By Incanto, for PlatinumNacht.
It was a dark and stormy night... or so it looked when they walked in. Outside, it was a typical California Christmas, with snow nowhere in sight but Christmas decorations everywhere trying to make up the difference. It was only moments before that Jenny approached the nondescript building, its windows painted shut with fantastical murals on the outside, the door painted to look like a door. Her gut wrenched; this was far too familiar. Murals of doors that turn into doors, strange buildings in even stranger parts of town...
"Well, this is hardly my idea of how to spend Christmas," Audrey sighed, automatically fixing her hair like she always did when they were about to enter a social gathering.
Dee walked up behind her, frowning. "Not mine either. I could be at home right now with Aba's special eggnog."
Audrey gave Dee a look. "Eggnog? Not some secret African potion handed down by her tribe for centurie- OW!"
Dee removed her fist from Audrey's lower back. "Don't be so dramatic, I barely touched you. What's wrong with eggnog? I like eggnog."
"Are they at it ALREADY?" Tom jogged up the sidewalk to the others, giving Jenny an affectionate smile and a kiss on the cheek. "Sorry that took so long. Parking was a nightmare."
Jenny sighed and shook her head. "I don't think anything's going to keep you two from fighting. Not even Christmas. Anyway, I guess this is the place. Zach didn't tell me anything, he just said to meet him here for our Christmas party."
Dee frowned again. "I don't like this, but let's go in. We won't get anywhere just standing here."
Almost as if on cue, the doors creaked open. Smoke snaked from the pitch-black entryway.
"How droll," Audrey murmured indignantly, pursing her lips.
It took some hesitant steps back and forth, but eventually, they found themselves inside the building. Unsurprisingly, the doors slammed shut behind them, and that's when they heard the crackling of thunder. Jenny inhaled sharply.
"What's Zach up to?" Tom asked.
The darkness around them was illuminated, briefly, by what appeared to be lightning, revealing a drapery-covered archway right in front of them. Jenny sighed. "Let's just follow the path for now, I guess."
Reluctantly, they filed into the room beyond the archway, and were met with a mad whirl of neon. The others were in awe of their surroundings, but the wrenching in Jenny's gut only increased. She recognized it, all right; it was Zach's nightmare from the paper house, almost exactly reproduced. The velvet dropcloth floor, the strange low ceiling with splotches of glowing neon color, and the studio lights all over the place. Jenny opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
Then she started noticing little differences between this and Zach's nightmare. Many of the floodlights didn't have subjects under them, and others had completely different subjects than the ones in Zach's nightmare: a stone statue of a man, recoiling in terror; a strange, fantastical creature permanently frozen next to what could only be described as a cybernetic apple; a child's teddy bear, lying discarded with dusty old children's clothing and what looked like small bones.
The others began to speak, all wanting to know what exactly was going on, but they were quickly cut off by a booming voice that seemed to come from all around them.
"Greetings, damned creatures. You have been chosen to play the nightmare game. I am the Overseer, and I will be observing your progress. I can tell you this now: only one of you will make it out alive." The voice cackled maniacally.
"Oh god, it can't be," Jenny gasped.
"But Julian's GONE. We saw him die," Audrey cried.
"This one's not Julian though," Tom added hoarsely. "He's calling himself the Overseer. What if it's the other Shadow Men? What if they decided they weren't through with us yet, what if they found some other way out? Oh Jesus, what if they already got Zach and Michael?"
Nobody got a chance to reply as the voice started again. "The object of this game is simple: get to the end of the corridor. You will need a key, which is contained in one of the rooms off to the side. Sounds easy, doesn't it? The only problem is, the Hunter will be released in 30 seconds, and he's hunting all of you. Anyone hit by the Hunter will die. Good luck to you all." And there was that mad cackling again, taunting them.
"Oh merde." Audrey tried to sound chic and in-control, but her voice shook.
"Hunter, huh? I can take him. You guys just watch." Dee was nervous, Jenny knew that, but she did a far better job of hiding it under bravado than Audrey had.
"We probably shouldn't stand around talking, guys. Didn't he say 30 seconds? The further we are, the better our chances get. We can figure all this out when we're safe." Tom had gotten very good at being the voice of reason these days.
Now that Jenny looked around her, she could see faint outlines of doorways behind all the lights and splashes of glowing paint. This was much different from Zach's nightmare after all, but it didn't help her figure out what was going on. She tried to recall some of the strength she'd found inside herself after the paper house game and, mustering up every ounce she could, took the first step forward. "Okay. We can do this, guys. We're old pros, right? Everyone start trying doors. I'll take this one on the left. Try to stay all on one side so nobody gets too isolated. We don't know what we're facing here."
"Wouldn't it be safer to all try one door at a time together, like we did at the house?" Tom suggested.
"I thought about that, but we don't have enough time. If it gets too crazy in the room, just run back out and get us."
Everyone nodded and dispersed; Jenny was right, they were old pros at this. Dee especially could probably give any trained commando a run for their money. Taking a deep breath, Jenny kicked open the door she'd chosen, prepared to fight anything that could be inside, but only darkness greeted her. Tentatively, she walked in and started to look around, fumbling for anything resembling a light switch.
She found no such thing, but as if reacting to her footfalls, more floodlights came on in the room. Taking a look around, Jenny found herself in a small room decorated to look like an enchanted forest, complete with glitter-covered trees and - she was tempted to rub her eyes - a huge white unicorn standing at the opposite end of the room in a pool of glittering water. Slowly, baffled, she approached the unicorn.
"Hello?" Jenny had long since stopped feeling weird about talking to animals and inanimate objects.
No response. Jenny waded into the cold water, bits of glitter sticking to her pantlegs and coating her shoes as it soaked in, and reached out a hand to touch the unicorn gently on the neck. No response again. Frowning in disbelief, Jenny rapped lightly on the unicorn; a hollow echo was her only reply. "It's fake!" she exclaimed to herself. "What the..."
A banner unfurled from the tip of the unicorn's horn. "WRONG ROOM" was scrawled in fancy, cursive letters on it. "Oh you have GOT to be kidding me. Unicorns? Horn banners? REALLY, Shadow Men?" After so many encounters, no matter how deeply she still feared the creatures in the dark, Jenny could no longer resist the urge to get snippy when the situation grew increasingly more ridiculous.
Then two things happened: a whooshing sound in the distance, and a "Eureka!" from Audrey. Everyone ran back out into the hallway, meeting up with a triumphantly beaming Audrey holding a beautifully-detailed, shiny silver key on a velvet ribbon. "Way too easy!" she proudly exclaimed. Dee even gave her a friendly smack on the back as congratulations. As everyone prepared to head down the hall, a zooming sound followed by the "thwack!" of metal in wood startled them.
"Oh shit," Dee scowled and pointed to a crossbow bolt embedded in the wall beside them. "Run for it! Scatter so he can't hit us all together, and zig-zag as much as you can!"
No one had to be told twice. Everyone took off running for the darkness down the hall, only Jenny risking a look over her shoulder. She wasn't at all surprised by what she saw: the hunter from Zach's nightmare, in his cyberpunk armor and his mirrored helmet, aiming his crossbow right at her. Jenny tried to run faster, changing her run as much as she could, trying desperately not to remain a followable target; she yelped in terror as two more bolts appeared in the wall beside her.
Time seemed to pass slowly, and yet it couldn't have been more than a minute of terrified running, of bolts embedded in the walls and floor around them, before they saw a silvered door, matching the style of the key in Audrey's hand, up ahead of them. "Go! We're almost there!" Dee yelled. "I'll keep him busy!"
"Dee, NO!" Tom yelled. "Between black belt and silver bolt, the belt's not gonna win!"
But Dee ignored Tom as she always did. Jenny ran to Audrey's side as fast as she could while Audrey herself fumbled with the key, desperately trying to find a keyhole in all the intricate woodwork of the door. "Come on, Audrey, you can do it!" she tried to encourage her. "We've gotta hurry!"
"I'm trying!" Audrey snapped. Jenny took it as a good sign; Audrey worried her more when she didn't snap.
Jenny stepped behind Audrey, covering the redhead's body with her own, and turned to face the Hunter. Both Dee and Tom were in their respective attack positions, but underneath all of their bravado and despite everything they'd survived together, they were still just a bunch of terrified kids, even this far into their 20s. The Hunter tossed his crossbow aside - Jenny could only guess that it was out of bolts - and took the gun at his hip from its holster. He pointed it right at Dee and hit the trigger as Tom launched himself in front of the gun, lunging for the Hunter to try to knock him off-balance.
"Tom!" Jenny screamed, her mind reeling. Had they really survived all of this just to die here on Christmas?
Instead of a gunshot, there was a strange spraying sound as Tom and the Hunter toppled to the ground together. Jenny began to imagine what horrible things could have happened: maybe the gun shot acid, or lasers, or some horrible substance only the Shadow Men could dream up. She ran to Tom, who had started to sob in pain, pulling him off the Hunter and rolling him onto his back. "Tom! Oh god, Tom, what did he do to you?!"
As she turned Tom around, Jenny realized he wasn't sobbing - he was laughing. Taking a closer look at his chest, she realized that he was covered in... spray snow and silly string? Jenny blinked several times. "Wait... what the-"
The Hunter, crumpled beside Tom, started to laugh too, then sat up and reached for his helmet. As he pulled it off, Jenny realized it had been Zach under there all this time. The silly string and spray snow was what had fired from his gun. "You guys," he gasped with laughter. "You totally fell for it."
Jenny's eyes grew wide with rage as she tackled Zach to the ground again, smacking him as hard as she could across the face. "How COULD you?! After all we've been through, how could you think this is FUNNY?! You JERK!" she screamed at him.
"Whoa, whoa! OW! Jenny, cut it out!" he swatted at her arms, trying to get her off of him. "Let me explain!"
Another voice came from behind Audrey, who, it seemed, had gotten the door open after all. "I guess, in hindsight, this was a really stupid way to test-run it." It was Michael, all dressed up in a cyberpunk Santa costume, coming out of the room they'd tried to run to.
Jenny stopped and sat up. "Test-run what?"
"Our new franchise. See, Zach and I were talking one time, and he told me about his nightmare at the paper house, and I said it sounded like an awesome game of laser tag, and he said if I could think up more to do with it, he'd totally go into it with me, and then we actually got sponsors and everything, but we didn't want to tell you guys yet because you'd probably think it sounded stupid, and then Zach came up with the idea to have you guys all here for a Christmas party and just show it to you in person." Michael finally paused to take a breath at the end of his rambling introduction.
Zach sat up, rubbing the back of his head. "Yep. That's about it. I guess we shouldn't've just sprung it on you guys like this though." He grinned at Tom. "You've gotta admit though - the spray snow was genius. Booga booga, I'm the Shadow Man! I'll frost your windows!"
"Michael Cohen!" Audrey squealed his name indignantly. "Of all the stupid, short-sighted, mean-spirited, idiotic, thoughtless, insensitive-"
Michael cut her off mid-sentence by pulling a box out of his pocket. It was Audrey's favortite, one Jenny knew well by the turquoise and brown colors of the wrapping. Audrey's jaw dropped. "Tiffany's? Michael..."
He smiled sheepishly. "Our investors pay really well. I thought this might happen, so I figured it'd be easiest to bribe you into complacency. Darling."
Audrey sniffed indignantly. "You really think I'm that simple a creature."
Michael shook his head, a dramatic air entering his tone. "My beautiful gazelle, a woman has never been so mysterious and complex as you. Historians will surely spend eons trying to figure you out long after we all pass into the ether. However, there is one thing I know, and it's that you love Tiffany's, and somewhere down the list, you love me. I thought maybe the combination of the two would overload your anger circuits or something."
She couldn't help but smile as she shook her head. For a moment, she hesitated, and then - seeming to decide that she didn't care who was watching - Audrey wrapped her arms around Michael for a big hug, nuzzling his neck affectionately as she did so.
"Wow. She didn't go for the box first? Color me impressed." Zach chuckled as he stood up. "Anyway, guys, we've got the party all set up in the back room. Christmas food galore, care of Don's Gourmet Deli down the street, and some homemade stuff we got from our parents too. And lots of party games, too."
Jenny shot Zach a look. "What kinds of games?"
Zach shot a similar look right back at her. "Unless Sorry! and Pictionary have gotten a lot more sinister since the last time I played them, I don't think it's anything you'll mind."
Michael, still beaming, his arm around an Audrey who was furiously trying to unwrap her present in the most delicate way possible, chimed in. "And presents! Lots of presents. Come on in, guys, I promise we don't have any more weird surprises."
The rest of the evening went splendidly. Though Dee definitely took her anger out on the guys during the more physical games they played, by the end of the evening, all was forgotten. Aba even showed up with her special eggnog (everyone agreed it was, in fact, quite special, but hesitated to ask what bizarre ingredients made it that way), as she sometimes did even when no one had called her. By the end of the night, stuffed full of good food, Christmas cookies, and content with a day of fun and happy memories, Jenny sat back, leaning into the arm Tom had placed lightly over her shoulders.
She sighed. "Even though that was a really stupid way to start things off, guys, this was a great party. And I'm so proud of you both!"
It was Zach's turn to smile sheepishly. "Well, we've just barely gotten started, really. We were going to add more objectives, and maybe turn it into a maze, and add more rooms and stuff like that. This is just the bare-bones start of it. When people play for real, they'll probably have those laser tag vests on so the game can tell when they've been hit, too."
"If that was just the basic setup, I can't wait to try it out when you're done," Tom said, "now that I know it really IS just a game."
Dee mumbled her agreement through a mouthful of eggnog and cookies.
"Okay, I just have one question for you two though," Jenny thoughtfully added.
"What's that?" Michael asked.
"What's up with the unicorn?"
Fin.
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