Book Five, Chapter 12: Tamara

Book Five, Chapter 12: Tamara

I could hear footsteps and Ted screaming as someone dragged him along the floor. I had a gun that Antoine had given me and enough Hustle to be able to use it.

I climbed out of the treehouse in what probably looked like a very clumsy crawl. I managed to land on my feet and point the gun in the direction of the open door, where I could see a mysterious figure standing.

He still held Ted's foot as he dragged him.

I took a shot.

And I missed.

I couldn't have missed. I had devoted so many points to Hustle that I should have been able to pick up a firearm and hit anything in a storyline, but somehow, I had missed. If I had hit and it had not been fatal, I could understand that, but missing... made no sense.

That either meant that the figure had higher Hustle than I did, or he had a trope that protected him from gunfire.

I shot again. All I saw were the sparks that flew in the distance as my bullet hit something other than my target.

"Let go of him!" I screamed.

The figure didn't care. I couldn't see his face; he was just a silhouette, but I could tell he was taller than me. At that moment, I was afraid to unfocus my eyes so I could look at him on the red wallpaper.

Luckily, for a reason that I didn't understand at the moment, the dark silhouette of his head turned, and in the blink of an eye, he was out the door, which he slammed behind him loudly.

He left Ted screaming and hollering on the floor.

Kimberly and Dina were down from the car lift treehouse.

"I need a flashlight," I said. "That was definitely the killer."

I had left mine up in the treehouse. Dina grabbed it for me.

I did the thing that I often saw in action movies where cops put a flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other so that they could shine the light wherever their gun was pointed.

"We need to go outside," I said.

"With the killer?" Kimberly asked.

"It's where the story is going," I said, which, of course, was pretty much the only reason we ever did anything, but in this storyline, it was something my character would care about, too.

Kimberly prepared her gun and flashlight similarly to how I did.

"I didn't take all those self-defense and firearms training courses because I thought I was going to be running after killers," she said. "It was for when the killers ran after me."

Her Hustle jumped up two points, as did her Mettle and Grit. Her hand, which held her firearm, steadied.

"Let's go," she said.

"Ted, grab the camera and follow us," I added.

"He grabbed me," Ted said. "I thought he was going to kill me."

"Well, he didn't, so it's time to work," I replied. I had to have earned that promotion somehow; being a hardass was a good reason.

We crossed the garage toward the door we had entered in the direction the killer had gone, and as we did, we heard someone outside yelling. It wasn't a scared yell.

Kimberly started to say "Antoine" but disguised it as a gasp and then said, "It's Sheriff Stone."

Outside, he was yelling, "Hello, Miss Madison, are you here?"

If he was in character outside, that meant that he was On-Screen, and we were also On-Screen, which meant that something was about to happen that involved all of us.

Kimberly rushed out the door.

Dina and I were right behind her, and Ted had found the courage to get his camera and follow us lightning-quick.

Antoine stood at the edge of the field and continued screaming.

"Sheriff Stone!" Kimberly cried out.

Antoine turned to us, and that's when we saw the killer.

He stepped out of the shadows like he was coming out of thin air.

He stepped up behind Antoine.

"No!" Kimberly screamed, and we all ran in that direction.

"Get down!" I screamed and raised my gun.

Antoine had good reflexes and was already on edge, perhaps more so than might be expected. As we got closer, I could see in the moonlight that he was sweating and gaunt.

He rolled out of the way before the killer could get behind him.

And there, by the light of the night sky, I got my first look at Benny.

Not Benny the Haunted Scarecrow that I would know from the sequel, not a ghost or magical thing at first glance.

The red wallpaper just called him Benny.

Benny

Plot Armor: 28

__________

Tropes

Vigilante Justice

This villain is an anti-hero who seeks to dole out justice with their own hands.

Rose changed temperament at that. She was neither the hard, dangerous woman with a shotgun nor the kind, evasive woman we had first met.

She started to cry.

"Why would you be looking for a killer here?" she asked, sobbing.

"Ma'am," Antoine said, "I tracked the killer back here. He was a tall male wearing blue coveralls and a mask that looked like a scarecrow's head."

Rose continued to sob.

"I don't know anything about that," she said, not able to look us in the eye, just as she was never able to look us in the eye when she talked about her son.

"You know something, don't you?" I said.

She would not look at us, and she didn't respond.

I was willing to get a little greedy. I didn't feel like I was going too far out on a limb, but I wasn't sure about what can of worms I was about to open.

"There's something strange about him, something not of this world. I can feel it," I said. "I can feel it in the wind. I can feel it when I look at him. Now more than ever."

Rose turned her head and looked at me. She was about to speak; I could feel it.

Antoine's radio started to go off.

"Sheriff, are you hearing me? Sheriff, can you respond? Did you find anything over at Hidden Gorge?"

Antoine took out his radio, which was large and unwieldy.

"Yeah, I found something," Antoine said. "Gonna need you to send in all units."

Off-Screen. Finally.

"You found something?" I asked.

"Yeah, he killed two Patchers. They had shovels. I didn't get time to investigate because I pursued him over here."

Something in the way he said that was odd, like he was sick to his stomach or dizzy.

I decided to ignore it.

"Let's get there now," Kimberly said.

We practically ran two miles up the road to the trailhead where our car was. Rose came too. It made sense that she would be in the next scene, but it was odd for her to come running with us holding a shotgun in nothing but a coat and nightgown. In a movie, you would never question something like that. We all piled in and quickly made our way to the campgrounds at Hidden Gorge.

We were there before any of the other police.

"It's this way," Antoine said.

The campgrounds were very nice. They were well laid out, with an established trail between them. They all centered around a small area where the gorge was wide enough, and its water was still enough for a small swim beach to be made, though it was quite a climb down.

"It's over here," Antoine said, leading us past that place.

Luckily, we had our flashlights because the forest was thick. Antoine started to feel uneasy. Kimberly walked up ahead and grabbed his arm, and he didn't push her away.

It just dawned on me that we had sent Antoine into the woods alone. I had thought the campgrounds would be populated enough that he wouldn't have a problem. It would seem he had lost the benefits of his Play It Cool trope at some point in time. We needed to get to the end of the movie soon.

He led us through the forest along what was not an established trail but was clearly trodden before.

On-Screen.

"Over here," he said.

It took about half a mile of hiking into the woods before we found the small clearing filled with moonlight.

A headless Patcher lay on the ground. It was one I didn't recognize, but there were so many Patchers that it was possible I had already seen him.

But there was another Patcher, Woody Patcher, whom we definitely recognized as being the gas station attendant.

He was babbling to himself.

I could see his lips moving, and I could see blood coming out from his mouth, but I couldn't hear what he was saying, not until I got really close. And what he said made no sense.

"Couldn't finish. Send help."

That's all he said over and over again.

"Couldn't finish. Send help."

"Couldn't finish. Send help."

And then, finally, when his eyes acknowledged us for the first time, he said, "People here. Couldn't finish. Send help."

As Antoine had said, shovels lay on the ground, and they began digging a hole in the moonlight.

"Oh my God," Dina said.

I grabbed one of the shovels from the ground. The hole was not yet complete, but its size and shape made me fear I knew exactly what was in it.

Quickly, Kimberly and I began digging while Dina stayed at the edge and talked to her daughter as if she were there.

"It's you. I finally found you," she said. "I had a feeling... maybe now I can be at peace too."

Sure enough, a couple more feet down, I struck a trunk, like the kind people would pack their clothes into in the olden days when they traveled by train. It was just big enough for the remains of a young girl.

Antoine was incensed. He went to Woody Patcher, ignoring whatever wounds he might have had, grabbed him, and asked, "What were you doing here? What happened to her?"

Woody barely acknowledged what was going on, but he did answer more or less.

"Tugg might have talked. Need to move her again. People are here. Couldn't finish. Send help," was all he said in that same soulless rhythm.