Arc II, Chapter 18: Let’s Split Up, Gang

It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out a solution to our problem. We had to leave the hotel suite and venture out into the land of ghosts, but I also had to be available for a call from Constance, who was researching the lore of the creature described by our deceased friend.

The solution was the cell phone in my pocket.

This storyline, unlike those I had previously run, was set in an age where cell phones were ubiquitous. Modern movies had to come up with reasons to take cell phones out of the picture because they were just too useful for resolving horror scenarios.

In Carousel, they were unusable without a trope that allowed you to use the phone, a trope like the one Constance had.

The very moment I was On-Screen next, I pulled out my phone and noticed that it had full bars for the first time since I arrived in Carousel. I dialed Antoine’s phone number. I had to hope that Antoine had kept his phone on his person.

There was no such luck. As soon as I dialed his number, I heard his phone ringing in his duffel. Anyone watching would think it was ridiculous for a young guy like him to keep his phone in his bag instead of his pocket, but modern horror movies used this very trick to disarm victims.

“Dammit,” I said.

“Try Kimberly,” Dina said hopefully.

We knew it wouldn’t work. We didn’t have a trope for contacting our friends, even when they were in good health. That wasn’t the point. All we needed was to establish to the audience that we did have cell phones and hopefully establish that they worked in this storyline.

Carousel did not disappoint.

Kimberly had her phone on her at the time of her disappearance because it was in the cloth bag she was using as a purse. She had practically kept it strapped to her chest.

“It’s ringing,” I said. “She’s not picking up.”

Our characters wouldn’t know she was dead so we had to act in false hope of contacting her. I hoped that by establishing on camera that her phone was ringing even though she was out in the ghost realm, it would be enough to show cell phones would work and that Constance would be able to call me on my phone.

Kimberly’s phone rang and rang.

And then someone answered.

“Hello?” a man’s voice said desperately. “Please. You have to help me.”

I put the phone on speaker and said, “Who is this?”

“My name is Jon,” the man on the other end said. “I’m lost. I don’t know where I am. You have to help me!”

“Ok Jon,” I said. I looked around at Bobby, Dina, The Stranger, and Isaac like I didn’t know what to do, but then I continued. “I called my friend. Is she there with you?”

“There’s a girl here,” Jon said. “Oh my god, she’s… I think she’s dead.”

We all gave our appropriate reactions, except for Isaac, who was not ready for it right then.

“Where did you say you were?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Jon said, “I’ve been walking for so long.”

“Do you see a large building with a bunch of windows on a hillside?” The Stranger asked.

There was no answer.

Then, there was a chilling laugh. Not an evil laugh, a laugh like someone thought something was so hilarious that they couldn’t hold it in any longer. A deep-throated joyous laugh.

Click.

The phone call ended.

Carousel had taken my idea and ran with it. We had established that cell phones worked in the land of ghosts and the monster of the week had gotten to give us an interaction. Everybody got something.

I stared down at my cell phone as the screen went dark after the call ended.

“The gho—the guy in there said that the creature laughed,” Bobby said.

I nodded slowly. What came next would be the debate about whether to leave the apparent safety of the suite and venture out into the dark. I didn’t want to play the hesitant one. I didn’t want to do that song and dance. Maybe for this film, we would all be brave and reckless heroes.

I wanted to take the offense, in a narrative sense.

“I’m going out there,” I said. “Kimberly and Antoine are still out there.”

“Didn’t he say your friend was dead?” Bobby asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’ve got this sense that if we stay here, we die. My grandmother always taught me to trust my intuition. That’s what I’m doing. Here, we’re sitting targets. Not just for that thing, for all ghosts. When they arrive and we don’t have the bell to be able to communicate with them… we’ll be trapped.”

There was a pause as everyone started to consider what I had said.

“He’s right,” The Stranger said. “I’ve spent too much time asking yes or no questions to random spirits. Now that I know Sidney is out there, that’s where I’m going.”

“I’m going too,” Dina said. She could have at least tried to act afraid.

“But J.T. said that he left your daughter behind,” Bobby said. “Doesn’t that mean it’s too late?”

“He also said that he barely got away and we know that isn’t true,” The Stranger said.

“Should someone stay here just in case?” Bobby asked nervously. Good. We needed someone to act reluctant.

“It’s like the guy said,” The Stranger said, nodding his head in my direction. “You stick around here, you’ll be ticking off the spirits. All I know is you don’t want that to happen.”

“They can’t get angry if no one is in the house,” Dina said.

I could see that Isaac was trying to think of something to say. He started to speak several times but then hesitated.

“I’ll call and give the librarian my cell so she can reach us out there,” I said. I moved away from the group to take the call.

Apparently, that wasn’t interesting to Carousel because we immediately went Off-Screen.

I dialed the number on Constance’s card.

“This trope takes time,” Constance said immediately. She must have been Off-Screen too. As near as I could tell, that was how Carousel treated phones.

If the audience can hear you, you are On-Screen. If they can’t, you’re Off-Screen. I had been curious about that.

“I know,” I said. “Dial this number when you have the information. We might not be around the hotel phone for a while.”

“I see,” she said. “Riley…” she paused for a moment, “This request you made for the monster’s weakness is taking far longer than it should. I’ve barely got anything. That isn’t normal. By now I should know something about it, even if it isn’t useful. I haven’t learned anything.”

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“So… it’s a tough enemy?”

“That would be my conclusion, yes.”

“So the goal is to avoid it, not kill it,” I said.

One thing that had been impressed on me by the Vets was that enemies with levels far too high for their storylines were usually not meant to be killed or else they are meant to be killed in a very specific way, as a werewolf might be killed by a silver bullet. If she was having difficulty finding its weakness, that implied it was a strong enemy.

“That would be ideal,” Constance said. Her tone carried something unspoken.

“Or are you suggesting that we can’t beat it?”

She thought for a moment before she spoke, as she had before when reading her script.

“This is untrodden territory,” she said, finally. “One can’t really presume to know Carousel’s intentions.”

“Alright,” I said. “Call me if you get something.”

I hung up the phone. Was the implication that Carousel did not intend for us to survive?

“What do we do if we find a ghost?” Isaac asked before we left while we were still Off-Screen.

I shrugged. “We don’t let it know it’s dead.”

“And if we find the other thing?”

“Run,” I said. “Or hit them with the rake.”

He had settled on bringing a wooden-handled rake as a weapon. It had been in the storage room. There had also been a broom and mop, but he felt the rake might be funnier because of the springy sound it made when it hit something. I thought the mop was the funniest, but I wasn’t going to argue with him on his first day out.

“Remember the plan,” I said. I had given everyone specific instructions on how I wanted our search to go. Hundreds of hours of movies had gone into my plans. They were meant to give us the best chance possible. Like most horror movies, the hard part is finding all the reasons for people to make the stupid decisions that would move the plot forward.

I just hoped our choreography was on point.

I tried to think through anything else to say. I explained to him how to use his healing trope, though I had little hope that If he’s still cracking jokes… would come into play with this specific enemy.