Halloween 2019: Choose Your Spooky Outcome: Chapter 9

                Through the years, you’ve managed to pull off some real upset victories. Stopping evil Halloween families (well, eviler, at least), capturing magic objects, even escaping your own dumb choices. The constants in all of that have been you, Jim, and Victoria. Jim is as himself as ever, and you’re trucking along the same as always, but with Victoria half-down, everything seems off. If you’re going to have a chance of making it through tonight, then what you need isn’t more stupid fun bucks or prizes, it’s Victoria back in proper form.

                Although there’s no way of knowing if a few bars and nervous titters will make that happen, you’re pretty sure going with a Happy-Ween melody will only make her worse. Of course, you can’t actually say any of that to the helper who arrives, curious expression nestled on their face, politely demanding a selection while still ushering you toward the karaoke stage.

                “”We’re going with Shake Those Bones,” you tell him. It’s an oldie, the sort of “classic” that places like this are guaranteed to have, especially since the lyrics are largely nonsense jargon and yelling the word “shake” a lot. Pretty impossible for this one to be offensive, outside of someone getting too into the dance.

                Your selection raises no flags with the helper, who guides you all along while quickly reporting the selection into the mic on his headset. The coordination at this place is sincerely impressive; for a local fair, it’s running like a fine-tuned engine. Suspicious, but then again you’re here hunting a mysterious magical object among an adorable version of Halloween, what isn’t suspicious at this point?

                On stage, you hand out microphones and arrange the blocking with Victoria and Thad back-to-back, mostly so he can help prop her up. “Follow my lead.” To Jim, you simply say “Try and give me ten seconds” because years of experience have made you keenly aware of how adept he is at following plans or even basic impulse control. Upside: there’s a very real chance Jim might do something to terrify, if not traumatize, the crowd watching. Ordinarily that would be a scary thought, however nothing here can touch the fear of seeing Victoria weakened.

                A beat starts to play, Shake Them Bones queueing up for the usual singing. There won’t be a lot of time for this, as soon as you start to go off-book it’s a countdown until power is cut and you’re taken off-stage. Before the song kicks into gear, you turn to the crowd, putting on your best family-friendly voice. “Good evening everyone. We’re going to perform for you tonight, and I want to open the show by letting you in on a little secret. Magic… is real.” You try to do a fun hand gesture like Styne, it more comes off as almost vulgar. Thankfully, you’re playing to an audience of kids and tired parents, they care less about the specific touches than the overall distraction.

                No one cuts you off, this feeds into the sort of hokey vibe that Happy-Ween is all about. As the bass of the song comes in, strong and deep, adding a momentary sense of severity to the scene, you hurry onto the next part. “Unicorns, fairies, dryads, all of it real.” There’s scattered clapping now, though you’re starting to get looks from the control/signup table. “I’m glad that makes you so happy, and I hope you realize what else that makes true.”

                You change tones just as the music switches, all things considered this was a solid track selection. “Demons. Vampires. Werewolves. If magic is real, all the joyful things exist, then that makes the monsters real too.”

                So far as existential horror goes, this is a weak one… unless someone is capable of believing it. The unreality of the world still threatens to crack your mind at times, accepting all of the madness of what is truly possible bowls most over, their brains refusing to believe even when the truth was before them. Children don’t have quite so many hangups, though. They are tiny little belief machines, and even with such a short set-up, you see several of their eyes flash with fear. A small reminder of the world’s darkness, just like Halloween was always supposed to be.

                “Zombies too, not to mention ghosts, goblins, and monsters that lurk in the closet.” Thad took the cue, stepping up to add more myths, hopefully tripping a few people’s phobias.

                “Empty baggies, cops running a sting, a dry county!” Look at that, Jim’s ramblings are sort of on topic, by his standards.

                As the pops of terror appear in the crowd, you notice Victoria coming alive. The helpers are already moving, you won’t have power left for long. Quick as they are, they’re contending with a determined Victoria, and you’ve seen that exchange play out more than enough to know the outcome.

                She grabs your mic, head hung low, face pointing to the floor. “And of course, there are creatures like me!” Her head whips up to the audience, eyes flashing, her natural terror dialed up to eleven. You can even head the hissing from her hair snakes, just barely over the bevy of screams that rise from the audience. They arrive right before the stage goes dark, and several helpers begin herding you all from the karaoke stage.

                By the time you’ve walked clear, well past the audience and around to the winding path, some order has been restored, though there’s a fair bit of crying and chatter still ongoing. A new song featuring a happy beat queues up, with three young women dressed as candy-fairies grabbing the mic. It goes without saying that you are not offered a trip to the mystery prize bucket, not that you especially care.

                Victoria is far from fully-restored, but she’s back on her own two feet. Smoothing out the imperfections in her costume, she turns, giving a stiff, solemn nod. “Thank you. Perhaps I needed that more than I realized. But you do understand that hindered our efforts to claim the trophy.”

                “Our biggest hindrance would be trying to get through all this without you. There’s bound to be something we can figure out for the points.” You glance to a nearby clock, posted above one of the many event listings around the faire. “Still a little time before we need to be back at the prize table. We could scramble around, pick up a few more points here and there, maybe no one else will have done better.”

                “Nah, first plan, best plan. Let’s steal that mother fucker.” Jim appears to have full memories back, but perhaps not for long, as he’s just pulled out and bitten into what you would swear was a bath bomb. If Styne thinks she’s a scientist, she would swoon to see the chemical discoveries Jim has squirreled away in that bag.

                “I don’t want to be ‘that guy’ and bring adult solutions into magical problems, but we could just offer to buy the thing.” Thad taps the section of the Duffman costume that presumably contains his wallet. “Whoever is working the counter will be a person, the sort who might be open to fudging point totals for a few hundred bucks. Not really big on bribes or cheating, however if it means getting a dangerous object away from innocent people, I think we can call this the greater good.”

                Victoria flexes her fingers, noting the shine of their veneer in the too-bright lighting. They don’t entirely resemble claws the way they sometimes can in the shadow, yet there’s a visible sharpness which was missing before. “Whatever we choose, let’s move while I’m in improved spirits. Too long here, and I may become more albatross than ally.”

                Sounds like it’s time to make a move.