Book Six, Chapter 74: Benched

With the cloaked cultists surrounding all exits from the center of the hedge maze, all I could do was hide behind the ice sculpture of the angel with Kimberly and Antoine.

They were called Night Stockers on the red wallpaper, and as funny as that joke of a name was, they didn’t come across as humorous while wearing those shadowy cloaks and hoods. There was a strange staticky sound that emanated from them, but only when I was looking at them.

They moved in jagged, harsh blinks.

I took a quick look at them on the red wallpaper, analyzing their tropes, trying to understand what they brought to the table. It turned out they had a lot going for them.

They had the Bottomless Bag of Tricks trope, which was Carousel-speak for a magic user. They could plausibly do anything.

The ones guarding the exits stood still, though other than the one in the center, none of them were particularly large. He had two cultists that flanked him, and the three of them went around the party, pouncing upon hapless victims and seemingly vanishing them under their staticky cloaks.

Kimberly, Antoine, and I were Off-Screen for most of it.

This was an onslaught, and Carousel was sure to capture as much of it as it could, though about half the time it was cutting away from the party entirely, as elsewhere in Carousel other victims were being taken, with some killed outright, according to Bobby.

We knew going in that the players we were here to rescue were being killed right about now, and those that weren’t would be soon.

Some of them would be First Blood.

That was one solid advantage Bobby’s rescue trope gave us, and we would have to take it and run with it to the end.

When everyone at the party was Off-Screen, the NPCs would run around screaming, and the bad guys would glide from place to place. But they weren’t actually taking people Off-Screen; this wasn’t a random affair.

When they went back On-Screen, Kimberly whispered, “They’re targeting specific people.”

And she was right. They weren’t just jumping on crowds and trying to absorb as many into the shadows as possible. No, they were looking for specific celebrities.

“They have the Judgment Call trope,” I said. “We need to pay attention to what victims they take so that we can figure out what sin they’re punishing.”

Of course, sin could be defined so loosely in a horror movie.

They took a woman with a red dress and red hair, who seemed to beg and plead as she was absorbed into the shadows under the tall Night Stocker’s cloak. Other than her, it was all men being taken. And there was one man in particular who received a lot of attention before he fell into the empty space beneath the shadowy cloak of the tall Stocker.

I couldn’t hear what they were saying, we weren’t anywhere close, and we weren’t On-Screen. He was a tall, older man who didn’t appear afraid. If anything, he seemed to be offended.

“Any idea who that guy is?” I asked.

“He’s my competition,” Antoine said. “Talk show host, like me.”

I could hear anxiety in his voice. We both knew what that meant. There was no way that all three of us were going to get away from this too easily. We hadn’t done anything to make us that lucky.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

After Carousel had gotten its footage of mayhem and terror, it finally decided to give us proper On-Screen time.

“We need to get out of here,” I said. “Does anyone remember which way’s the way out?”

I only said that because the NPCs clearly did not. It was as if they walked into the center of the hedge maze and got a sudden case of amnesia. They were pushing and trying to shove their way toward half a dozen different paths, none of which was the one we came in through.

It would probably come across better in the final film.

Kimberly looked back at the man guarding the true exit.

“We don’t survive this unless we fight back,” she said.

“Fight back?” I asked. “How exactly are we supposed to fight back? Have you not seen what we’re dealing with?”

“You haven’t seen what I’ve dealt with,” she said, looking at me intensely.

I was willing to play the coward, at least at first. It was either me or Antoine, and it wasn’t going to be him. We needed him to be brave. Maybe there was a subplot to be built around his reconciliation with Kimberly, some recognition of the love they once shared, blah blah blah.

Me? I was just some guy who pointed out horror tropes.

“Just think,” Kimberly said. “What do we need to do?”

“Give me a second,” I said. I looked around, pretending to notice for the first time the cracks running up the left leg of the ice sculpture in front of us.

“Magic powers or no magic powers, these are still people. They didn’t look too bright before they put their cloaks on,” I said. “I’ve got an idea.”

We went Off-Screen for a moment. Carousel didn’t need footage of me explaining an incredibly simplistic plan like that; the audience could put two and two together. Plus, the big Night Stocker was showing off some rudimentary telekinesis as he picked up one of his victims with nothing but his mind and some shadow chains and threw him into the shadowy cloak of one of his underlings.

I hated telekinesis, magical or otherwise. One of the most inconsistent powers in the genre. It had to be, or else the bad guy would be unbeatable. Heck, maybe these bad guys were unbeatable.

Back On-Screen, Kimberly stood up a short distance from the statue and in earshot of the man guarding the true exit.

“Quick,” she yelled. “We can just cut through this hedge, and it’s a straight shot to the parking lot!”