Halloween 2019: Choose Your Spooky Outcome: Chapter 12 (Dead End)
In this day and age, there aren’t many phone numbers you know by heart, but there are a few exceptions. Home, Jim, Victoria, Thad, the nearby all-night pizza shop, these are too useful and important to trust solely to some digital archive. There’s one more, too. A number from a night that wasn’t real, in a life that was only a wish. You promised not to forget Sheryl, and have worked hard to keep that vow, even mentally holding onto something as innocuous as a phone number.
As Frankie charges in, rocking Thad with an incredibly limber kick to the skull, you yank the Phantom Phone from your pocket and begin to dial. One number after the next, each eliciting a sharper, harsher tone than before. It might be your imagination, but the phone feels like it’s getting warmer. Maybe magic creates heat?
You get the last digit punched in just before Styne yanks out some sort of flashing device. While the exact science is far-past your knowledge, the instant it hits Victoria she begins to wilt, drawing a wicked chuckle from Cort Scruples.
“That weak? My goodness, how long have you been in here?”
Much as you’d love to listen in on that, the Phantom Phone is ringing. Once, twice, on the third time, there’s a click. You recognize the sound of empty tape being played just before the first words come over the phone. They’re choppy, and familiar. You know the voice instantly, and maybe even the words themselves. Recorded and edited, yet her all the same.
“Tell. The. Lady of Autumn. Bring. You to. The. Between.”
That last word is different, you catch it instantly. Cadence, tone, pitch, was that even Sheryl’s voice? You can hardly focus over the searing pain in your hand, the phone growing ever-hotter, not to mention the rustle of a fight, short-lived as it might be.
Victoria is down, Jim has blood coming out of his ears from some unseen blow, and Thad is finally starting to falter, though it took Frankie and several muscular helpers to wear him out. Through it all, Cort Scruples keeps smiling, even turning the grin in your direction. Looking at your fallen friends, you give him one right back, putting as much of Victoria’s spin on the expression as you can manage.
“Why so cheery?”
“Call it a hunch.” The pain in your hand is almost unbearable now, except you’ve born so much worse. This close, you can practically feel all those deaths haunting your mind, endless experiences of pain and suffering. A burning hand is nothing, especially for such a minor duration. “I think I’m about to die, and when I do, I’ll go with a very important piece of knowledge.”
With your free hand, you motion to your friends, then to Cort himself. “I just learned what happens if we play nice. Next time, you won’t-”
Lovely as that speech probably was, you don’t get to finish it, as the Phantom Phone gives way, exploding directly next to your head. It does leave a hideous spray on some of Cort’s white suit, not that you’ll be able to see it given the location of your respective eyes. Still, at least you got to ruin his outfit on your way through this…