Chapter 115: Back To Where It All Started- Part I

Chapter 115: Back To Where It All Started- Part I

I was dying.

Dead Man Walking as a trope was starting to look like a real bust. I lay there on the ground barely able to move. My statuses were flaring constantly, including the one labeled, “Dead.”

And yet I did not die. My sudden boost of grit prevented me from blacking out. My adrenaline was still pumping so I did everything I could to try to get back to the action even though it was hopeless.

My legs weren't doing what I was telling them to do. My arms though, were at least operational. It hurt to move them but I had to try.

I pushed and I crawled for what felt like an eternity but I might have been able to move 5 yards. Just far enough to see the other side of the bed and breakfast. Useless.

As I watched the zombies surrounding the house, something caught my eye. Laying on the ground next to the busted window where the sheriff had presumably been dragged away from, was Antoine's baseball bat.

I couldn't do anything with it but I still tried to crawl toward it.

I failed. I just didn't have it in me.

Something was happening inside of the house that I couldn't see. An argument or a fight. I heard a loud crack and then less than a minute later, Tim, the quiet young grave robber was being drug out of the house kicking and screaming. He was terrified out of his mind.

And then, to my surprise, even though I had literally predicted it On-Screen with Cinema Seer, the dead started to walk away.

They had claimed their last guilty soul.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. My mind was so belabored that I could barely hear when Dina finally made her appearance.

“Riley?” She asked quietly. “What happened here? This was supposed to be a straight-up home invasion or something I thought.”

I couldn't speak. I turned to look at her, hoping that I might be able to summon some information for her that would help us. The Finale wasn't over.

We still had a fight. I could hear something going on in the house. There was one last enemy to be defeated.

With my last bit of strength, I pointed over toward Antoine’s baseball bat. That would have to be my contribution. Dina seemed to understand. She quickly walked over, grabbed the bat, and then took a deep breath before walking around to the other side of the bed and breakfast.

The entire encounter was off-screen. To the audience, I was likely dead.

Soon after that, I died for real.

I woke in a theater watching the remainder of the story.

Merritt stormed out of the bed and breakfast like he was going to chase after the zombie horde. He looked angry in a way I had not yet seen him. All of his tropes were designed to maximize how dangerous he was the more desperate he was. They also made him stronger if his brother was killed. He was probably a real threat in that moment.

He screamed back in the house, “Why didn't they take me? They took my brother; why didn't they take me?”

Samantha walked out of the house with a limp. She had been struck in the face. After a moment it became clear that she was probably hit with the same hammer that Merritt had in his hand.

“You didn’t hurt them,” Samantha said. “They only wanted to get revenge on those who disturbed their peace.”

Merritt didn’t take that well. Unfortunately, he was beyond reason.

“You did this!” he screamed. “You... invited them, didn’t you?”

“No, I swear,” Samantha cried out.

Merritt grabbed her and lifted the hammer over his head. Before he could bring the hammer down on Samantha, something struck him.

He jumped out of the way, reeling in pain from the hit.

Standing behind him, holding Antoine's baseball bat, was Dina.

Merrick didn't hesitate to attack her. She swung at him, but he was stronger and completely unafraid of being hit.

We walked closer and as Antoine was about to press the red button, Silas disappeared.

He reappeared 30 yards away eastward.

We looked at each other in confusion. Then we walked toward him.

Before we could get close enough to push his button, he disappeared again and reappeared 30 yards further in that same direction.

And so we followed, our paths lit by the moon and Silas' yellow lights.

As we went I noticed there was something very strange about this cemetery. At first, it appeared to be a regular lot with 100 or so graves out in the backwoods like I had been expecting. But the further we walked, the further the cemetery went.

Soon we had left the cemetery proper and yet we still saw graves in the forest. We even saw bodies strung up in the trees the same as we had around the cemetery. They moved and growled but they didn't seem too harmful.

And it just kept going like that for hundreds of yards.

We walked for 10 minutes. 20 minutes. Half an hour.

More graves and more bodies strung up in trees.

“Is this a glitch?” Antoine asked.

I wasn't sure.

“Maybe,” I said. “Might just be how Carousel manages to get an unlimited amount of zombies. In zombie movies, there are always tons of them and they seem to come out of nowhere. Maybe this is just how Carousel pulls off that trick.”

I wasn't sure though. If it was a glitch, what would it mean?

“I'm so sorry,” Samantha said.

I turned to look at her. My heart raced just from the possible implications of what she had just said. What was she sorry about?

“I told you I would do anything to save you,” she said. She was crying. She looked terrified. “This was the only way.”

“What are you talking about?” Antoine asked.

But before she could answer I realized that something was different. I heard something in the distance and right behind me at the same time. Breathing.

It was the axe murderer. I could hear him back in the direction that we had come from. That was the gift of having been in his presence before. I could detect him.

“Go,” she said. “Go!”

“Let’s move,” I said. I needed to be careful because one wrong word and I would be cut in half.

I ushered the others to move quickly.

“What's going on?” Dina asked.

I didn't have time to think about an answer.

“We need to follow Silas,” I said.

Maybe it was something in the tone of my voice but they stopped questioning me for at least that moment.

Samantha stayed behind. She turned and started walking, then running back in the direction we had come from.

Ten minutes later, the sound of the breathing had faded. I could only guess what had happened.

How many rules had she broken to help us?