Author's Note: Okay guys last part of the Episode, please enjoy.
Body Snatchers (Part 3)
This was it…
The moment of truth.
The held their breaths as they stood outside of the door to the office of the Gravity Falls Gossiper with the sheriff and his deputy by his side.
Stan could hardly keep himself from screaming, he was so thrilled. An actual crime bust! And it had nothing to do with him! For some reason he thought such an occasion deserved a medal, and Ford just might be inclined to agree.
"You kids better be right about this, or you'll never hear the end of it," Blubs warned.
"The evidence is irrefutable," Ford said.
"It's so irrefutable!" Stan echoed as Fids stood behind him, using him as a shield.
Blubs grinned and raised his knight stick. "Ready?"
Durland got his out and fought off Blubs' stick like they were playing swords. "Yeah, man, yeah!"
"Let's do this! One...two...three!"
He and Durland kicked the doorknob, smashing the lock clear through the wooden frame. They dashed inside, with the boys hot on their heels.
The office of the Gossiper was slightly smaller than the Shack's living room, and the walls were covered with bulletin boards, papers stapled to the wall, and a couple of poodle-themed calendars from 1982. Toby Determined was sitting at a chipped metal desk in front of a massive typewriter. He was wearing the exact same clothes as he had yesterday and reading a copy of the morning's Gossiper.
"NOBODY MOVE!" Blubs shouted. "This is a raid!"
Toby Determined promptly fell out of his chair. "What is this? Some kind of raid?" he asked.
Durland smashed a tacky table lamp with his night stick.
Ford marched over to Toby. "Toby Determined, you are under arrest for the murder of Wax Dipper!"
"You have the right to remain impressed...with our awesome detective work!" Stan added, and they high-fived again.
"Also please don't kill us." Fids added.
Toby got to his feet, sweating nervously. "Uh, did I miss something again? Wh-what's going on exactly?"
"Allow me to explain," Ford said. "You were hoping that Grauntie Mabel's new attraction would be the story that saved your failing newspaper. But when the story was a flop, you decided to go out and make your own headline."
Stan held up the newspaper Toby had dropped. There was a picture of Dipper's Wax head on the cover, exactly the way it looked when it got chopped off.
"But you were sloppy," Ford continued, "And all the clues pointed to a shabby-shoed reporter who was caught left-handed."
Stan grinned, remembering the hole in Toby's shoe and how he'd held up the turkey baster with his left hand. "Toby Determined," he said smugly, crumpling up the paper, "Your yesterday's news."
Toby, however, had stopped sweating almost entirely. "Boy, your little knees must be sore... from jumping to conclusions." He said, dancing excitedly. "Hachacha! I had nothing to do with that murder."
"I knew it!" Ford shouted, before his words sank in. He did a double-take. "Wait, wha...?"
"What was that again?" Stan asked, sticking a finger in his ear to clean it.
"But the news story." Fids said. "How did you get a picture?"
"I just peaked through the window and got the picture last night when the cops weren't lookin. I listen in on their radios." Toby explained
"If you didn't have anything to do with it, then where were you the night of the break-in?" Durland demanded.
"Ehh..." Toby looks nervous as he inserts a tape into a TV. It starts playing, and it shows him taking a cardboard cutout of Tambry Valentino out of his closet. "Finally, we can be alone, cardboard cutout of TV news reporter Tambry Valentino!" He says as he kisses it.
Blubs leaned closer. "Time stamp confirms it. Toby, you're off the hook, you freak of nature."
"Hooray!" Toby exclaimed.
"But...but it has to be him!" Ford sputtered. "Check the ax for fingerprints!"
Blubs held up the ax and dusted it while Durland shone a tinted light on the handle. "No prints at all," Blubs reported.
"No prints?" Ford whispered.
"Hey, I got a headline for ya!" Durland said to Toby. "'City Kids Waste Everyone's Time'!"
"Hey," Stan said, but Ford was looking down and biting his lip the way he always did when he got bullied. Fids looked down too. He wasn't feeling too hot, himself.
"Boy, I'd be pretty embarrassed if I was you guys!" Toby said. Behind him, the security tape showed him hugging the cut-out.
"Come on guys the funeral will be soon." Stan said as he led them out. "Jerks!" He exclaimed.
(Back at the Mystery Shack…)
Ford watched Grauntie Mabel approach the podium. They'd moved it to the parlor for Wax Dipper's funeral service. The remaining lawn chairs had been set up inside, even though the audience consisted solely of the remaining wax figures, Ria, Fid's and the twins. Mabel had set up a small table of hot coffee and fake candles on one side of the room, and even lit a fire in the fireplace. At the front of the room, next to the podium, Wax Dipper's head lied in his coffin. The wall behind it had been decorated with drapes and a framed photo of Mabel and her wax twin. It was quiet – especially with a bunch of wax replicas for an audience – but Ford could practically hear a depressing organ music. Even Stan wasn't cracking any jokes at how ridiculous this was.
Grauntie Mabel cleared her throat. "Kids...Ria...lifeless wax figures," she began. "Thank you all for coming." She paused to take a deep breath. "Some people might say that it's wrong for a woman to love a twin made of wax."
"They're wrong!" Ria shouted, springing to her feet.
"Easy, Ria." Mabel turned to the coffin. "Wax Dipper, I hope you're reading nerdy detective novels in Wax Heaven..." She started choking up. "I'm sorry, I got glitter in my eyes!"
Mabel ran for the door, sobbing loudly. Ria ran after her, leaving the twins and Fids sitting quietly in their seats. Stan stared down at the ax, lying crosswise on his lap. Ford leaned back with a sigh.
"Those cops were right about me," he said glumly.
"Sixer, we've come so far," Stan said. "We can't give up now!"
"Yeah." Fids agreed. "Mrs. Pines seemed so upset we have to finish this for her."
"But I considered everything!" Ford said, getting to his feet. "The weapon, the motive, the clues..." He walked to the coffin and peered into it. It wasn't as creepy as an actual dead body – or maybe it was, since Ford had never seen one – but the vacant spot where the Body should be made his stomach feel all hollow. He was supposed to be the smart twin, but when a real mystery finally landed head-first in his lap, he couldn't do a thing to solve it.
Stan came up next to him as Ford looked over Wax Dipper's head as if the answer would come to him if he stared long enough. "We'll figure this out." He promised.
"Yeah you'll see." Fids said only to let out an "oof" sound as he tripped over one of the Wax figures feet on his way over to them. He looked back at the figure His gaze landing on its feet. "Strange Wax Shakespeare's shoe has a hole in it," he said, not really thinking about it.
"Yeah, all the wax guys had that," Stan said. "It's wear the pole thingy attaches to their stand displays." He added, remembering this from when he and the others helped Mable make Wax Dipper.
"Wait a minute..." Ford could practically feel the answers coming together. The wax figures had holes in their shoes, no fingerprints, and now that he remembered correctly, he was sure the Wax lady carried a similar weapon to that of the crime scene! Adrenaline zinged up his spine. "Stanley –" he grabbed his twin, whispering urgently, "The murderers are –"
"Standing right behind you?" a voice mussed.
The Stan twins whipped around to see the wax figures coming to life! They pulled themselves to their feet, groaning and stretching. Several of them were muttering threateningly, punching one hand with the other with a dangerous gleam in their creepy wax eyes.
Fids, who was still on the floor closest to them scrambled to his feet and ran over to hide behind his friends.
"Wax Sherlock Holmes!" Ford exclaimed, staring in horror. "Wax Shakespeare! ...Wax Coolio?!"
"S'up homie," Coolio said coolly.
Wax Lizzie Borden grabbed the ax from Stan, who backed up next to Ford and Fids. The three boys leaned together, surrounded on all sides by a Wax Man uprising.
"Congratulations, my three amateur sleuths," Sherlock said, stepping forward and looking down at them over his beaky nose. "You've unburied the truth! And now we're going to bury you."
"What!" Ford squeaked.
"Bravo, Stanford Pines," the detective continued, as he opened up a broom closet in the Parlor revealing Wax Dipper's body! "You've discovered our little secret! Applaud, everyone! Applaud sarcastically." The other wax figures immediately began clapping. "Ah, no, that sounds too sincere," Sherlock said. "Slow clap, slow clap...there we go, nice improvising." He said as the figures followed his instructions.
"But – how is this possible?" Ford demanded. "You're made of wax!"
"And what kind of murder takes the body and not the head!" Fids added.
"Actually, we meant to take the head too." Wax Coolio said, "But Larry here dropped it."
Stan smiled smugly. "I told you!" he said. "But no, the murder wouldn't be stupid enough to drop a head hu guys." He scoffed to his brother and Fids.
"Sorry Stan." They mumbled as one.
"It's cool," Stan said. "Anyway, how is this possible? Are you like Magic or something?"
"Magic!" Sherlock chortled, glancing at the other figures. "He wants to know if we're magic!"
Sherlock slammed his fist onto the rim of Wax Dipper's coffin, inches from Ford's shoulder. He jumped. Sherlock loomed over him. "We're CURSED!" he shouted.
"Cuuuursed," the other figures echoed. Wax Nixon even shook his head, so his cheeks flapped like a beagle's.
Sherlock glared darkly at the twins. "Cursed to come to life whenever the moon is waxing. Your precious auntie bought the wax she used to create us many years at a wax museum..."
"A haunted wax museum, son!" Coolio added.
"We each had our own exhibit back in the day, and we sill came to life in the museum, though we had no clue why. We tried to make do with our lives, and for a time we were Happy." Sherlock explained. "But once the museum lost money we were melted down and sold as modeling wax."
"Your Aunt bought us and recreated us into the wax figures we were before, and so the Mystery Shack Wax Collection was born, and we returned to our old lives. By day, we would be the playthings of Man..."
Wax Coolio cut in again. "But when your auntie was asleep, we would rule the night!"
Ford tried to picture the wax guys hanging out, chatting about which tourists were the worst and taking stupid selfies of themselves with a sleeping, oblivious Grauntie Mabel. He grimaced.
Sherlock turned away, nodding, as if pleased with the idea of picking Mabel's boogers while she slept. "It was a charmed life for us cursed beings and after a while we began to forgive our old owners for melting us down...that is, until your auntie closed up shop."
Ford glanced at his brother, remembering how the door they'd found had been practically covered over with wallpaper and crown molding. Exactly how long had the wax guys been stuck in there, plotting their revenge?
As if he'd read his thoughts, Sherlock said, "We've been waiting ten years to get our revenge on Mabel for locking us away...but we got the wrong guy." He glanced at the ax in Lizzie's hand, his wax eyes glittering malevolently.
"What?" She said. "They looked so similar in the dark." She complained.
Ford swallowed. "So, you were trying to murder Grauntie Mabel! I knew it!"
"You were right all along, Ford," Stan said. "Wax people are creepy!"
"Guys they still have the Ax." Fids reminded them.
"Enough!" Sherlock stepped towards them menacingly. "Now that you know our secret, you must...die." His and every other wax figure's eyes rolled up at once, showing nothing but a blank, maggot-colored white. Ford. Fids and Stan quickly backed up, cornered against the refreshment table, as the wax figures advanced on them.
"What do we do, what do we do?!" Stan yelped.
"I don't know!" Ford looked around quickly and grabbed something from the table. He started chucking anything he could get his hands on – plates, cups, spoons. They bounced right off the wax people without even slowing them down.
Trying not to panic, Fids grabbed one of the last things on the table: the hot pot of coffee. He threw it at Genghis Khan's face.
The hot sludge heated the whole front of the statue. Khan's face melted like a snow cone in the summer, and the wax on his chest bubbled and ran in long drips to his waste. He yowled in agony and stumbled backward.
"That's it!" Stan shouted, staring at the pot. "We can melt them with hot-y melty things!"
They turned and each grabbed a fake candle off the table, pointing the glowing electrical bulbs like spearheads. Sherlock and the others backed up at once, arms raised in self-defense.
"Anybody move and we'll melt you into candles!" Ford threatened.
"Decorative candles!" Stan and Fids said in unison.
"You really think you can defeat us?" Sherlock hissed, lowering his arm.
The boys looked at each other, shrugging. "Eh, well, I'm not really sure," Ford said, as Stan muttered something about being worth a shot, while Fids said something on the lines of it being more exciting than cleaning fish.
"So be it!" Sherlock growled. "ATTACK!"
Lizzie and Robin immediately ran for Stan, while Groucho headed straight for Fids. Ford saw Lizzie miss Stan and chop off Robin's head instead. Then turn just in time to see Fids duck as Groucho grabbed for his hair.
Ford turns away from them and goes straight for the bald guy crouching by the wall.
"Interview this, Larry King!" he shouted, slicing Wax Larry's head clean off his shoulders.
"My neck!" he wailed. "My beautiful neck!"
Groucho swung around for round two and tried to grab the candle from Fids' hands. Fids jerked away and Groucho grabbed the electric flame instead, pulling back with a surprised growl when it melted his fingers. Fids used the candle to slice him in half at the waist. "Joke's on you, Groucho!" he said.
Groucho's top half slid for the floor. "I've heard about a cutting remark, but this is ridiculous!" he quipped. "Hey, why is there nothing in my hand?" he asked and splattered to the floor.
Ford heard a sudden roar. He turned in time to see Khan running straight for him, hands outstretched, his face a half-melted monstrosity. Ford threw himself to the floor just as Khan jumped straight at him – and landed instead in the fireplace, his wax melting with a wet splat.
"Hah, Genghis Khan!" Ford said. "You fell harder than the...uh..."
"Gin Dynasty!" Stan called. Ford looked over. Somehow Stan had chopped of Shakespeare's arms. The arms were still moving and one had wrapped itself around Stan's neck. He choked and slammed the hand repeatedly in a doorjamb. Finally, he manages to get free, just in time to catch his breath. "Close one." He admits.
Ford gasped as he notices Thomas Edison was sneaking up from behind Stan, but before Ford could make a move to help, a shadow fell over his head. He spun, slashing with the candle. Wax Nixon fell back, trying to avoid it, and nearly twisted a wax ankle.
Meanwhile Fids sliced off Wax Coolio's head and threw it at Edison just as he grabbed for Stanley. Stan turned, caught the head on the rebound and swung it by a dreadlock, smacking three wax figures down at once.
"S'up with that?" Coolio demanded.
"Ford, watch out!" he called, and Ford ducked and felt a wind pass over his head. He scrambled away as Wax Sherlock Holmes advanced on him.
"Alright, let's get this taken care of," Sherlock said, and grabbed a sword, an actual sword from a metal bucket by the fire.
Why their aunt had a sword he would never know, but he made a mental not to ask her as he held up his candle in defense, but Sherlock chopped it in half with one swing. As he pulled back for another swing, Suddenly Ford heard Stan shout, "Catch!"
Ford looked up just as Stan threw a red-hot poker his way. He caught by the cool end, just in time to block the blow of Sherlock's sword. The metal clanged and Ford nearly lost his grip. He backed up quickly as Sherlock chopped and hacked at him, forcing Ford back through the house, up the stairs to the attic. Ford feinted and then lunged, slicing at Sherlock's knees, but the detective sidestepped and advanced on him. Ford stepped back again and hit the attic wall.
Sherlock practically glowed with rage. "Once your family is out of the way, we'll rule the night once again!"
He raised his sword.
The window caught Ford's eye, its triangle-patterned glass glowing hot pink with the coming dawn.
"Don't count on it!" Ford shouted. He rolled between Sherlock's legs and sprinted for the window. He shoved it open and crawled out quickly, poker still clutched in one hand, his fingers and sneakers scrabbling for purchase on the slippery roof. He could hear Sherlock right behind him.
Ford ran straight up the steepest part of the roof, climbing as fast as he could to the top of the "SHACK" sign. He stood on top of it – it was barely five inches wide, but it was his best path of escape. He edged along the sign as quickly as he dared.
Sherlock had caught up to him and was standing at the other end of the sign. He was five feet away, but his long arms and sword gave him good reach. He chopped at Ford, his sword gleaming, and Ford parried with his iron poker. He grunted, breathing hard, his muscles going numb from absorbing the impact of so many blows. He lost his balance and dropped the poker, his arms wheeling. Sherlock's sword came down where he had been a split-second before, hitting the "S" on the sign so hard that it came loose and fell heavily to the ground…Again. Ford tried to step back but his heel hit nothing but air. It was the end of the sign.
"You really think you can outwit me, boy!?" Sherlock demanded. "I'm Sherlock-bleeding-Holmes! Have you seen my magnifying glass? It's enormous!"
He held it up as proof, but Ford wasn't paying attention – he scrambled over the "MYSTERY" sign, pulling himself over the peak of the roof and onto the other side.
Ford slipped and gave a small cry of fear as he slid down the tiles, barely catching himself on the flat part of the roof on top of the attic's bedroom window. The chimney from the parlor rose up next to him. He hid behind it, panting.
Silence.
Ford clutched the chimney tightly and peered around it, checking the roof. The glowing red sky cast an eerie light on the roof and distant trees, and the small triangular flags flapped in the breeze...but he didn't see Wax Sherlock anywhere. He turned away with a sigh of relief –
Only to see the detective standing right next to him!
Sherlock kicked Ford squarely in the stomach, send him flying to the edge of the ledge. Ford half-curled in on himself as Sherlock stood over him, his blank eyes gleaming hungrily.
"Any last words?" he asked, raising his sword for the final strike.
"Um..." Ford glanced to the side. "...got any sunscreen?"
"'Got any'...what?" Sherlock looked up in horror. His arms, still raised, were now in the direct path of the rising sun. Even in the cool morning air, the sunshine was hot enough to melt the hands forcing him to drop the sword. As the sun rose higher every second, Sherlock's hat, face, and shoulders began melting, dripping flesh-colored wax down his trench coat.
Sherlock stared. "No."
Ford sat up, wrapped around his knees. "Y'know, letting me led you outside?" he said. "Probably not your sharpest decision."
"Outsmarted by a child in velcro shoes! Nooooo!" Sherlock howled. Ford watched as Sherlock, now fully in the sun, melted like ice cream soup. "Fiddlesticks! Humbug! It's a total kerfuffle, what a hullabaloo..." By now he was a mud-colored puddle oozing off the roof.
Ford stood up, readjusting his jacket. "Case closed," he said, dusting off his hands. He sneezed.
"Hah! You sneeze like a kitten," Sherlock said. "Those policemen were right, you're adorable. Adoooraaaaablllle!"
His melting face fell off the roof and landed on the ground with a moist smack.
Ford's lip curled. "Um, ew." He said before ducking back into the parlor through the open window. The place was a mess, and frankly Stan couldn't even figure out where all the chairs had gone. But the wax monstrosities were now only yellow and purple puddles on the floor, plus or minus a few wriggling arms and limbs, which he and Fids were currently throwing into the parlor's fireplace.
Shakespeare's head, the only part of him left intact, had been reciting poetry at them as a last line of self-defense.
"Though our group be left in twain, man of wax shall rise again!" he chanted.
Fids picked up the head. "You know any limericks?" he asked.
"Uh..." Shakespeare squinted nervously. "There once was a dude from Kentucky..."
"Nope!" Stan shouted snatching him from Fids before tossing him into the flames, which blazed with the new source of fuel. He heard a noise at the window and turned. "Ford! You're okay! You solved the mystery after all!"
Ford smiled at him, climbing up on a chair to reach Wax Dipper's head from the rhino horn. "Yeah, well, I couldn't have done it without my sidekicks."
Stan raised an eyebrow. "No offense, Sixer, but you and Fids are the sidekicks."
"What? Says who? Are-are people saying that? Have you heard that?" Ford exclaimed.
Grauntie Mabel picked that moment to walk back in. She took one look and shrieked. There were wax puddles everywhere, the drapes had been torn down, and plastic spoons and plates had been scattered everywhere, some of them even sticking out from the walls. "Holy hot sauce! What happened to my parlor?!"
"Your wax figures turned out to be evil, so we fought them to the death!" Stan said cheerfully – and truthfully, for once.
"I decapitated Larry King," Ford added.
"And I use Coolio's head as a lethal weapon." Fids cut in.
Mabel laughed. "You kids and your imaginations."
Ford smiled. "On the bright side, though...look what we found!" he said gesturing to the parlor closet.
"Dipper's Body!" Grauntie Mabel ran over and hugged it. "Now he can rest in peace." She said, before letting go and running over to the kids. "Alright line up for some affectionate hugs and kisses." She said.
Stan tried to back up along with Ford and Fids, quickly making excuses to avoid the hugs and/or kisses – Ford had head lice, Fids had a concussion, and Stan was allergic to all words starting with "H and K". Mabel ignored them and gave them all one big bear hug. Stan winced, sputtering with laughter and trying (but not really) to shove her away.
A honk made the three of them stop and look to the window. Sheriff Blubs and his partner had pulled up in their patrol car.
"Solve the mystery yet, boys?" Blubs called. "I'm so confident that you're gonna say 'no', that I'm going to take a nice long sip from my cup of coffee."
Stan glanced at Ford and grinned. His brother was intentionally waiting several seconds, until Blubs had loaded up his cheeks with the scalding liquid.
"Actually," Ford said, "the answer is yes!" he said as Fids dragged the body over for the officers to see.
Blubs choked, spewing coffee In Durland's face who in turn spat his out in Blubs.
"It burns, it burns!" Blubs shouted, hitting the gas.
Everyone laughed as the car sped away.
"Oh man just wait until Heather hears about this."
"You know she comes back tomorrow." Fids reminded them.
"And we're dead." Ford joked. "Any way, Stanley please tell me you get rid of all the wax figures!"
"I am 99% sure that I did!" Stan said.
"Good enough for me!" Ford admitted.
Mabel immediately offered to take them out for ice cream, in celebration of finding her "twin's" body.
"Yes!" Stan shouted in excitement.
Thump!
"What was that?" Ford asked.
"It sounded like it came from the vents." Fids said.
"It's probably just a rat." Stan said. "This place is full of them, now let's go!" he urged to eager for sweets to care about some stupid sound.
Ford shrugged "I'm sure it's nothing." He agreed.
"I sure hope so." Fids said as they took their leave.
(Meanwhile somewhere in the vents…)
"HA!" Wax Larry King laughed as he hopped along. "I may be just a head now, but the Pines family will still-Huh?" he stops as a rat crawls up to him. "So, you're a rat. Tell me about that." He said.
The rat just rips off his ear and runs away.
"Hey, get back here!" Wax Larry King hops after him. "I'm hopping! I'm hopping after a rat that stole my ear!" he declared. Deciding that the Pines would have to wait, because at the moment he had more pressing matters to handle.
Episode 6: Body Snatchers (Part 3) END!
Author's Notes: Tune in next week to find out what happens next! Thanks again for reading and please review!
Yours Truly, RoxieDivine ;)