Book Six, Chapter 66: Bowling

“Hey, Wilma, can you turn on the Whether Report?” Antoine asked the woman behind the counter at the bowling alley.

“Sure thing, doll,” she said, moving over to the small radio she had playing at her workstation and switching the dial. It was easy enough, like most technology in Carousel, all you had to do was mess with the switches and turn the knobs, and you’d get what you were after, assuming you knew what you were after. Sometimes you might need a bit of Savvy, but not for this.

“Please don’t remind me of that,” Kimberly said. She hadn’t touched her food. Since we had yet to go grocery shopping, we were eating out yet again. And while it was convenient to have a restaurant on the bottom floor of the building the loft was in, sometimes you just needed variety.

It just so happened we knew how to neutralize the Omens of the bowling alley.

“We need to figure out what we’re doing,” Camden said. “I’m telling you, whatever Lucky did with that dinosaur apocalypse didn’t cancel out the scheduled one.”

He was on his fourth hot dog. He was prone to going long periods without eating and then making up for it all at once. It probably wasn’t healthy, but as far as coping mechanisms went, it wasn’t the worst I had seen in Carousel.

In fact, it was Camden’s quick thinking that allowed us to neutralize the bowling alley at all. While Grace had taught us how to do it, we hadn’t retained much because our day of fun at the bowling alley had been cut short by the black snow.

Fortunately, Camden could save images on the red wallpaper because of his trope, Photographic Memory. Apparently, that image of Grace’s list of what to do to make the bowling alley safe had been hanging there for many months, even when he was dead.

Wilma, the NPC behind the counter, had just answered the phone, as we predicted she would, and called out asking if there was an Isaac in the building.

“There’s no one by that name here,” Kimberly said.

Wilma said, “Sorry,” and then hung up the phone.

Everyone clapped for Isaac because he won the little lottery. The woman could ask for any player, and if they answered, a storyline would trigger. Fortunately, all you had to do was say that they weren’t there.

Logan and Andrew’s team was well aware of this tradition of cheering on the lucky winner because the Bowlers had brought them here just as they had my team, and when I came here, it was Camden who won.

Isaac didn’t care at all. He was at the arcade, playing the claw machine, trying to win a yo-yo with a trope on it. He had been there all afternoon.

“Not only can we not find a writ of habitation, but even if we found one, chances are, it would be inside Carousel proper, and we wouldn’t be able to hide there during the upcoming apocalypse. So we really need to get our priorities in order, because that deadline is rapidly approaching,” Camden said.

“Was Stray Dawn outside of Carousel proper?” Antoine asked. “At least part of it had to be.”

“It’s right on the line,” I said. “Southeastern Carousel is affected by the apocalypse, but I don’t think the mansion in the woods would be. You wanting to run that one again?”

“Not really,” he answered, eating his burger, “but if we have to start a grind, that’s not the worst option.”

The Whether Report was playing in the background. The reporter was saying, “Storm season is coming right up, and this year we’re expecting the big one. The conditions are just right—”

I zoned out. Nothing had changed—still reports of terrible things happening in the near, near future. “Storm” was just a code word. Sometimes the reports would give you more information that was supposed to hint at what kind of apocalypse you were dealing with.

I didn’t know what it would be, and I didn’t really care. I didn’t want to be here for it either way.

Ramona was next to me at the counter, drinking a milkshake. Eventually, she said, “I don’t know what the big deal is. My cabin on Lake Dyer should be safe during the apocalypse, right? Why don’t we go there?”

“We might have to,” I said. “But we don’t know when your writ lets up, and it’s a one-room cabin. We could be stuck there for weeks.”

“It’s better than dead,” she said.

“That depends on where you are in the sleeping pile,” Camden said. “Personally, I want to see this mansion over in Carousel Heights that you guys took the limo to. How long did you get to stay there?”

“Not long,” I said. “But even if it is possible to get a writ of habitation for that place, we would never beat the storyline. Last time we had Grace and Chris. I don’t even wanna know what it would be like without a couple of ringers.”

He was talking about The Strings Attached mansion, and it would be perfect, but it was a pipe dream.

“That being said,” I added, “finding a storyline that will take us outside of Carousel proper for a few days and then maybe, I don’t know, camping or finding another storyline once we’re there might not be the worst idea.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I’d gotten chili fries and had barely touched them. I was hoping we could come to the bowling alley and, you know, just bowl or something. Maybe we could leave our problems back at the loft to discuss them later. I looked over at the others who were bowling and envied them.

Somehow, they had escaped grown-up responsibilities.

“Camping is not an option,” Kimberly said. “Last time we almost got killed.”

She was exaggerating. But only just.

I was throwing out ideas with the camping suggestion. One thing we had learned from the black snow was that even if you don’t get caught in the apocalypse itself, that doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods, because you would find yourself surrounded by free-roaming monsters and killers who suddenly weren’t restrained by anything but their whims.

“But you know,” she added, “the Astralist’s castle has lots of room.”

I nodded. “It is technically outside of Carousel proper, while still close enough, we’d probably have to close the big gate to head off any wandering evil.”

We knew his place was safe during an Apocalypse because we had seen him in action during it.

“If we had a writ, I bet the castle would be in even better shape,” she added. “Just need to run that storyline a few times, you know, get it just right.”

“And one of the ways to activate the real storyline is to bring a Beauty along with you,” Camden said.

That was something we even knew back at Camp Dyer, that there were a handful of different aspects that would activate the true nature of the storyline instead of the Mickey Mouse version of the Astralist we had played.

I looked over at the players who were bowling. Avery was a Beauty aspect, and we had a handful of players in the level range for that storyline.