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.

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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!”

She started to push her way through the hedge near the Night Stocker.

Of course, she was lying. Cutting through that hedge would lead to a big, long bench, if memory served, but nobody watching the film would know that.

As predicted, the Night Stocker ran from his post toward Kimberly, who quickly ran toward the statue nearby. And just as she passed by, Antoine smashed a stanchion into the weakened left leg of the ice sculpture.

The giant angel quickly started to tumble, falling directly onto the Night Stocker as it almost reached Kimberly. The weight of the ice probably killed the guy; it wasn’t clear. All I knew was that his magical cloak disappeared as the statue crumbled and covered him in a mix of blood and ice.

Kimberly quickly stopped running and put an intense, clever look on her face so that the audience would know she did that on purpose. Assuming they knew her background, they probably had some idea.

“Hurry!” she screamed. “The exit’s over here!”

But this time, she screamed loud and for real, as she, Antoine, and I ran to the real exit and started to leave. Other NPCs followed.

The string lights that had so conveniently guided us into the party were now not so friendly. Instead of just being one consistent path to follow, they now covered the entire network of hedges so that we wouldn’t be able to find our way out easily.

Apparently, the ice sculpture trap wasn’t enough for Carousel. It was too early to clock out.

That became evident because as we moved away from the party area, we could hear the tall Night Stocker screaming out in his echoing voice, “That’s Antoine Stone! Don’t let him leave!”

“They want me?” Antoine asked. “What would they want with me? I never hurt anybody.”

Kimberly gave him a look.

“I never intentionally hurt anybody,” he said as we looked around for a path to take.

Kimberly gave him another look.

“All right, I didn’t hurt them, I know for sure,” Antoine said. “And I doubt a little heartbreak causes someone to do this.”

Kimberly rolled her eyes.

“This way,” I said.

As I led them to the left path of a junction, the whole area was new to me. Carousel must have rearranged it, so my memories of how to get out were useless. And while I didn’t see any obvious tropes that would punish us for trying to push through the walls of the hedge maze, as I had once seen in Benny’s corn maze, I still didn’t want to risk it.

What I had actually seen that drew my attention was a large wooden crate that contained party favors and different decorations that had gone up around the center of the hedge maze: banners, streamers, that sort of thing.

Carousel cut off of us for a moment, probably getting footage of the Night Stockers sent after us. Using Just Out Of Shot, I could actually see the cinematic lighting in the distance over the tops of the hedges. I knew they were headed this way.

“Check this out,” I said as I reached into the box and pulled out a handful of magical masquerade masks that just happened to be there. What a lucky break.

There were three of them: my Mr. Gray Amber mask, Kimberly’s Miss Swan Song, and Antoine’s Mr. Moonrock.

I handed the gray, cratered mask to Antoine.

He took it from me and said, “You don’t really expect this to work, do you? It shows half my face. I’m one of the most recognizable guys in Carousel. My face is on buses!”

“Well, there aren’t any buses around here. Just put it on,” I said.

He reluctantly did as I asked, just as one of the Night Stockers turned a corner and found us next to the crate.

He stared at us for a few moments, his eyes searching from me to Kimberly to Antoine’s masked face, but then he kept going around a different corner, apparently not recognizing any of us.

“That couldn’t happen. That was a fluke,” Antoine said.

“Yeah, sure it was,” I said. “Come on, whoever you are, we need to get out of here. The parking lot should be right through this path.”

We continued running, but of course, the path did not lead to the parking lot. It led to the long bench carved out of a log with black wrought iron end pieces.

“This isn’t the exit,” Kimberly said. “I don’t remember there being a bench.”

I looked around and cursed. “Well, I thought it was this way,” I said.

By that point in time, many of the other guests were flooding the area, looking for their own way out. But the three of us stuck together.

One of the Night Stockers followed the scurrying NPCs straight down the path we had taken.

“Where is Antoine Stone?” he cried out. His voice was not particularly confident or deep, but it echoed, and I could hear the static of whatever magic he was using playing in my ears.

I could almost hear Antoine rolling his eyes as the man seemed to look right through him.

Kimberly ran toward the path we had entered and screamed at him, “He already left, you idiots! He was here for five minutes, you’re too late!”

Not her most convincing performance, but she probably didn’t intend for it to be. It was supposed to be a sort of vulnerable flail, trying to protect someone she once cared about.

But it still worked, because the Night Stocker turned toward her. He started to float off the ground, and his cloak billowed in the wind, revealing his lack of body beneath.

Static filled the air.

“Take me to him,” the man said as he floated toward Kimberly.

Antoine looked at me, and I gestured toward the large wooden bench and gave him the "this could work" look.

We both got into our positions, Antoine on one side of the bench and me on the other. We weren’t holding it like we were hauling furniture, but instead as if we were hauling a battering ram.

“Hey, how about you leave her alone? I’m right here,” Antoine said, taking off his mask.

The Night Stocker turned and looked back at him, suddenly recognizing him.

He started to float toward Antoine, ready to pounce and absorb him into the shadows, but we fed him something else instead.

The bench.

With all of our might, we lifted the large, long log and ran with it toward the Night Stocker, shoving it up under his cloak into the shadows where so many had disappeared before.

We managed to shove half of the bench up in there before we couldn’t go any further.

We stepped back and watched as the Night Stocker struggled with half of the bench still lodged inside of his shadow zone, or whatever it was. He flailed about, stumbling backward, tripping over his invisible feet, it would seem, trying his best to get the long cedar log unstuck from the magical pocket reality under his cloak.

It was a very Pirates of the Caribbean type of move, and it worked beautifully.

“Let’s go,” Kimberly said.

Antoine put on his mask, looked at me, and I nodded. We ran, dodging around the flailing Night Stocker, following Kimberly.

As we did, the cultist dismissed his cloak, which evaporated into the air back up to the invisible giant from which it came, I had to imagine.

That was a terrible decision on his part, because even without the cloak, the bench was still mysteriously lodged in the man’s stomach region, spurting shadowy sinew in every direction as the man panicked and fell backward.

Something fell off of him, a small, round pin, like the kind of thing that would be worn on a lapel.

It rolled over toward me. I stopped my escape and picked it up.

It said simply ESC.

I stared at it as I caught up with the others, and we made our way out into the parking lot.

The hedge maze had been in the center of this version of Carousel, high up in elevation in one of Carousel’s nicer neighborhoods.

As we stared down at the valley where the rest of Carousel was, emergency services could be seen all over town. Fires raged here and there, ambulances drove by on the street, and still more of them sounded their alarms in the distance.

This attack had not just been on this party. It had been all over.

We needed to hide.