Chapter 19

  “No need to shout, we are not on air right now. And who are you, young lady?” Rudy’s voice had the same comforting smoothness, and he sounded curious, rather than surprised by her sudden intrusion on the conversation. Ginny opened her mouth to respond but paused when Brendon shook his head at her frantically, repeatedly slashing his hand across his throat while staring at her. She rolled her eyes in response.

  “I’m… a friend of Brendon’s?” The pause in her answer was obvious to everyone. Next to her, Norah opened her mouth to presumably announce her new best friend’s identity, and Brendon quickly reached across and covered it. The little girl glared at him, and Brendon swallowed audibly, beads of sweat forming on his brow. He kept his hand over her mouth however, and Ginny rubbed the top of the little girl’s head soothingly.

  “I see. Alright then, ‘a friend of Brendon’s’. What were you asking?”

  “You said most of the town is overrun just now. Which parts aren’t?” Ginny repeated her question. Rudy remained silent, and Ginny quickly continued, understanding dawning on Brendon’s face as she did. “The bowling alley is one of those places, right? Me and Brendon found something while we were on our way into town earlier. It’s…something that the monsters avoid. The same thing was in the bowling alley earlier.”

  “I see. Well, I am very curious to hear more about this, and I would be a poor excuse for the voice of community radio in Hope Falls if I did not inquire further.” There was a shuffling sound from the phone, like Rudy was flipping through some papers, and then an audible click.

  “Good early morning dear listeners. Normally, I hope you all are doing well, as we greet the dawn together, but in light of the current crisis gripping our town, today I can only hope you are all safe.” Ginny blinked in surprise, then felt a surprising level of nervousness as she realized that Rudy had just started broadcasting. Brendon shook his head but said nothing.

  “For those of you who have remained hidden, let me reiterate: the streets are not safe. The grace period has ended, and it has been made clear just how perilous our situation has become as a result.” Rudy paused for a moment, and when he continued, his voice was still somber, but with a detectable current of hope. “Do not panic, however, dear listener. I am currently talking with a member of a group of individuals working directly with our own Hope Falls Sheriff’s Department, who are actively working to identify areas safe from the creatures that have invaded our town. Elizabeth, thank you for coming on the show, and thank you for what you are doing for the town.”

  There was an uncomfortable period of silence, before Ginny realized that Rudy was talking to her.

  “Uh… yes. Hello.” Ginny found it somewhat absurd that the idea of being live on the radio made her slightly anxious, considering she’d apparently her entire existence prior to this morning on a movie screen. Luckily, this was buried under annoyance at Rudy for turning this into a live broadcast instead of just answering her question.

  “Elizabeth, you told me just before we went live, that you and the sheriff’s office have identified areas that are safe from the creatures that are currently rampaging through our town. Please, for the sake of all our dear listeners, tell me more about these safe zones.”

  Ginny winced at the term safe zones, remembering how vehemently Rinaxis had stated that the idea of ‘safe zones’ was an inherent misconception that humanity was likely to lean into in the coming days. Brendon remained silent; his expression twisted into one of general annoyance. Ginny raised an eyebrow at him questioningly, but he just shook his head and waved her off. Later, he mouthed at her. Ginny rolled her eyes and took a deep breath before responding to Rudy.

  “Hello, Rudy.” She winced as she realized she’d already said hello, then quickly continued. “Yes, we are currently looking into areas of the town that may be avoided by the monsters. Rudy was actually helping us with that, by providing information about areas that the monsters are currently avoiding.”

  “Indeed,” Rudy cut in smoothly, not reacting to the slight annoyance that had crept into Ginny’s tone near the end. “As Elizabeth says, your very own Rudy Ramon is currently using his position from in the studio tower to provide what humble assistance I can to these brave individuals.” Ginny opened her mouth to point out that Rudy hadn’t actually done that yet, but he continued before she could get a word in. “Now, Elizabeth, we have observed areas that the creatures seem to be avoiding, but we did not know why. But you say that you and the Hope Falls sheriff’s department have discovered why that is. Can you explain that to our listeners?”

  Ginny sighed. She understood what Rudy was trying to do, she thought. Even now, his Voice Made For Radio ability was easing the panic and anxiety being tamped down by Survivor’s Will, and she assumed the same was true for anyone listening to the radio right now. At the same time, the longer they spent talking about this, the more likely some fresh horror was going to tear off the front of the sheriff’s office and murder everyone inside.

  She felt like the level of anxiety that would induce might be a bit too much for his ability to soothe away.

  “Alongside the creatures, the blue screens, and the nightmare clown…” Ginny felt a shudder run through her, and she faltered for a second, the spike of anxiety seemingly coming out of nowhere and completely bypassing her Survivor’s Will ability. She swallowed, glancing around nervously as she continued talking, her voice speeding up slightly.

  “Another thing that has appeared are a set of doors. Or more like… portals.”

  “Portals.” Rudy stressed the word, his tone sounding impressed, rather than incredulous. “So, what can you tell us about these portals?”

  “Not a lot.” Ginny relaxed slightly, the sudden spike of anxiety fading as quickly as it had appeared. “They look like glowing outlines, just… black spots with glowing outlines of colored light around them. Some of you may have seen them.”

  “If you have seen one of these ‘portals’, dear listeners, Hope Falls Community Radio would love to hear about it. We will be taking calls in a bit, where we want to hear from you. Before that, Elizabeth, please continue.”

  Ginny frowned. “I want to be clear to you, Rudy, and everyone listening. While we’ve seen that the monsters tend to avoid the areas around these portals, the portals themselves are NOT safe. Some of them are exceedingly dangerous.” She hesitated, not sure what to tell everyone, since she still wasn’t entirely sure what the rules were for Depths Doors. “If the portal is surrounded in red light, don’t go near it. Get as far away from it as possible. If it’s not…” She considered. She hadn’t met anyone else with an ability like Analyze, but Rinaxis’ had implied abilities like that weren’t entirely unique. “If… anyone out there has chosen a Path, and your path has an ability called Analyze, or anything that gives you more information about things, use that on portals if you can. It might tell you more about whether a portal is safe or not.”

  “Once again, dear listeners, if you do have an ability like what Elizabeth is describing, we want to hear from you, please call in with your story in a bit. What else can you tell us, Elizabeth?” Rudy once again cut in quickly.

  “That’s all for now. As soon as we have all the information about the areas that monsters are currently avoiding, we will be heading out to investigate further.” Ginny glanced over at the sheriff, who had finished patching up Mark and Deputy Williams as well as he could and was listening to the conversation intently. “Once the, uh, sheriff’s department knows more, they will be providing more information to everyone.”

  “Thank you Elizabeth. We wish you good luck and look forward to hearing from you soon.” There was another click from the phone, and then Rudy continued, “Alright dear listeners. In just a few minutes, we will be taking calls from people who have seen the portals that Elizabeth was talking about just now. Before that, here is a brief recap of the current crisis that has befallen our town.” There was more clicking, silence, then Rudy spoke again, his tone sounding a bit more tired and less brimming with calm and hopeful enthusiasm.

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  “Alright, I am currently playing a pre-recorded message I made earlier about everything I had figured out about the situation at the time. I apologize for springing that on you. I can only use my Emergency Broadcast ability every so often, and I’m trying to use it whenever it is available.” Rudy explained, confirming some of Ginny’s suspicions from earlier.   Brendon leaned forward, his unexplained sulking forgotten.

  “Wait, you have an ability for that? You picked a Path, Rudy?” Brendon’s tone was equal parts curious and excited.

  “I did not. There was no need, since this system offered me the Path I was already on.” Rudy’s voice was bemused, but with an undercurrent of pride.

  “Uh… right? So, what Path was that?” Brendon ignored Ginny glaring at him.

  “I told you, Brendon. I am The Voice on the Radio.”

  “That is… kinda cool.” Brendon said admiringly, and was opening his mouth to presumably ask Rudy more questions about his path when Ginny cut him off.

  “Right, yes, sorry. VERY cool. You should talk about it for hours later. Where,” Ginny interjected. “Are the places monsters are avoiding, Rudy? The faster you tell us, the faster we can go check it out, and the faster we can hopefully find somewhere safe for everyone left in town.”

  “Right, let me see here…” Rudy trailed off for a moment, and the sound of flipping paper came through the phone. “Okay, so as near as I can tell, there are four areas that monsters seem to be avoiding. They go around these streets or stop and just watch at a distance.” Ginny nodded in response, feeling encouraged.

  “First is Pin Falls, the bowling alley. I am assuming based on the fact that you all fled from there, that that is what you were alluding to when you said not all of these portals are safe.”

  “Yes.” Ginny’s response was terse, and when it was clear after a few seconds that she wasn’t going to offer any more details, Rudy continued.

  “The second place that monsters seem to be avoiding is the block that Lumbering Jack’s is on.” Ginny glanced over at Brendon, who nodded in recognition.

  “It’s a hardware store over on the eastern edge of town.” Ginny nodded her understanding, and Rudy continued.

  “The third place is also near the edge of town. Near where the main road comes in from the south. Where Gus’s Gas is.” This location was actually familiar to Ginny, as she remembered Brendon pointing the location out when they’d first entered the town proper.

  “The one not owned by anyone named Gus.”

  “Correct. I see Brendon has been sharing local trivia with you.”

  “Yeah, something like that. What’s the last location?”

  “Ah, yes. This last one is… odd. I haven’t observed any monsters around, but there is something up there. The factory.”

  Once again, Ginny was lost, and Brendon quickly explained. “Big factory north of town. Like… half the town works there in some role or another. What do you mean odd, Rudy?” He directed the last part at the phone.

  “Like I said, something is up there, even if it is not monsters. The lights are all on, and there is movement in the windows. Nothing I can make out any details of, but the lights coming on at two in the morning when I first noticed definitely qualifies as odd on its own. And considering how tonight, odd has usually meant ‘utterly catastrophic’, I felt it worth mentioning.”

  “Right yeah, that definitely qualifies as odd.” Ginny agreed, although she’d probably use the word ‘alarming’ rather than ‘odd’. Something about the factory was giving her a bad feeling. Not so much fear as a sort of… wariness. A sense of tension when she considered it.

  “Well, what now?” Rudy drew her out of her considerations. “According to what you said, these locations might be a safe place for not just yourselves, but for the people of the town. But…” He stressed the word and paused briefly before continuing. “…they might also contain doors behind which something worse than the herds of monsters running through the streets right now, correct?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.” Brendon responded.

  “So, what are you going to do? Do you have some way of determining which area is more likely to be safe?”

  Brendon, Sheriff Greg, and Norah all looked at Ginny, the little girl having lapsed into her eerie level of silence while the phone call with Rudy was going. Ginny resisted the urge to throw up her hands in frustration. She’d noticed that, whether it was because she’d happened to stumble into a couple parts of this whole mess before them or considering her a part of this mess because of her nature as a Story, the others had been looking to her for answers and explanations about the Depths System and everything related to it.

  How should I know!? She wanted to shout at them. The entirety of my existence before a few hours ago was apparently confined to eighty-two minutes of a terrible horror movie, what answers do you expect me to have about any of this chaos!?

  She didn’t shout at them, however. In part because she knew they were scared and just trying to figure things out themselves. And in part because, in this one particular case, she actually did have an answer for them.

  Though she didn’t think they’d like this one.

  “We’re gonna leave it up to luck.”

  ***

  “This is a bad idea.” Brendon said from the driver’s seat of the cruiser. It wasn’t the first time he’d shared that opinion, and as Ginny leaned out the window on the passenger side, she was increasingly sure it wasn’t the last time either.

  Ginny’s plan, which, as expected, no one had liked, wasn’t entirely to leave things up to Luck. Rather, her plan had been to have Brendon and her approach the potential sites for Depths Doors at a distance, and hope that the weird feelings she’d been getting gave her a clue about which ones were safe. She was pretty sure at this point that those feelings were her incredibly high Luck score steering her away from potential danger and towards things that were important or beneficial to her. Between that, and the way something about her Path or Template had actively hindered her from moving toward danger back in the bowling alley, she felt like there was at least a pretty good chance that she would get some kind of heads-up before walking into another room with a Ravager in it.

  Unfortunately, a plan that hinged on her “probably getting a bad feeling” hadn’t been the most popular one. The sheriff had suggested that they all hole up in the sheriff’s office and do their best to fortify it against monsters. Brendon had insisted that “splitting the party” was a dumb move, and had acted like she should have known better than to suggest splitting up. Norah had thrown a minor tantrum when Ginny shared that she’d planned on leaving the little girl at the sheriff’s office.

  But they all came around eventually. For Brendon and the sheriff, it had come down to the simple point that no one had a better idea of how to go about discerning deathtraps from potential havens. At the very least, Ginny could use Analyze to examine the doors once she was close enough to actually look at them. As for Norah, Ginny had had to pull her aside and ask her to stay and keep an eye on things at the sheriff’s office. As one of the four people with a Path, and the one who was the best at keeping monsters away, she actually was the best person to make sure nothing tried to break into the sheriff’s office while Ginny and Brendon were gone.

  The fact that it kept the little girl inside and off the streets full of prowling monsters was entirely a coincidence, Ginny had insisted.

  “This is a bad idea.” Brendon repeated from where he was hunched over the wheel of the cruiser the sheriff had let them use to scout out the locations.

  “You’ve said that. Several times, at this point.”

  “That’s because it’s a bad idea several times over.”

  Ginny sighed heavily and twisted around to glare at Brendon. “We went over all this. We need to find a door to the shop, which means we’d need to go out and check these spots anyway. This way, we might not walk into a room with another Ravager who tries to murder us.”

  Brendon was polite enough to not point out that that was exactly what they’d done back at the bowling alley, with Ginny there. The disgruntled look on his face made clear he was thinking about it, however.

  “Here’s an idea: What if there’s an entirely different kind of door we don’t know about? We don’t know for sure that the Depths Doors only lead to shops or Ravager’s… houses?”

  Ginny resisted the urge to scream, managing to respond in a mostly even tone that only contained the slightest hint of wanting to strangle her new friend. “I don’t KNOW, Brendon.” Ginny slouched back against the chair, glancing out the window at the still dark sidewalks of the town. Monsters were moving openly through the streets, though the majority still seemed content to ignore the quickly moving cruiser in favor of continuing the hunt around the buildings, trying to sniff out still hiding townspeople. A troop of what looked like human skeletons that had had extra bones shoved and wedged inside them randomly were boosting each other up into a second-floor window of a darkened brick building. Ginny gestured at the display as they drove by.

  “Like, what the heck is going on there? Skeletons? A weird skeleton army?” Ginny frowned back at Brendon. “I don’t know. You all keep asking me about all this crazy stuff like I have any more idea than you all what’s going on, and I DON’T. I DON’T, Brendon.” Ginny felt the words coming faster, all the frustration she’d been bottling up sensing a chance to be freed from its prison at the back of her mind. “I don’t know what any of this is, I don’t know why any of this is happening, and I have NO idea what’s going to happen next.” She paused and took a deep breath, and when she continued she was no longer almost screaming. “For all I know, we’re gonna get to this first location, and I’m going to have no idea if it’s safe or not, and we’re going to walk in and get our faces eaten.”

  The car jerked to a sudden stop, and Ginny’s head snapped over to stare at Brendon, ready for him to start shouting right back at her, but he wasn’t even looking at her. Instead, he was staring directly ahead of them with wide eyes. Ginny followed his gaze and felt her eyes going similarly wide. She leaned forward in her seat, not sure if she was really seeing what she thought she was.

  “Okay,” She said, licking her suddenly dry lips nervously. “I was wrong. I’ve got a pretty good idea that that is not safe.”