Book Five, Chapters 15: The Reaper

It was harder to kill him than the first two because I saw his face and I had spoken to him.

I truly had difficulty attacking him.

He was a portly old man. He held in his hands the sawed-off shotgun from his shop. Its trope, the Hidden Barrel, was intact, though it wasn’t active because his gun wasn’t hidden, thankfully.

Still, he looked the most human out of all the Patchers we had seen since they went hive mind.

He looked scared.

Then he spoke and said, “In family we find purpose,” speaking with a hundred voices all at once, like he was possessed.

His face went blank, and he lifted his shotgun at me while his mouth continued to chant.

That made it a lot easier, actually.

He fired the shotgun at me, but I dodged to the left and ran into a patch of trees near the road. I expected to get peppered with lead. After all, that was what a sawed-off shotgun was for. Luckily, I was too far away for him to hit me. I also suspected he was using slugs as ammunition instead of something that would spread when shot because a huge hole appeared in a tree behind me as I fled into the woods.

I felt that was a poor choice, but I wasn’t going to argue.

He started to reload.

The trope that made bladed weapons equal to guns was very ambiguous about how it would work, but I suspected things like decreasing bullets’ accuracy and making guns have to reload more often were part of it.

Those little tweaks allowed a man wearing an oversized suit and holding hedge shears to beat a possessed man with a shotgun. It didn’t hurt that his Plot Armor was only eight.

I closed the distance, and as I removed him from the picture, his eyes began to glow.

I hadn’t seen the others do that because I hadn’t seen them up close when they died.

Perhaps Carousel wanted to confirm for the audience that these enemies were not exactly human. Typically, that would be done by showing how evil they were, but Corduroy hadn’t done much evil stuff.

The hundred voices in his mouth did not stop talking after he died, not for several minutes. His mouth wasn’t even moving, and the sounds came out.

Creepy.

I wondered if there was a non-supernatural version of this storyline buried inside the story where the Patchers were just normal people.

I grabbed his shotgun. I was really making a killing here with the trope weapons. A sawed-off shotgun, hedging shears–I was starting quite the collection.

I ran over to the garage after I saw there were no more Patchers around. I knocked on the garage door so they would know it was me.

They opened it, restarted the car, and they were off, leaving me behind.

The wind howled, and I stared out across the fields as people with glowing eyes began exiting the forest.

“They’re here!” I yelled back into the garage as I shut the door.

I wanted them to think Kimberly and the others were inside. How long that deception would last wasn’t important.

I assumed that the deception would work because Rose and I were here, and we had the lowest plot armor of anyone being targeted.

The deception gave cover to explain why we were being attacked and the others weren’t. At least they weren’t being attacked by these Patchers. They likely had their own problems to deal with.

Once the others left this scene, Carousel would have a challenge ready for them.

The deception worked, too.

We were getting good at this game.

Now, I had fifty or so armed attackers coming straight for me.

What a great plan I had made.

I went Off-Screen soon after Kimberly and the others left.

I was Off-Screen for quite a while.

Kimberly recording her report on everything that had happened was clearly more important than what was happening to me. I imagined they were dodging enemies as she recorded things.

The Patchers just stood and watched from a distance. Usually, enemies will attack you when you’re Off-Screen, just not with much enthusiasm, especially if you’re an important character. With what I had planned, it was obvious that Carousel wanted to make sure that my fate was captured in its entirety.

I remembered back to when we were scouting this storyline out.

Cassie had used her trope to try to find out the supernatural nature of the story.

She spoke of an angry entity upset over blood being spilled. A child of the earth had been killed.

At first, I thought that might have been Tamara Cano, but as I learned about Rustle and eventually saw him gunned down, I realized it must be him.

The ancient spirits that had given him life, that had answered Rose Harless’ prayer, were now angry that he had been killed.

I was going to give voice to that anger.

I had equipped my Raised by Television trope. When I stayed behind to let the others escape, it activated, and as I had hoped, it buffed my Moxie by five points.

It gave a bit of Mettle, too.

No Grit though.

Moxie and Mettle.

Moxie was used to interact with the supernatural and spiritual. It was also used for Improvisation. I needed it for both.

I couldn’t say what was about to happen or whether I would live, but if I was right, this would be a great conclusion for my character.

Of course, I really did hope that I would survive. It would be a bit embarrassing to die grocery shopping.

I knew things were about to start happening as Rose slowly limped out of the garage and joined me in the field as I stared at the Patchers.

We were Off-Screen, but she said, “If I had known all of this would happen, I wonder if I would have prayed for a child.”

“You couldn’t have known,” I said. “If it wasn’t for them, things would have turned out fine.”

She didn’t look as confident.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“You can never be surprised by what you get when you pray to a nameless thing, whether you’re praying for a child or for a second chance. A person willing to do that doesn’t deserve to plead ignorance. I did what I did, and now we’re here.”

“Now we’re here,” I repeated, staring at her, unsure of the full scope of what she was saying.

I didn’t have time to think about it.

On-Screen.

“Come to us,” the Patchers all spoke at once, hundreds of voices sounding out of dozens of mouths. “Come to us; we will make it quick.”

I had to wonder if a scholar or an occultist had done this story, would we have learned more about the Patchers and their supernatural nature? I supposed we could figure that out the next time we went food shopping.

If they were going to yell at me, I was going to yell back. It was showtime.

“You shouldn’t have come here!” I screamed.

“We have been here since the first war,” the voices said, “and we will be here at the last one.”

I didn’t know the history they were referencing, but it was a cool line, I thought.

“There were those that were here before you,” I screamed, “and they are angry.”

I got no response, but I noticed Merle Patcher had moved into the forefront of the group that was closing the distance toward me. That gave me confidence in my plan. It was nice to see the main Patcher.

“We will do whatever it takes to protect our family,” he said, except he didn’t say it with a hundred voices like the others; he was just talking himself.

His eyes were glowing, though. His plot armor was 28. He was the boss.

Or so he thought.

The wind started to howl even harder, and Patchers emerged from the woods holding torches, which they promptly used to catch the crops on fire.

“You really shouldn’t have done that,” I said.

I tried to look panicked, afraid not of the Patchers but of the thing that they were insulting.

Rose started to call out, “Trees, sky, earth, hear me! These people have killed your child. They killed the child you gave me to protect. Please,” she said, “I implore you, let loose your vengeance on them.”

Thunder boomed with no lighting.

“You should go!” I screamed. “Something is happening.”

I tried to play it like I was so panicked that I just wanted it all to stop. I even shed a tear, though that could have been from the wind whipping my eyes.

Merle was unfazed. “We will do whatever it takes to protect our family name,” he said.

He lifted his gun and shot Rose. She fell to the ground; this wound was fatal.

“You really shouldn’t have done that,” I said. “You already killed his father, and then you killed him. Now that you killed his mother, he’s really going to be angry.”

Fifty heads tilted in confusion.

“I don’t think so,” Merle said.

They lifted their firearms. I hoisted my reacquired scythe up and ran as they started to shoot at me.

Sure enough, the bullets whizzed past but never hit me. I ran into the nearest field of corn. It was on fire, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. There was plenty of room to hide there, and the fire wouldn’t get to me for some time.

They followed me into the corn.

The first one I saw, I swiped at with the scythe.

I wasn’t sure if the scythe was a good weapon in real life, but in this movie, heads rolled.

Literally.