Book Six, Chapter 17: The Devil’s Laundry

I was glad to finally have some momentum in this storyline. Finding out that many Insight tropes were completely corrupted was a terrible surprise.

Trope Master took forever to use because I had to wait for a new nightmare each night to get a little more information about our enemies. But it was the loss of the Dailies that was most upsetting. At the end of the day, I didn’t get any information in the normal way the trope presented.

I got no raw footage, boring or otherwise, not until I went to bed. When sleep found me, I did get footage, for sure. I got the footage in my nightmares.

The trope was practically useless, not just because of the nightmarish inversion, but because I could barely remember my dreams when I woke up.

It was frustrating, but we were making do.

I was in the pizza place, hiding from Gus Junior as he locked up.

That was a lot harder than it sounded. Not only did I have to hide from him, but I also had to avoid being On-Screen at all because my character had no reason to stay late or at least no reason that wouldn’t have given him undue prominence in the storyline.

Instead, I had shot a scene where I loitered about, unsure of what to do, as Gus called for everyone to vacate the premises.

I did this thing where I was cleaning everything while staring at the oven, at the place where Isaac had been. Maybe that made my character conflicted.

If only I had brought my Cutaway Death trope and my Director’s Monitor. I could just end my character’s life in some comical way without having to die at all, and be able to watch the rest of the story safely while being there for my teammates.

But of course, the enemies in this story didn’t want to kill you. They wanted to drag you straight to hell, a fate worse than death, which is why I didn’t bring those tropes to begin with.

Luckily, I had Just Out of Shot. For as hard as it was to stay Off-Screen normally, that trope allowed me to see the cameras in the scene whenever enemies were around so that I could avoid them.

All I had to do was find some enemies, and staying hidden would be a breeze.

Gus finally locked the door and left.

I observed from the shadows as Camden meekly poked his head out of the break room.

He had stayed in his hidey-hole. His plan was to stay past 1 a.m. and hopefully stay hidden. He had his Hide and Seek trope, so we were going to give it our all.

We needed to know what this little side business was that the demons were running: the sin-eating.

My character couldn’t investigate this. Camden had to.

Technically, this subplot didn’t even have to be solved to beat the storyline, but resolving it was necessary if we were going to do a good job.

Camden crept through the dark restaurant until he saw a clock on the wall, illuminated by security lights, showing the minute hand ticking toward 1 o’clock.

He showed all the proper emotions: nervousness, hesitation, regret. And then he went Off-Screen.

We had talked. We had theorized. We had planned. There was no more of that to be done.

We tried small talk for a moment, but the truth was, small talk couldn’t fill the vacuum of awaiting the arrival of demons. Even demons that were pretending to be cartoonish.

“Are you sure that tonight will be Second Blood?” he asked me, whispering even though we were Off-Screen.

“Yep,” I said.

Ramona had been doing a phenomenal job of being Isaac’s foil. Where he had run toward danger, she had run from it. He was killing it down there from what I could tell by listening in. I had half a mind to go check on him.

I only got to listen to Ramona as she fled in her parents’ car. She was in Carousel Heights, but that wouldn’t matter to the demons. She just kept driving without sleep.

Fortunately, one of the few tropes she had helped her cure the symptoms of sleep deprivation. Still, the demons chased her, and, if the sound of it all was to be believed, she gave quite a good performance. But I couldn’t know for sure.

I just hoped that by guaranteeing she would be Second Blood, she had had space to get some screen time and earn some rewards.

The truth was, she was way under-leveled. If she could play even a meager role, it would be a huge boost.

As I sat there, contemplating all of the different threads moving in the storyline, I could hear Camden’s nervous breathing beside me.

He believed he would get captured and sent to hell. And if worse came to worst, he would. After all, Avery’s only sin was attempted trespass onto the property, and that’s what Camden was doing just then.

“You’re going to do great,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said nervously. “I’m just worried about you accidentally walking in on one of my scenes and ruining the shot.”

We laughed. He didn’t want to admit weakness. Even when his arm was missing, he couldn’t show weakness.

We went back to silence after that, though I could hear the faint whisper of Camden practicing his lines under his breath. I hadn’t really given him lines. If everything went well, he would never need to speak.

But of course, if they didn’t go well…

We would cross that bridge when we came to it.

A few minutes later, time jumped forward a bit.

“Hey buddy, can you go to your corner of the restaurant? I’m really trying to stay Off-Screen here,” I said, as a timer appeared on the red wallpaper stating that I would go On-Screen in five minutes. It was suddenly 12:55 a.m.

“Right,” he said.

I was in the shadows of the corner of the dining room. Camden found a hiding spot near the trash can bay.

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As soon as he walked away, the timer disappeared from the red wallpaper.

I was safe once more.

Camden went On-Screen at exactly 1 o’clock in the morning.

Nothing happened.

Carousel was gathering footage of Camden sitting, not knowing exactly what he was waiting for. He fiddled through his book on demon folklore.

Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect.

And then it happened.

All of the animatronics, which had all been shut off, sprang to life.

They started talking to each other. They weren’t saying anything freaky, but in the dark, quiet restaurant, it was spooky enough.

“Do you want extra cheese?” Isabella Mozzarella asked.

“Here comes the champ!” the Pizza Boxer said.

“Bah bah bah bah bah bah bah,” Tony the Tosser replied, through the layer of plaster pizza dough covering his head.

But of course, none of them were the star of the show. Not tonight.

It was Hot Head himself who sprang to life, his eyes moving from side to side, his little arms waving from their place on the wall next to the oven. His mouth opened, revealing the fires of the oven.

I could have sworn I remembered to shut that off.

But of course, these fires weren’t from the gas line.

These fires were from hell, or at least a version of it.

And as I watched Hot Head from the shadows, something happened that I had not yet seen.

Hot Head’s mouth began to open wider and wider. His head rose as the wall above him shrank, and the distance between the top of his head and the ceiling disappeared.

And from hell, four figures rose—not speaking, not acknowledging each other, not even taking steps until they were ten or so feet into the front kitchen.

Steps were all part of the performance. They could levitate.

They each practiced moving their skin suits. There were three generic-looking men and then one very particular-looking woman, short, with her gray hair in a bun: Miss Verity Pryce, in the flesh. Or someone’s flesh.

She looked around the restaurant.

She looked right at me.

But of course, that didn’t matter, because I didn’t exist in this scene. The cameras couldn’t see over here. I had picked a good spot.

Camden did exist in the scene, though.

And I could see from across the room that his Chase Scene indicator lit up almost immediately. The demons were onto him, if not within the story, then at least within the meta.

Luckily, in a Chase Scene, he could use all of his Savvy in place of his Hustle in order to hide, and he had a lot of Savvy. Twelve points. He was a heavy hitter.

They weren’t going to find him. Not so easily, at least.