd be headed there. But then, even if Lorraine wasn't going in that direction at all, Stan desperately needed help: he needed information, maps, reinforcements and maybe even one of the weirdos' crazy motorbikes if it could help him catch up with Lorraine any quicker.

So, he thought, guess I'm shipping off to Kingsmouth.

As he set off, he belatedly remembered that Lorraine had advised him not to get out of his car until he'd reached the sheriff's office, a bit of a problem since he didn't actually have the Stanmobile on hand. But for now, there wasn't much he could do about it and there weren't any alternate routes he knew of. All he could do was sprint onwards towards the yawning tunnel in the cliff face, hoping against hope that he'd made the right choice…


Ford had patched himself up as best as he could, but he wasn't going to be in any fit state to run for at least an hour or two.

For now, all he could do was explore the motel in search of something, anything that could help Stanley find Dipper and Mabel. True, he had the remaining contents of Lorraine's bafflingly capacious backpack on his side, but until he was certain that the Overlook Motel was safe, he couldn't sit down to properly inspect them. He needed to find somewhere quiet where he could work and think in peace, and right now, Room 13 or the Motel Carpark didn't qualify.

More importantly, he needed to see if there was anything else left in the area that might offer some idea as to what Lorraine had been up to in room 13. He'd seen the circle she'd drawn on the ground, yes, and he'd seen the obvious attempts at performing a ritual, but what had she actually been trying to do? The ritual itself appeared to have failed, for there was no sign of any magical residue in the room, so it probably wasn't the cause of Lorraine's resurrection. But if that was really true, what had she meant to do?

Come on, Ford, he told himself. You're overthinking things again. Remember what Stanley told you: sometimes a cigar's just a cigar. If a woman turns up dead from a very blatantly self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, then it doesn't matter how many candles she lit beforehand. It was just a suicide.

But no matter how many times Ford repeated this inside his head, he couldn't quite convince himself that it was true.

Sighing, he made for the one other room in the motel that hadn't been boarded up – reception. As expected, the place was in ruins, but of a more conventional kind: this building hadn't seen guests in several decades by the looks of things, and so reception had been allowed to gently collapse into undignified ruins; the carpet was befouled with a million putrid stains, layered with dust and sporadically dotted with bald patches; the wallpaper was peeling away, exposing mouldering brickwork; the windows were cracked and broken, assuming a single shard of glass remained in them at all; the furniture was either collapsing or lost amidst snowdrifts of dust, except for the rotten hulk of the front desk. But no matter how mundane this place appeared, it was still lit by the same hellish red-and-orange glow from outside, still infected by whatever monstrousness had invaded the motel grounds.

Ford hobbled over to one of the sagging armchairs in the corner and painstakingly lowered himself into it, wincing all the while. From what little he'd seen thus far, none of the monsters seemed particularly interested in this part of the motel, so hopefully he'd have enough peace and quiet to check through Lorraine's bag… and with any luck, find some clue as to where she might be heading.

By now, the bag was almost empty except a jumbled collection of miscellanea at the bottom, including a withered-looking teddy bear, a dog-eared copy of I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, an even-more battered copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales, a small leather-bound diary, a stapled bundle of official-looking papers, a slightly-charred letter in a plastic sleeve, and a necklace with a silver pedant in the shape of a hatchet.

Curious, Ford flipped through the papers first. The topmost item immediately caught his eye, given that it wasn't a single paper so much as the remains of one: someone had torn it to pieces, but Lorraine had evidently managed to rescue enough of it to glue together on a single sheet of paper. As such, this first item was still woefully incomplete, but even these few tattered shreds provided enough tantalizing details to get Ford's attention:

left the patient with significant trust issues…

self-destructive…

potential for violence…

has not been able to move on from Callum's death, having lacked the emotional support to properly mourn; I suspect overwork and the stress inherent to wetwork may have played a role in…

suffering from a possible disconnect from reality…

in denial over the matter, and may have been latching on to a substitute in the absence of her real son…

should not be allowed to continue active duty any longer…

the possibility of further mental deterioration cannot be underestimated.…

Ford took a deep breath.

The document certainly cast Lorraine's abduction of Dipper in a very unfortunate light; but unfortunately, it still didn't give him enough information as to where she might be going or what she intended to do with Dipper.

Perhaps-

"Hey."

Hands flying to his holster, Ford leapt from the chair, knee screaming in pain as he levelled his blaster at the apparition emerging from the shadows.

"Relax, pal," chattered the figure. "You're not in the wild west anymore; you're in hell, you dig?"

Ford very slowly lowered his gun and took in the baffling stranger before him. As far as first impressions could tell, he was human, tall, skinny, dark-haired, and somewhere in the vicinity of his late thirties or early forties. He wasn't exactly the most intimidating sight, rumpled and woozy as he was: his hollow-looking cheeks sported at least three weeks of beard growth, and judging by his wobbling walk, he was either drunk or high as a kite. Most baffling of all were his clothes, for he was dressed in a battered pair of camo trousers, a button-up camo shirt that looked as if it had been slept in, a brown leather jacket that had miraculously escaped from the 1970s, a pair of aviator shades that completely obscured his eyes… and an antique camera draped around his neck.

"Who are you?" Ford demanded.

"Just a squatter, same as you. Daniel Bach's the name – freelance journalist, ex-New York Times."

"Stanford Pines, independent researcher… er, I know this might sound weird, but what the hell are you doing here? You say you're a squatter, but… well, I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a lot of monsters around and not much in the way of food and water."

"Oh yeah," Bach chortled. "The demons. Yeah, they're tricky customers, but there ain't a whole lot I can do about them. Demons are just what I gotta put up with if I wanna enjoy the ambience of this cosy little Holiday Inn."

"Hang on, these are demons? Actual demons from hell?"

"Sure: incubi, succubi, rakshasa… definitely noisy neighbours, plus the supplies are always pretty thin on the ground, but believe me, I've slept in rougher places than this: Afghanistan, Iraq, Liberia, Chechnya… whenever there was a war, I got myself assigned to report on it. Never got to report on Tokyo, though – cryin' shame, too; I've heard a couple of secret reports from that neck of the woods, and goddamn, it sounds crazier than any warzone I've ever covered. Here, though…"

The journalist shrugged. "Eh, the demons don't take much of an interest in me; by now, I've been around that ol' smell of brimstone so long they probably don't even know I'm there. Hell, they probably think I'm one of 'em. As for food, the bees stop by every now and again, leave me some hot food and fresh coffee; think they've been doing it for most of the locals on this fucked-up island, really. But if they don't reach me this week, eh, not as much of a problem as you think. I've got my old standbys. Speakin' of which, you want some?" He rattled a pill bottle in the air.

Ford took a deep breath, trying to assimilate everything he'd just heard. Even if he'd had anything to say, he probably wouldn't have been able to get a word in edgewise, given how quickly Bach had been speaking; in any event, it seemed that first impressions were correct: Bach was indeed high. Of course, that didn't necessarily mean he wasn't worth listening to, but it meant that Ford would have to work very hard at sifting through all the information the amphetamine-addled reporter had just thrown in his lap.

"No thanks," he said at last.

"Suit yourself." Bach shook out a generous helping of pills into his hand and downed them all at once without so much as bracing himself.

"Who are the… bees?"

"Oh, lots of names for those guys: bees, Gaia's Chosen, agents, out-of-towners… chances are you'll see 'em the moment you set foot outside the parking lot, 'cuz they're all over this damn island, solving problems and doing errands for every luckless bastard from Fletcher Bay to Azeban Span. You'll know 'em on sight, too: even if they aren't using their freaky-deaky powers, they'll be wearing the weirdest shit. Last guy who wanted a word with me was dressed in nothing but a mankini and a gas mask, if you can believe it."

Ford's brow wrinkled.

"As for what I'm doing here, I wound up on Solomon Island before all this crazy fog business went down, about… oh, months ago, I guess. Dunno how long I've been here or how long the Fog's been here, but I know we've had at least one Christmas since then. No snow, but we had Christmas. Halloween wasn't fun, let me tell ya: cat gods, living urban legends, radio ghosts in the graveyards and weird horsemen all over the place. Still, way better all the Krampuses and Mayan zombies that showed up last Christmas. Anyway, back when I got here, I was on the trail of the tastiest mystery I ever got my teeth into: the disappearance of Theodore Wicker. You ever hear of him?"

Ford shook his head. Truth be told, even if he had known about this Wicker character, he'd have been too derailed by the mention of Krampuses and Mayan zombies to nod.

"Not surprising. You look new to all this secret world bullshit. Anyway, Theodore Wicker, 'The Crowley of Soho' they called him. Oxford scholar, occultist, and from what my sources tell me, a genuine mage. Said to be the greatest master of portal magic ever seen in this Age, whatever the hell that means. He had some of the biggest occult cabals in the world lookin' to poach him for membership, everyone from the Templars to the Illuminati wanting him in their corner… but instead, he came all the way up here to Bumfuck Maine in 1987. Booked himself into room 13 and nobody ever saw him again; a few other guests went the same way, and the Overlook was shut down. Quarter of a century later, I picked up Wicker's trail and started investigating, eventually wound up here: turns out Wicker wanted to go to Hell – literally."

"…why?"

"Why's anyone wanna go to Hell? I don't know, and I've been chasin' it most of my life. All I know is that every now and again, some of the bees actually go through that door in room 13, if you can believe it: they followed Wicked to Hell and back, literally. Don't got a helluva lot to say about whether or not they met him, though: all they're up to telling me is that there's some kinda civil war in Hell."

Not for the first time, Ford wondered if running after Stan might have been a much more productive use of his time than listening to the demented ramblings of an Adderall-frenzied adrenaline junkie with a fetish for the Inferno.

"Anyway, I couldn't follow Wicker's trail any further after that. Just trying to get the door open nearly killed me, and from what the bees say, it's pretty lethal to humans in Hell. What I hear is that Wicker had to make himself into a demon just to live there, and even the bees can't survive for long; your blood turns to metal in your veins after a while, or so they say. I mean, sure, the bees can come back from the dead, but that doesn't mean you wanna keep doing it, am I right?"

Well, that's an interesting detail, Ford mused silently. Assuming he's right about them being able to come back from the dead, does that mean that Lorraine was one of them?

"So I stuck around here for a while, not sure what to do next… and then the Fog came and it all went tits up: outside the Overlook, they've got their own problems – zombies, pale men from the sea, giant bugs, walkin' scarecrows, Orochi security forces, pumpkin people, animated scrapheaps, you name it… but up here around the Overlook, we've got demons. Story goes that Hell's pushin' back against Wicker – he invaded them, so they're trying to invade us, drain the world dry so they can go on living: that's why this motel looks so fucked-up. And they just happened to pick the time when everyone else on the island was busy with the zombies. Some of the bees tried to evacuate me to Kingsmouth, but I told them where to ram it: I'm fine enough staying here, enjoying the atmosphere while it lasts. You dig?"

Ford hesitated. "You say the demons are unique to the Overlook?"

"That's right, or so I hear: when the bees get chatty, that's what they talk about."

"So they didn't bring the Fog… but if that's the case, what did?"

"Beats me. So, what brings you here?"

There was a long, uncomfortable silence as Ford tried to think of a rejoinder: after all, Bach had been sitting here, enjoying his pills and the atmosphere for so long he might not have even noticed the brief clash between the Pines and the demons, much less Lorraine's visit to room 13… but he had to at least give it a try.

"Do you know anything about the woman who was staying in room 13 earlier?"

Bach's pallid face contorted with the effort of remembering. "Oh," he said at last, "Her. Weird broad, that one, even by bee standards. I could tell she was a bee – she's still got that smell around her. You learn to recognize that smell: honey, on their breath, in their hair, in their sweat, in their tears, even on their lips if you're in a kissable mood or so I hear. It takes a little while before you can really pick up on it, but once you notice it, it's impossible to ignore. Anyway, I saw her dicking around in there a few hours ago. Thought she was another one on the trail of Wicker, so I didn't say nothing… but then she kept sneaking out to check the coast was clear. She was up to somethin' in that room. She didn't want to follow Wicker – don't ask me how I know, but I know it: she wanted something else."

"Did she say anything while she was here?"

"Not to me: she kept herself to herself, mostly. Don't think she wanted much to do with the other bees, either; they're all busy with what's been happening up in Tokyo, so they haven't been stopping by as much. I think I heard her sayin' something about sneaking into Innsmouth Academy to steal something. Maybe I was mixing the pills a bit by then, but I think she said she might have to head back there anyway if things didn't work out."

Innsmouth Academy, Ford thought. Maybe that's where she's headed… and if not, maybe there's some sign of where she's gone there. In fact, there's only one problem in the meantime…

"Where's Innsmouth Academy?"


Mabel was beginning to lose the trail.

More worryingly, she was beginning to lose steam: for the last few hundred yards, she'd been managing to keep pace with Lorraine's glowing trail of footprints, even when it led her right through the middle of a dormant pack of zombies.

That in itself had been quite an adventure – emerging from the depths of Black Goat Pass to find the bridge ahead was blocked by a horde of zombies taking their evening nap on the road. Fortunately, Mabel had been able to cross the bridge with relative ease: there'd been a bus crashed on the opposite side of the bridge, and a well-fired shot from the grappling hook had sent her shooting over the slumbering zombies without waking a single one of them up.

She'd carried on for another little while, with the eerily-still ocean on her left and the ominously dark forest on her right and the Fog-shrouded sky looming over the whole grisly picture, until at last the trail had led her off the road and uphill into the forest. Unfortunately, it was then that Mabel encountered the first major problem with travelling through the woods in the middle of the night: it was a little hard to navigate.

By now, Mabel guessed she'd travelled about twenty feet, couldn't find her way any further through the trees, couldn't find her way out, and couldn't tell where the heck she was going. It had been mildly amusing the first time she had accidentally walked into a tree; the seventeenth time crossed the line from embarrassing to downright infuriating. She didn't have a flashlight with her, of course, and while Lorraine's trail of footprints still glowed faintly in the gloom, it was slowly beginning to fade, leaving her with no light sources and no trace of Dipper's kidnapper.

Of all the times I had to travel without my light-up sweater, she thought gloomily.

She wasn't scared: after being pitted against gnomes, sea monsters, ghosts, dinosaurs, Gideon Gleeful, giant island heads, an army of zombies, a shapeshifting monster, murderous dating sims, Claymation monsters, a spider-woman and Bill Cipher himself, there wasn't much left in the dark that could possibly scare her. Right now, she was just angry – angry at Lorraine, angry at all the zombies she'd had to avoid, angry at the island, angry at the fact that she'd been travelling for over a mile and hadn't seen a single bucket of glitter paint, and angry at whatever was growling at her.

Wait, growling?

As dark as it was, there was still enough moonlight streaming through the trees for her to dimly glimpse the road ahead of her if she was in the right direction; as it was, there was also enough light to faintly outline the shape of something squatting in the path ahead of her – something large, human-shaped, splayed across the ground on all fours, and sporting eyes that glowed faintly in the dark.

"Oh," Mabel muttered.

The figure growled again. This time, Mabel felt hot breath on her face and caught a stomach-churning aroma of roadkill and butcher's shop windows gone horribly wrong.

"Nope," said Mabel, and without missing a beat, fired the grappling hook straight upwards. Next thing she knew, she was hurtling directly upwards, away from the gaping jaws and the jagged teeth, and into the upper branches of the nearest tree.

On the downside, she hadn't found herself in the canopy: the trees were too tall for that, and the grapnel had only snagged on one of the branches about fifteen feet up. However, she'd risen high enough to pass through the densest layer of the forest, so at least she had enough light to see what she was doing.

Unfortunately, the monster below her didn't seem interested in giving up. With a snarl of rage, it flung itself against the tree and began furiously clawing at the trunk and roots with its front claws, even tearing loose huge chunks of bark with its teeth. At first, Mabel thought the thing was trying to bring down the tree itself, but as she looked closer, she realized that it was actually swallowing each mouthful of bark; peering into the gloom, she dimly recognized similar-looking bite-marks on other trees behind it. Even the boulders strewn across the path around it hadn't been spared a gnawing.

Deciding not to stick around to see just how hungry the monster could possibly get, Mabel aimed for the next tree branch overhead, ziplining towards the canopy. She'd no earthly clue where she was going, only that she had to escape.

Maybe, she thought deliriously, if I can just get right into the treetops, I'll be able to see Dipper from up there.

And no sooner had those words crossed her mind, there was a flash of light from somewhere in the distance, just over the edge of the treeline. Someone with glowing gold footprints had taken a shortcut through the forest below and was now making their way out of the forest and onto the road less than a thousand yards away.

Letting out a sharp hiss of breath, Mabel readied her grappling hook and shot forward, zipping across the woods, towards the fleeing kidnapper…


"What the heck was that?!"

"It's just a wendigo, Little Duck; don't worry, mommy won't let it hurt you. It can't catch up with us now."

"But why was it biting the trees?"

"It's hungry. They're all hungry, really. Ever since the Fog came, there's been no people around for the wendigos to eat, so they just have to make do with trees and boulders until travellers come along. Sometimes they go to war with the ak'ab and the sasquatch, but usually they go straight for the army camp just off Kraken Cove; they can't hurt us, Callum. We're safe now."

"Oh. Fair enough."

By now, Dipper had just about given up on trying to memorize the path through the woods that Lorraine had taken. Even if it hadn't been too dark to find even a hint of the trail, there were simply too many twists and turns, too much backtracking and chicanes, as if she was trying to shake off pursuers that only she could see. For a while, Dipper had been certain that she'd been moving in a spiral; it had been here that they'd encountered the wendigo just long enough for him to notice its eating habits, before Lorraine had given it a thorough scorching.

Eventually, though, they'd emerged from the trees and galloped out onto a lonely stretch of road carved through one of the more imposing foothills, clifftops looming over them on both sides. It had been here that Lorraine had done her best to soothe him, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Dipper was in no mood to be calmed down as long as he was still being kidnapped.

Dipper had barely enough time to take in much of the territory, let alone memorize it. In truth, he only managed to catch a split-second glimpse of a sign proclaiming "WENDIGO WAY" before Lorraine put on another improbable burst of speed and catapulted herself onwards – around a corner, over a bridge, and out onto a hillside before she finally skidded to a halt.

Somehow, they'd ended up standing on the edge of an embankment leading down to a wide stretch of swampland surrounded on all sides by high cliffs; the only thing that wound have stopped them from rolling straight downhill into the marsh was a small outcropping, flanked on either side by steep slopes leading right down into the stagnant waters below. With the outcropping in the way, it was difficult for Dipper to get a good look at the swamp itself, but he could just about discern a cluster of tiny islands and dead trees protruding from a bubbling quagmire of cloying black mud.

Further up the embankment, between them and the bog, sat a small cluster of tents and equipment pieces, most of it having unfolded from a huge truck parked on the side of the road. At first, Dipper thought the place was deserted, but then he saw a brightly-coloured flicker of motion from the corner of his eye, and realized that there was one camper still on site: a lone figure in a bright yellow hazmat suit sat disconsolately on a boulder at the far edge of the camp, their identity hidden behind a tinted visor.

"What is this place?" he whispered.

"A CDC encampment."

The CDC have gotten involved now? We've got zombies, wendigos, hotel monsters, haunted houses and abandoned amusement parks down here, and only now we've got the government involved? And why's there only one guy on duty.

As the two of them crept inside the camp, the hazmat-suited camper must have heard Lorraine's footsteps, because the visored face immediately shot upwards at cobra speed.

"Jesus," said the figure, the slightly muffled voice of a woman issuing from behind the visor. "For a moment I thought the zombies had finally got interested in me. Uh, I don't think I've seen either of you around here before, but I can guess from the smell of honey that-"

"Shut up," Lorraine hissed.

"I was just-"

"I don't give a damn what you were doing. If you know what's good for you, you'll shut up and listen to me."

There was no warmth and care in her voice now; the loving mother was gone, replaced by something cold, ruthless, unrelenting, and desperate. Dipper had last seen this side of her when he'd made the mistake of suggesting that they head for the amusement park, and now it was back, but now with an added dose of venom.

"You didn't see either of us, Ms Chen: if any Bees or Council agents come sniffing for information, you didn't see either of us. For now, my son is going to be staying in your camp and you will do everything in your power to protect him while I'm away; if someone or something comes for him, you will put yourself between it and him. If my son ends up hurt or captured because of your negligence, I will hold you responsible, and I will do everything in my power to introduce you to the things living in the Bog below – including your former teammates. Do I make myself clear?"

"…y-yes."

"Good. Now stand aside and don't speak to me again."

Seemingly oblivious to her "son's" growing terror, she drifted away from the terrified Ms Chen and towards the barracks tent behind her. From the looks of things, it had been sitting here for several months, and from the looks of things, the lone resident hadn't been anywhere near it during that time.

"I'm going to need you to stay put for a while," Lorraine murmured – her voice warm and motherly once again. "I'll be checking the mountain for a safe route to the top, and I can't bring you along: it's too dangerous."

"But-"

Without waiting for Dipper to finish his sentence, Lorraine unzipped the entrance and ushered him inside, past the rows of camp beds that hadn't been slept in for God only knew how many months, and finally sat him down on bed at the very end of the tent (presumably Ms Chen's). Unlike the other ones, though, this one didn't have sheets – not even the cheap, waterproofed gear draped over the abandoned beds: instead, it had a well-padded sleeping-bag.

To Dipper's surprise, he soon found himself unceremoniously tucked into the sleeping bag, Lorraine ignoring his protests every step of the way. It wasn't until Dipper had been fully cocooned in the bag and laid down on the camp bed that Lorraine finally spoke to him again.

"Just stay here for now, okay?" she murmured. "Ms Chen will look after you: she never leaves her post. Stay right here in the tent; I'll be back as soon as I've found a path to the summit."

And with that, Lorraine zipped the tent shut, her footfalls retreating softly into the night and leaving him with only the faint sound of the hazmat suit's respirator for company.

Dipper had been meaning to stay as wide-awake as possible, but after being dragged from one end of the island to the next by a madwoman and facing threats that had made the worst of Gravity Falls look cute and cuddly, he simply didn't have the energy to disobey. After all, it had been evening when he'd fallen through the dimensional rift, and he'd already been pretty tuckered out after all the fun he'd had that day; right now, his eyelids were already starting to droop, and the more he tried to think about running for it, the more his thoughts kept drifting back to how cosy it was in his sleeping bag.

Besides, where could he go? He didn't know where he was or where the others could be right now; even if they were still up at the motel, Dipper probably wouldn't be able to find his way back there without a map of some kind. For now, the best thing he could do would be to get some shut-eye: maybe, if he was fully rested, he could find some way of escaping from Lorraine; maybe finding a path back to the Overlook would be easier in the daylight.

Trying to tell himself he was making the right choice, Dipper snuggled down low in the sleeping back, drew the hood over his head, and settled into a fitful, haunted sleep…


Far away, the Old Man watched Lorraine's progress as she tried in vain to find a path over the mountain.

You'll find no respite at the top of the mountain, honeychild, he purred to himself. Wherever you go, you'll find yourself cornered by another one of your fellow agents. North, south, east or west, it doesn't matter: they'll always find you in the end. And I know you're not desperate enough to take your little boy into Blue Ridge Mine.

You're scared. I can tell by the way you spoke to the CDC bitch. Now that your fondest wish has finally come true, you're terrified that someone's going to snatch it away like everything else, and that any minute, someone will take away your baby boy. That fear makes you cruel. Makes you stupid. Makes you… desperate. Ripe.

You'll be back. Sooner or later, you'll have no choice but to leave the mountain and head east, towards Kingsmouth… and you won't be able to stay there for long without catching the eye of the Bees or the Council. Before long, you'll be headed right back to the savage coast.

Back to my arms.

A long black tongue oozed across the Old Man's pallid lips.

Come to daddy…


A/N: Any guesses what might happen next? Feel free to elaborate in your lovely reviews!

And now for the quote:

Uork gsv ullo.

Blf pmld gsv ulloh dvoo vmlfts yb mld, hdvvgormt.

Gsvb ziv yizev vmlfts gl gzpv gsv urihg hgvk.

Gsvb ziv izhs vmlfts gl gzpv gsv kofmtv.

Xzm gsvb hgvk rmgl gsv tlowvm ortsg?

Xzm gsvb nzpv gsv Szmtvw Nzm hvv gsv gifgs?