native wildlife
The sunrise streams in through the window over the kitchen table, giving the room a golden tint that goes well with the old cabinets and wooden floor, casting the early hours in a vintage sepia tone. It's about nine in the morning and Dipper is shoveling cereal into his mouth, eager to take advantage of the mild weather while he can; it's expected to rain again in the evening, another dark front of clouds moving steadily inland from the Pacific coast. Great for the flora and fauna, less so for his adventuring itinerary.
It seems that the short drought following the Windigo's departure is well and truly broken, and Dipper wonders if it will be an unusually wet summer even without Greg around. Or maybe the man's magical mess still lingers in the atmosphere, calling across the forests to the sea? Impossible to know for sure… unless that's something Great-Uncle Ford can measure. Dipper makes a mental note to ask about it later.
Wendy sits at the table opposite of him, helping herself to Stan's food. Dipper suspects she's supposed to be on shift, but if she's not going to say anything about it, then neither is he. Wendy has been asking about the maze, fascinated by its features and annoyed that she hadn't been invited—though, in Dipper's defense, it's not like he'd known he was going to get trapped in a maze.
"You think Ford would let me touch the heart?" she asks.
"Sure," Dipper assumes. "As long as you don't drop it and make another maze."
"And Pacifica got to carry it first? I'm so jealous." Wendy glares at him, though not in earnest. "Seriously, why do I even have a phone?"
"I didn't know," Dipper sighs for what's probably the third time. "I would have called you; I promise."
"Yeah, you'd better." Wendy takes another bite of her granola bar. "What are you up to today?"
"Heading south. Pacifica wants to see the alien crash site."
"I'm in," Wendy says immediately.
Dipper wonders, and not for the first time, just how far Wendy can push Stan's grudging affection for her before she gets fired. After Weirdmageddon, it's safe to assume she has even more leeway than the already considerably lax standards Stan kept before. Heck, Soos never got fired once in ten years—that's hard proof of Stan's hidden compassion, no matter how much he'd deny it.
"We should head out soon, it's a long hike," Dipper tells her.
He figures there's a fifty-fifty chance they'll be walking back in the rain, not that it matters if they're already headed home at that point. The supernatural wildlife of Gravity Falls, like the regular kind, tends to hole up when it's wet out, which is only a problem if they're looking for wildlife. The UFO has been moldering in the ground for millions of years and won't be relocating any time soon.
With Wendy on board, Dipper jogs upstairs to get his gear. His backpack sits by the doorframe; in a near-constant state of use, he doesn't think he's fully unpacked it even once this summer. Canteen, emergency blanket, glow sticks, compass, fire starter, flashlight, a couple MREs borrowed from the bunker, pocketknife, bug spray, water purification tablets, and a bunch of other odds and ends. He's even got a waterproof canvas and bedroll on the off chance he has to spend the night roughing it. It's about a thousand percent more gear than he'd had every time he ventured into the trees last summer, but he learned his lessons the hard way.
Mabel's backpack is right next to his, leaning against the rough wooden boards of the wall; hers is equally festooned with equipment and carabiners and stained with the marks of wear. As much as he appreciates her dedication to adventuring, he should really tell her it's okay if she wants to stay behind to spend more days with Candy and Grenda.
Mabel appears in the doorway, her hair hanging wet and heavy from the shower. "There you are! Hey, Candy and Grenda want to come, too. Cool cool?"
"Of course," he says as he shrugs the backpack up on his shoulders. So much for his theoretically generous gesture.
They meet outside near the porch, the rising sun casting long shadows across the lawn. With Candy and Grenda along the party size is now six, double what Dipper had originally anticipated.
"Okay guys," Dipper says as they all gather up. "It's kind of a hike, but I promise, Crash Site Omega does not disappoint!"
"If we're going up the back of the valley, I know a shortcut," Wendy tells them.
"Is there anywhere you don't know a shortcut to?" Mabel asks, giving Wendy a friendly poke to the shoulder.
"Yeah—my place when it's time for chores."
"Heyo!" Mabel trades a hard high five with the older girl.
Soos is sweeping the porch when they leave; he gives the group an envious look as he waves to them. Between his new responsibilities and Melody, Soos hasn't had as much adventuring time as he had last summer.
They eagerly trod down the uneven creases of Gopher Road, skirting the edge of the town before plunging into the deep forest hills that rise up the back of the valley. Wendy leads them to an old logging road; the tree stumps are dark and mossy, half-reclaimed by the old growth. It's obvious the road hasn't been in regular use for a long time.
Like most paths in Gravity Falls, there's a distressing amount of verticality and soon enough they take a break, slumping onto tree stumps and chugging from canteens.
"Stupid hill! Be flatter!" Grenda demands, stomping one foot against the earth with a crackle of snapping twigs.
"If we walk on our hands, our legs can rest," Candy says, doing an impressive handstand on her stump.
"Keep it together, girls!" Mabel exhorts. Unlike her companions, she is not visibly affected by the climb. Of course, she's been getting more than her fair share of exercise this summer. "Just think of how hot we'll be with our new hiking bods!"
"I'll make lumberjills of you yet," Wendy promises.
"How do you do it, Wendy?" Grenda asks.
Candy drops out of her handstand and peers at Wendy. "Share your flannel secrets…"
Wendy, clearly pleased by the attention, puts one foot up on a stump. "You guys ever chop down a tree before? It's never too late to learn."
Dipper brushes some pine needles off his hat and sets his backpack on the ground a second so he can stretch. The sun is still beaming down through the branches overhead, but it's already flickering in and out behind steadily thickening clouds. Looks like the rain might arrive sooner than expected, though he hopes not.
Nearby, Pacifica has seated herself on a stump. She takes a gulp from her blue canteen and lowers it, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. Despite her unflagging dedication to high SPF sunscreen, she's been outdoors enough that her arms and legs have a golden tinge, and the ends of her hair have regained their old platinum hue. Across her cheekbones, the light freckles she constantly fights with concealer are clearly visible beneath the brim of her sunhat. She doesn't wear much, if any, makeup when they march off into the unknown. She is still strikingly lovely; maybe even more so. She's so effortlessly gorgeous that it jolts his heart, some sweet string tugging him in her direction.
Dipper has struggled with the thought that he's way out of his league before. He knows it's not fair to think that way, to assume she's that shallow, but he can't help but imagine going to high school together and suddenly being surrounded by boys both taller and more conventionally handsome than he is. He's catching up in the height department, but he finds it impossible to judge his own attractiveness or the lack thereof. Again, he notes that Mabel is blossoming into a genuine beauty; he can only hope that their genes will provide him with the other side of that particular coin.
He watches the flickering sunlight play across Pacifica's perfect face and fiddles absently with the cap of his canteen, wondering if he's too sweaty to lean in for a kiss.
She notices him staring. "Take a picture, it'll last longer."
He ducks his head with a sheepish grin. "Yeah, okay."
"No, I'm serious. Take my picture." She straightens up and takes on a glamourous poise. "How's my posture? Wait, this stump is gross. Find me a better stump."
"I think stumps are just gross? I think that's kind of how they are."
"Tilt your phone up so you just see me," she commands.
Dipper hears a digital click behind him—he turns to see Mabel has beaten him to the punch, her phone held up in one hand. "Summer memories!" she says.
Dipper leaves Mabel and Pacifica conferring over the scrapbook-viability of the photo and approaches Wendy, who is still talking to Candy and Grenda. "I think we're about set," he tells her. "Does this trail run all the way to the clearing?"
"It runs to a clearing," Wendy says.
Dipper consults his compass. "As long as we keep heading this way, we should be able to orient ourselves at the top."
The logging road continues to snake along the ridge of a hill, glimpses of farmland occasionally visible where the trees thin at the edge of the sporadic fields. Dipper has spent most of his exploration time in the valley itself, rarely venturing beyond the cliffs or up the valley's steep rear hills. The plateau behind the wooded vale is mostly forest with a few scattered farms. He knows there's even a very small town or two somewhere further out there, dotting the winding dirt roads of Roadkill County. All around, the Cascades stretch out towards the left and right horizons, Mount Hood somewhere far to the north and Mount Jefferson a bit to the south. And everywhere, as far as the eye can see, the pine trees carpet the slopes and valleys, swaying beneath the endless sky.
Unfortunately, by the time they reach the crest of the first set of hills, that sky is dark and rapidly getting darker. The clearing around the dirt-shrouded swell of the spaceship is full of long grass that hisses loudly as it bends over in rippling waves; having trekked beyond the shelter of the trees, the group leans forward into the sudden wind of the stormfront. Dipper puts one hand on his hat to keep it from spinning away.
"Looks like we're getting wet!" Wendy observes, shouting to be heard over the bellowing wind and flailing grass.
"We should have driven," Dipper admits.
"It's just water, man, we're not gonna melt," Wendy says with an easy shrug.
Thunder suddenly crackles overhead and roars around the basin below, a strange auditory effect that makes it sound like it's coming from the cliffs.
"If you are going to be hit by lightning, go like this," Candy says, demonstrating a safety crouch. "Or your head will explode!"
"But I use my head!" Mabel gasps.
"Come on, let's get inside," Dipper tells them as he begins to ascend.
At the top, Dipper sets his shoulder against the rock which conceals the entrance; he's delighted to find he can move it by himself, albeit slowly. Grenda steps in and pushes it aside with ease. Below is the corroded panel over the exhaust shaft, the alien metal glittering weirdly in the light.
Dipper takes off his backpack and pulls out his magnet gun (restored to good working order by Great-Uncle Ford). When he zaps the metal plate, he realizes an instant too late that Ford made it look easy—the magnet gun still obeys the laws of physics, and Dipper finds himself flat on the ground the second he tries to pick up the heavy panel, too surprised to feel much pain.
"Oh," he says, remembering that Ford had fired the gun at the edge of the trapdoor, letting it flip over to the side… and that Ford still weighs a lot more than he does. Then, "…Ow," once his brain catches up with the rest of him.
The girls crowd around him, concerned.
"Geez, Dip!" Mabel says.
"Dude, you alright?" Wendy asks, helping him to his feet.
Pacifica swiftly steps in, brushing off his vest and straightening his hat for him as she assesses him closely. Her delicate hands brush over his temples and neck. "Okay, you're not bleeding. Lift up your shirt."
"I'm fine!" Dipper says, blushing and taking a step back. "I'm fine, I just… It's heavier than I thought."
"I got it," Grenda says confidently. She picks up the magnet gun and braces herself; the panel lifts from its setting and she drops it to the side with a muffled thud.
The group peers into the inky abyss, the ladder descending into the depths of the craft far past the point where the meagre light of the overcast day can penetrate.
"Oh, wow," Wendy says, visibly impressed. "So this goes way down."
"Yeah, so hold on tight." Dipper raises his hands in preemptive exasperation towards Pacifica. "And I won't fall!"
"You literally just fell," Pacifica drawls.
It's darker in the subterranean caverns of the ship than it had been during Dipper's last descent. Things only get worse when, as the group makes their way down the swaying ladder, the first drops of rain begin dribbling through the opening above. Dipper looks upward to gauge the severity of the rain and just as quickly ducks his head to avoid having droplets impact his eyes. By the time they reach the bottom, rain is sheeting from the narrow shaft, a funneled shower from which the only escape is the floor below.
Dipper hadn't been able to make much out on his way down; he hops off the ladder and freezes in consternation as he is immersed in water nearly up to his armpits. The interior of the vessel has become a reservoir, a current carrying it sluggishly off somewhere to the right. Dipper can hear a waterfall not far off in the interior. He isn't sure how big the ship is, but he knows it's big enough that even all the rain the Windigo brought down wouldn't be enough to fill it completely. The water is cold and slimy, and it must sit in the curvature of the upper level, only recently filled enough to spill over into the depths below.
Dipper is slow with the water at his chest, but he and Wendy, Mabel, and Grenda can still move around. Pacifica is standing on her toes, both her hands occupied with keeping her hair bundled on top of her head and away from the slimy water; poor Candy can barely keep her nose clear to breathe.
"Over here!" Wendy calls out. She's found a ledge that just barely pokes out of the water and they all slog their way over to it, Candy perched on Grenda's shoulders. They haul themselves out of the stream and crowd onto the ledge, sitting shoulder to shoulder as they watch the dark water crawl past. Far above, the opening of the exhaust shaft is clearly visible in bright bursts as lightning strobes over the hill.
"Well," Dipper says loudly over the sound of the rain plummeting through the shaft, "this isn't what I expected."
"It's Greg again," Mabel sighs.
"God, he ruins everything!" Pacifica snaps.
"I knew I should have punched him," Grenda growls.
Dipper nods regretfully. "I think this is as far as we can go today."
Wendy cranes her neck around, taking in the vast, shimmering walls and the intricate markings that cover them. "Still, this is so crazy cool! Look at this place!"
"I'm kind of surprised you never found it," Dipper tells her.
Wendy gives him a conspiratorial glance. "Dude—maybe I did."
She has a point. The Blind Eye probably knew about the buried craft, or at least knew that something weird was buried up in the hills.
"Should we stay until it stops raining?" Candy asks.
Dipper can see she's shivering, which is reason enough to go. But the flickering light from the opening betrays a worrying frequency to the lightning, and though the thunder is muffled through the earth, he can still feel it. They can handle walking back in the rain; walking back in a lightning storm is something else.
"Just until the lightning dies down," he says. He swings his pack around and digs through it until he finds his jacket, handing it to a grateful Candy.
They spend the next ten minutes or so in idle conversation, Dipper explaining what little he knows about the alien ship. Pacifica doesn't look all that disappointed about not being able to see more of it, but maybe she knows they can always come back later. All four of the girls who have never been here before seem appropriately awed by it, though Wendy is the most enthusiastic, which makes Dipper wonder if she's into aliens. Or maybe she just recognizes what a great hangout spot a buried alien ship will be.
"I wish we could have gone deeper," Dipper sighs as the thunder shudders overhead. The water raining down from the various hidden fissures above gives the massive room the ambience of a water feature; they are sitting in the middle of the world's biggest koi pond. "There's some really neat stuff down here."
"Like this?" Grenda asks, holding up a large white sphere.
"Yeah, like— wait, what?" Dipper does a double take, but when he finishes blinking, Grenda is still holding a strange pearlescent orb which glitters in the dim light. "Uh… where did you get that?"
"From the water."
Dipper quickly scans the sluggish current but doesn't see any additional spheres. He looks more closely at the orb; it's shiny like a pearl, but he can see where Grenda's fingers sink into it slightly, so it's not rigid.
"Check it out, it's sticky," Wendy says, poking at it. "What is this thing?"
"I don't know," Dipper says. "I didn't see anything like that last time."
He thinks he hears something then; distant, but weirdly familiar. A kind of clicking and chirring, hard to make out beneath the sound of the falling water.
Pacifica stiffens. "No. Way."
It takes Dipper a second to realize the implication. "Oh, you have got to be—"
But it is. The Boss-Lobster comes slopping through the slimy water, missing eyeball and all. Its attention is fixated on the orb Grenda is holding, and it doesn't take Dipper long to make the connection.
"Well… Grenda, I think you should give the Boss-Lobster its egg back," he says, more resigned than afraid.
Candy, Grenda, and Wendy, however, have never seen a Boss-Lobster before.
"What the crap is that?!" Wendy shouts, springing to her feet.
Grenda drops the egg out of pure surprise as Candy stares at the creature with fascination. "A crab and a lobster had an unholy baby!" Candy says.
"Be cool, guys," Mabel says, holding out her arms in a calming gesture. "It's just the Boss-Lobster, we're all friends here. Sort of. Hey, Dip, are we sure this isn't the only Boss-Lobster?"
"We really need to figure out how Boss-Lobsters work," Dipper replies. "Let it… her? Let her, or him, take its egg back." He holds his hands out nonthreateningly, still in the dark as to how much, if anything, the Boss-Lobster understands.
The Boss-Lobster heads for the floating egg, staying well clear of the group on the ledge. A bristling, laser-eyed Pacifica might have something to do with that. It's just about to reach the egg when there's a sudden surge of water and a loud sound from upstream, like something has given way. The current becomes full of floating clumps of wood and weeds; it looks like the remnants of a blockage, or maybe even a dam.
About six or seven more eggs are swept into view, all of them heading towards the certain doom of the floor's edge. The Boss-Lobster makes one of its buzzsaw shrieks and turns back and forth in indecision, splashing one way and then another in an attempt to catch them all.
Dipper isn't exactly fond of the Boss-Lobster, and he has a scar which serves as a reminder of why—but he also isn't heartless. "Come on, grab the eggs!" he yells, and plunges back into the freezing water.
"Yep, we're doing this," Mabel cheerfully observes as she splashes off the ledge.
Pacifica is the last one in, stubbornly staying out of the water. "…Fine," she says at last, "but only this once!"
They spread out in a wide half circle, trying to intercept the eggs before they are swept beyond reach. Wendy snags one at the far left end of their impromptu net while Grenda scoops another one up and tosses it to Candy, who is seated on her shoulders. Dipper is about to grab another one when a weight settles on his back and nearly sinks him; it's Pacifica, clambering up to wrap her arms around his neck.
"What?" she says innocently when he grunts and tries to steady himself.
He supposes he can't blame her; she can't keep her arms above water by herself. He manages to get the egg, handing it backwards to Pacifica, and then stays in position until the next one comes close enough to catch.
"Hey, Dipper?" Wendy yells. Dipper looks her way and sees her holding up her egg uncertainly. "Yo, how do we give them back without getting mauled?"
That's a very good question. The Boss-Lobster has caught one of the eggs and Dipper watches with great interest as it tucks the egg into a sort of pocket made by the indentation between two of its plates. The Boss-Lobster stands at roughly the center of the group's half circle, keeping its distance but clearly agitated by their possession of its eggs. Dipper doesn't think it will attack while they hold all the cards, so to speak, but he also isn't positive of that.
Dipper tests the weight of the egg in his arms; it's clammy and slightly squishy to hold, but it seems solid enough. He wades forward against the current for a few steps, then carefully raises the egg and shoots it like a basketball on a shallow arc so that it plops into the water not far from the Boss-Lobster. The creature immediately lunges towards it and tucks the egg safely away.
"Okay, like that!" Dipper yells back to Wendy.
It quickly becomes a game. Grenda manages to get one close enough to splash the Boss-Lobster, while Wendy backs up and throws a three-pointer. It's fun, and it's easy to forget the 'basket' is chitinous killing machine. Right up until all the eggs have been returned, and they're back to staring across the water at the Boss-Lobster, who has stopped moving and is staring back.
The only light Dipper has is his flashlight. He has a lighter in his pack, but there's nothing nearby to make a torch with that isn't soaking wet. If the Boss-Lobster decides to get aggressive, then hopefully the flashlights will be deterrent enough until they all climb up on the ladder.
Pacifica huffs out a short breath next to Dipper's ear, sharp and impatient. "You got your stupid eggs or whatever! Just go, get out of here!"
The Boss-Lobster immediately focuses on her, its legs popping up and down as if it's startled; Dipper wonders if it forgot that Pacifica is present. It rears up on its hind legs and spins around, sloshing off towards whatever is left of its nest or dam, disappearing into the darkness.
"That's what I thought," Pacifica says snootily.
Dipper lets himself relax and hears a sigh of relief from Mabel's direction. The current isn't getting any weaker and his legs are beginning to be tired from pushing against it. He glances at the exhaust shaft; the rain pouring down is no less intense and thunder is still audible, but the flash of lightning is absent.
"I think we should go up before we get too cold and tired," he shouts to the rest of the group.
The adrenaline of their monster encounter sustains them through the climb and for a portion of the return trip through the waterlogged woods. But they are all soaked to the skin and reeking of the peculiar smell of stagnant water, pungent and decayed with a strange hint of something else, something not unlike the smell that had permeated Pacifica's basement. It's a long and miserable hike home, the rain beating on the hoods of their jackets and running down legs through saturated jeans. By the time they reach the Shack, they look half-drowned.
Wendy gives Candy and Grenda a ride home, all three saying their goodbyes. Dipper jumps in the shower and lets the water run hot; it feels almost scalding, but the sensation is exactly what he needs. Soil and tiny bits of leaves run down the drain, and he wonders how much of that came from the Boss-Lobster's home, whatever it had been. It's the third time he's encountered the same creature, and yet he knows almost nothing about it.
That night, a cool front of air settles over the valley in the wake of the rainstorm. The twins push the triangular window in their room open and let the chill of the night in along with the sounding of the crickets and the distant hoot of an owl. The light is still on as Dipper lies there with his eyes half-closed, listening to Mabel talk to Waddles. Dipper doesn't feel like reading and isn't quite ready to sleep; he's just lazy, his limbs aching and heavy from the day's exertion, luxuriating in the feeling of being in his bed in his room, a summer night outside and another summer day soon to come.
He lets his arm hang idly over the side of his bed and it brushes something underneath the wooden table between his bed and Mabel's. He blindly grabs it and brings it up to the light—it's the Windigo's journal. He'd forgotten all about it, and it must have fallen off the table at some point.
He sits up a little and flips it open, thumbing through a few pages. He's never looked at it too closely before, save for briefly reading a few passages when Greg had been defeated. His eyes are too tired to really focus on Greg's poor handwriting, but he skims a couple paragraphs. Most of it is either illegible or thoroughly mundane; maybe the good stuff is towards the back.
A piece of paper falls out of the journal; it had been tucked between the back cover and the last page. It's baby blue and much brighter than the unwhitened journal pages. It looks like some kind of flyer. Dipper unfolds it. He reads it.
His jaw drops.
He sits up. "Mabel."
Mabel looks over from where she's been scratching Waddle's back. "Yeah?"
Wordlessly, he holds out the flyer.
Mabel pushes herself out of her bed and trots over to take it. She stills the second she reads the first lines.
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Self-Titled by Native Wildlife (Head2Wall, 2015)