RFF version of Ghostbusters part 2

After Twelve joins the team the paranormal things they are experiencing are way more present and powerful. Charles’ teammates convince him that he needs to fix things with Twelve, so he answers her unanswered question about why he’s a ghost hunter, by showing her Dickens’ journal. It’s the missing piece of research that she needs to uncover the history of the last legitimate ghost buster, which she explains via a cool animated history (ala Deathly Hallows).

This clergyman was buried with his journal in England, but his tomb was raided and the journal was lost. Until it appeared years later in a collection of books purchased by the Library at Oxford collage, where it was auctioned off to a historian who sold it to its most previous owner, who purchased it off Ebay and currently resides in an old abandoned Subway in NY.

In the next scene they’re pulling up to a boarded-up Subway sandwich restaurant. Inside the counter is glowing and coated in purple slime (and obvious throw-back to the ectoplasm). But one of the other team Ghost Hunter members reveals that it’s just a phosphorescent fungus that grows on the lettuce. One of them is scanning the area for EMP, and it leads them to the manager’s office they find a collection of creepy things (clown dolls, Ouija Boards, a coin operated fortune telling machine, really anything that’s ever been haunted), and they find the cleric’s journal behind the glass of the fortune teller. As Charles slowly reaches into machine the eyes light up and the mouth opens, giving the audience a jump-scare, but Charles is not alarmed. Someone has just plugged in the machine. As they leave with the book, Twelve is the last to leave the room and she grabs the scary clown doll.

Twelve reads the cleric’s journal and it reveals the key to exorcising ghosts is in using the rites of their belief, and that the Ghost Club was stymied by a new kind of ghost that resulted from the industrial revolution where people started to have religious beliefs about science and technology. The best they were able to do is trap the spirits in human replicas where they are only able to affect a barely perceptible rise in spooky levels. Twelve starts applying this information to makes the ghost hunting team much more effective and triggers a montage which shows that they get better at detecting paranormal activity, and exorcising ghosts, but it also shows Twelve’s collection of creepy objects growing.

The climax of the movie is the disappearance of Twelve. When Charles goes to her apartment there are two burned girls playing hopscotch out front singing an eerie rhyme. Everything in the apartment appears much creepier than the first time we were there. Every step he takes in her house is creaky, until he realizes he just needs to walk faster, and it becomes comical instead. All the paintings in the place seem to watch him. In her room all the dolls are slumped over and appear to be sad, as their glassy eyes stare up toward a trapdoor in the ceiling leading up to the attic. Charles wanders around the attic fighting cobwebs and checking out a number of creepy objects until he finds another tiny door in the wall, leading out to a toolshed filled with sharp, rusty tools. In the middle of the floor is a trapdoor which leads down into a dark cellar. As Charles touches the bottom step the door slams shut. He is non-pulsed and pushes his way past creepy, dusty jars filled with animal parts and Blair Witch-like wooden effigies. The sound of crying can be heard and he follows it to a circle of candles. In the center of it is Twelve in a tub filled with bloody water.

Charles approaches her cautiously. Her eyes are closed and she is at peace. He starts to speak words of pain, of regret, of morning and she startles, screams, and curses at him for scaring her. “What are you doing in here?”

The scene suddenly shifts and he’s standing in her bathroom. She’s still in the tub, but instead of blood it’s filled with bubbles. He apologizes, hurries out of the room and closes the door. Through it he yells, “You haven’t shown up to work in a while, I was worried about you.”

“I’m fine, they’re taking care of me. You shouldn’t be here.”

“Who’s taking care of you?”

But there is only silence, and eventually the sound of the bathtub drain sucking air, then slurping up something else. He calls out her name a few time and gets no reply. Opening the door the tub is empty except for a mass of wet hair around the drain. He looks around the room, but there’s no where she could have gone. He looks under the claw foot tub and the drain pipe is bent in the shape of a human head as if the pipe is swallowing her like an anaconda.

“Girlfriend problems?” A voice asks, and looking up he sees a black man in a strange, steampunky costume standing in the door to the bathroom. After Charles demands to know who he is and how he got there, the new character introduces himself as Jasper Henry. The only surviving member of an ancient line of ghost busters, which started long, long before Charles Dickens ever joined the Ghost Club.

He goes on to explain that Charles girlfriend is a collector. All this time you thought they thought they were getting rid of ghosts, Twelve was capturing and collecting them, and their weak parapsychic energy has amplified. Charles invites Jasper to join his ghost hunter team, but he just shakes his head, how about you join MY ghost bustin’ team.

“I want producer credit.”

“Let start with getting your girlfriend back alive.”

“Ghosts can’t effect solid matter. Poltergeists don’t exist. She’s fine wherever she is.”

“The first part is true; they can’t effect solid matter, but they can trick your mind into believing whatever they want, and one of their favorite tricks is convincing your brain to stop breathing. You ever have a dream where you couldn’t breathe and couldn’t cry out for help? You ever heard of SIDS?”

“That’s messed up.”

Jasper leads Charles outside. The creepy burned twins start walking up to them and Jasper flicks his wrist and a ball of flame burst to life just outside his fingertips. They run away crying.

Charles says, “Dude, that wasn’t cool.”

Jasper looks back to the girls and sees them next door, running into the outstretched arms of the neighbor. “Sorry… I thought they were ghosts.”

Jasper outfits Charles with a bunch of equipment in his van and they go through the house shoot-em-up style blasting ghost and rescue the girl, who hates him for killing all of her ghost friends and destroying thousands of dollars’ worth of haunted memorabilia.

THE END

(Cue theme song written by Ray Parker Jr.)

I’ve always known that some of the things I write for RFF are better than others, but this was the first time that after I put out part one that I felt bad about it, and considered taking it down entirely. Just the way it half-heartedly straddles the line between a story, and a description. I wrote finding myself holding back in some ways, being totally serious at some points, and just fudging it at others. I’m not sure what to do with all that. I think I’m still going to post part II anyway and hope it doesn’t turn away first time readers, (my other stuff is better I promise) or worse, that it becomes my Clockwork Orange.

BONUS CONTENT!! Jokes I couldn't fit into the script:

Something about the purple slime in the Subway either "Also likes to Eat Fresh." Or "Eat Flesh."

Someone says to the fortune teller machine: "I wish I was Big!" and Charles says, "You know they make this little blue pill that can help you with that." 

In the scene when the tub swallows Twelve: Something about how hair is always getting stuck in the drain.


UPDATE!! 2-12-15
Sometimes funny little things happen which I take as divine affirmations that I'm on the right track. Jung called them synchronicities... well actually he called them Synchronizität.  I'm not a religious person, but the feeling I get when I experience synchronicity is the same eerie tingle I get from déjà vu. 

So yesterday, I published this very post, you've read it so you know what happens there, and last night I had to drive 2 hours to this meeting that I was hemming and hawing about whether I should go to or not, but when I arrive, it's in this weird cabin in the woods. We're all seated around a wood stove and there's all this stuff hanging from the ceiling. Like funny craft store chotchkies, not like animals in jars. And the walls are covered with things that eschew category, as if this were a showroom for that kind of restaurant that puts weird shit on their walls to make it quaint. It's not of course this is the result of the haphazard process of collecting.  Anyway, I'm sitting down with these folks, eating some cold potluck, and what do I see across the room?  

She is totally the sort of doll that Twelve would have collected! 

Unfortunately the owner of the house wasn't there, otherwise I would have asked him the story about her.

Also, it's hard to tell from the picture, but that's not just red fabric over her chest, it's actually hollowed out. And I think it's also worth noting that while this is a creepy thing to have in ones house, I didn't get the sense that Midnight Moon was haunted.

Tom Thumb + Voices

The tiny bubbles have just started to form on the edges of the pot when the front door opened wide enough, and long enough that I can feel the chill blow down the hall and join me in the living room.

“Mom! Hey mom! Can Sam stay for dinner?”

“Do you remember that we’re cooking for Grandma tonight?” I despise speaking with a forked tongue, but in this age of dietary restrictions one can’t always be direct and sensitive at the same time. And I know my boy knows I’ve been working too hard on Grandma’s meal to cook-up a second for some greens eatin’ rabbit.

“Oh, right,” he calls back.

Over the sound of their snow boots falling to the floor I hear my son speaking quietly to his friend, “Sam, your family eats meat right?”

I can’t hear Sam’s reply, and after a moment my son says, “What about pork?”

The bubbles release from the sides of the pot and it starts giving off a barely perceptible hiss.

I hear my Nana’s voice, “Quit fussing with that Debbie, what have I told you about a watched pot?”

Jimmy and his friend Sam come into the living room.

“Mom, this is Sam.”

“Evening ma’am.”

“Evening Sam, and Debra’s fine.”

Sam held his hands out to the wood stove and rubbed them together as he looked around at all the candles and up at the light fixtures. “Power out?”

“No Sam. When we cook for Grandma, we turn off the lights and cook on the old wood stove.”

“Won’t she have trouble seeing?”

“She passed about ten years ago. Jimmy, will you and Sam set the dining room table before you go off to play?”

When I look back to the pot the water is truly boiling now. Grandma’s right again. Never seems to a boil while I’m watching it. As I slip the Tom Thumbs into the pot, I’m relieved that the house is dim and Sam hadn’t noticed the bowl by his feet. After seeing them he might have changed his mind about being vegetarian. The Tom Thumb sausages are stuffed into the large intestine instead of the small, and they bulge unpleasantly like some desiccated organ, which I supposes is exactly what they are. Meat stuffed into an organ, dry cured and covered in white, powdery mold. It’s food from back when food grew in your yard. Back when food needed washing, grinding, canning, slaughtering and butchering.

When the boys come back down stairs it’s because they are drawn here by the smell and sizzle of the sliced Tom Thumbs frying in butter. They momentarily forget how not-cool it is to hang out with one’s mom and laze about the room like hungry coyotes. I’ve already played the set-the-table card to get them out from underfoot so I can finish this meditation in peace. Transferring the pan of fried Tom Thumbs to the serving platter and dropping new slabs into the smoking butter, I’m reminded of the first year I tried this; I let the woodstove get too hot and the butter flashed in the pan.

My Iphone timer goes off in my pocket. The electronic noise is jarring and cuts through the quiet candlelit house like bullets. With a smoking pan in one hand, a metal spatula in the other, and two able-bodied boys lounging within reach, I say, “Jimmy, your father will be home any minute. Will you light the candles on the table?

“Not you Sam. You’re going to grab those oven mitts and take out the cornbread.”

The mitts he figures out, but the latch on the oven door has him stymied, and he almost opens the firebox door. Finally he figures it out and a cloud of steam smelling of cornbread wafts upward, mingling with the smoky butter, and fried meat. I lift the lid off the Dutch oven and the amazing smell of roasted rosemary potatoes mixes with the others, and completes the spell. A kind of olfactory sorcery which breaks down the walls between here and yesteryear, and she’s alive and with us again. 

Now I’m the one being asked to set the table and light the candles. My little brother drags Nana’s chair in from the other room and sets it in the guest of honor spot at my parent’s long banquet table. Mom and Dad sit at either end and though they are the farthest apart my Dad makes eyes at her that makes her blush.

I never thought of it before, but something about the strength of the gastronomic alchemy this year has cleared up the memory: Sitting beside Nana’s empty chair is Mom’s father, and when it’s time to say prayer, instead of linking hands with the rest of us, Pappy grips the dark wooden armrest of that antique chair.  It occurs to me that this tradition isn’t about doing something because it’s what my mom did and it helps me remember her; it’s about cooking all the mothers and grandmothers back to life.

The End

A note: This story was suggested by the same woman who suggested Vascular Dementia + Horny Toad in a Shoebox, and I’ll admit it had me good and stumped, until I asked her what the inspiration was and she said this:

“Food is a vehicle for voices of the past.  Food is a way to see how life was lived and what was normal.  Do we hold onto tom thumb because it's family, tradition, and how that makes us feel - safe and belonging?  Or do we move on and speak with a new voice carried on by a different home cooked dish?  Is this a conscious question?  Or does the taste buds decide?  If I was a parent, what would I decide to serve my family?”

THAT sparked my imagination like I’d had a gas leak while I was away on vacation. Thanks for the suggestions, and keep them coming!

~Tyler

You Won’t Believe This Weird Old Trick to Stay Looking Forever Young

1. Commission a realist painter to paint your portrait.

Any painter will do, but the closer the likeness to you the more you will undoubtedly get away with. No need to do silly superstitious things like mixing your bodily fluids into the paint. This will only ensure that the old fortuneteller’s reading will follow your painting through history ala The Red Violin (nice, super current pop culture reference!).

2. Sell your soul to the Devil.

This is very important: do not skimp on any ol’ devil or demon. Not just any old Ba’al or Azazel will do, and I know Diablo had gotten a lot of play recently with the video game, and sure that big rack of horns is impressive and all, but don’t be fooled by those lesser evils; Ask for the big S himself and don’t be surprised when he looks like Pacino. (Part of Pacino’s pact with the prime evil was that he would become as handsome as Satan himself.)

Also, for Christ’s sake, don’t go to Death. He can’t do magic, he can just barter for your soul and that ma’fucker is good at chess. Like, playing-against-the-computer-on-hard-mode good.

3. Put the painting somewhere safe.

This is very serious, and in many ways the hardest step. Remember you've switched fates with the painting: As it gets old you remain immortalized in the time when it was painted. Don’t get smart and hired the painter to paint a younger version of you, it won't work. If the painting doesn't look exactly like you, your idiot soul won’t be fooled when the Devil does the switcheroo.

Take some time now and try to think where it would be safe. NO! Don’t mount it above your mantle, there’s a fire right beneath it! Seriously you have to think these things through. No, not in the attic. Just imagine what might happen as bugs and/or mice started to eat the delicious crusty old oil. Ooh, one of those climate controlled storage facilities. You’re on the right track, but still no. Say you get this thing painted in 2014 and in a hundred years from now the great-great-great grandchildren of the storage facility look at their records and see that you’ve been a faithful customer for the last 100 years. You can’t leave a paper trail of proof.

I’ll give you a hint. Where could you put it that is climate controlled, has some of the best security available, and will pay YOU to store it there? If you answered an art museum you’re correct. Also, you have to make sure the painting has some innocuous name that doesn’t mention you, or the age of the person. No "Tyler smoking a pipe," or "Handsome young man," or "Prince Charming," these kinds of names will only arouse investigation as it ages.

The only catch is that you have to live well. If over the course of a year the painting starts to look all bloated and fat cause you decided to start living off bacon donuts, and nacho cheese fries, or worse all skeletal with sunken eyes and black veins, the staff is going to suspect that the original was stolen.

If at any time you get tired of living forever don’t come complaining to me, just sneak into the museum and stab it with a knife. The painting will be fine and no one will ever know who that old guy is or who or why someone decided to stab him at The Met.

Special thanks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for acquiring and keeping this painting safe all these years.

Sources:

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

“Self Portrait”, by Gustave Courbet

Guillotine + Playgrounds

Sometimes, in the moments where I’m totally lacking inspiration I’ll search for a random word generator, get it to spit out five words, and mash them together until I feel that spark of inspiration. These are the two. Don’t worry about the content, there aren’t any underage beheadings.

1

     There was a boy lying face down in the dirt. Immediately my heart leapt into my chest and my mind started racing through possibilities: that he’d fallen off the bars and broken his neck. No, his posture was not akimbo; he hadn’t fallen. The alternating scream of metal on metal from the children on the swings made me think he must have been running in-between swingers and gotten kicked. Children have been killed by concussive blows to the heart before. Something about the timing interrupting the ventricle rhythm, but that wasn’t for me to diagnose. I’m just here to watch over them, make sure they’re not bullying each other or doing anything unsafe. Then, as I carefully wove in between the see-saw and the sand box, I wondered the why the boy lying alone. Usually when someone gets hurt you see the telltale ring of kids standing around the scene, looking either scared, or ashamed, or concerned. Seventy percent of the time the first kid to talk did it. I hurried in closer and, to my great relief, saw puffs of dirt and the wood chips by his neck moving with his breath.

     “Hey kid, you okay?” I had to resist the urge to lay a hand on his back, only the nurse is allowed to touch the children. The boy very subtly shook his head, working his face deeper into the dirt and woodchips. 

     “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

     “No. I’m dead.”

     I tried to feign despair but my personal relief got mixed in, “Oh, no. How did that happen?”

     “Avada Kedavra. Go away or they won’t let me play anymore.” I didn’t understand the first thing he said, it sounded like he was speaking another language, but “Go away” was loud and clear... except that he said it as quietly as he could. 

     “It doesn’t look like anyone is playing with you now.”

     “That’s because I’m dead. Do you play with dead people?” 

     “Well, how do we get you back alive?”

     “You can’t, I’m dead forever. GO AWAY.”

2

Later, after the bell rang and the playground cleared. I related this story and found myself surrounded by a circle of laughing parents.

“I don’t see what’s so funny.”

One of the mothers who had strawberry blonde hair that didn’t match her dark eyebrows said, “I’m laughing because I did the same thing a few days ago. Only I tried to used logic to prove to him he wasn’t dead.”

“Oh, you're talking about Cain.” One of the father’s said. I couldn’t remember his name, but thought of him only as Yoga Dad. “Last spring his name was Thor. His real name is Armond, but he won’t answer to his real name. He’s more dedicated to that than the wizard game.” 

“What’s—” I stopped myself from saying: wrong with him?  “What's the wizard game?” 

“It’s impressive how many of them play it,” said Eyebrows, “Basically all the 6th and 7th graders are playing it.”

Yoga Dad noticed that Eyebrows hadn’t actually answered, and before I had a chance to ask again said, “It’s based on these books about wizards, I’m surprised you haven’t heard about them, basically they all run around pointing sticks at each other and calling adults muggles.”

“My son’s in sixth grade, why didn’t he mention this to me?” I tried to sound curious, but it came out sounding hurt.

“Because—” Yoga Dad began slowly, as if carefully choosing his words.

I cut him off gasping, “Oh no, I’m a muggle!” The parents laughed again, but stopped when they realized I wasn’t being facetious. I turned to Eyebrows. “You said you tried to logic him out of being dead a few days ago?” She nodded. “So he’s been just lying on the ground during recess for days in a row? Why doesn’t someone save him?”

“That’s a better question for your son, as far as we know it isn't possible.”

3

That night, as I watched him pushing the kale around his plate searching for any dressing-bloated raisins he might have missed, I decided I couldn’t ask him directly. I wouldn’t be able to handle him pushing me away, even if was just with his eyes, and even if they were partially veiled behind the hairs the hung in his face. God, he needs a haircut. The silence, periodically shredded by the scratching of the fork across his plate, stretched on until I asked, “Hey buddy, how are you liking this new school?”

“It’s good.”

“You meeting some nice friends?”

“Yeah,” he said, unsure. I recognized it as the doubt that he could trust anyone to like him. “Mom?” He looked up at me with his big eyes and I knew what he was going to ask. “Why did we have to move?”

We’d had this conversation a hundred times, but sometimes it takes a hundred-and-one for something to sink in. I was about to tell him, but something came over me. I say ‘something’ like I didn’t know. I knew. I had been reading chapter summaries all afternoon, I’d made it through four of the seven books and had enough crazy ideas swimming through my head that I was probably going to have wizarding dreams tonight.

I sighed, “Hey buddy, we’ve been over this before haven’t we?” He nodded. “There’s a rumor that You-Know-Who is back, and mommy wants you to be safe.”

He looked confused for a moment, then his eyes grew wide. “It’s okay, I’ve been practicing.” He started to get up.

“Finish your dinner before you leave the table.” Without pause he finally stuffed the kale into his mouth, and quickly walked to his school backpack, hanging from a low coat hook on the kitchen island. He pulled out a stick, and brought it to me. It was a dried shaft about a foot long, with a strange bulb the size of a lollipop at the top of where the handle would be.

Laying it in my hands gingerly he said, “This is my goldenrod wand.”

I turned it over. I pretended to appreciate the weight of it. I gave it a few practice flicks. I sighted down the length of it, and stopped. “What’s the core made out of?”

His eyes dropped to the floor. He didn’t know, and knew it would be useless to lie to me.

“This wand didn’t choose you, did it?” Pushing the game so far felt a little dirty.

“How did you know?” he asked.

The letters C-Ʌ-I-N were scratched into the topside of the bulb. They barely looked like letters, more like runes. “A wizard knows these things,” I said.



...To be continued

4D Cinema + Democracy

     A cool spring breeze blew from the west, that smelled fresh, but carried undertones of the shared dumpster behind the Trader Joes. As the setting sun sank below the rolling, periwinkle hills, and the cotton candy clouds on sticks of contrails dissipated into puddles of fluff, the line around the Danford Cineplex stretched longer than the shadow of the gigantic golden arches on the corner of route 30.

Maria wore a Red ApocalEclipse T-shirt with two star-crossed lovers staring longingly into each other's eyes. The characters are both 17, but played by actors well in their twenties. On the back of the shirt it said "Red Army".  When the breeze picked up she unconsciously zippered up her windbreaker, concealing the T-shirt but never taking her eyes off her phone. "The Pollster for the Danford Cineplex says our ending is 56% likely!"

Another watcher, who Maria only knew by his internet handle Eclipse1999 said, "Pollster is contaminated, the Death Campers always vote in our favor to make our lobbyists lazy."

"Maybe, but someone from the group of War Camp watchers at the front of the line keeps tweeting with the hash "tonight's the night"."

The Red Army, the Danford faction of War Camp, was perhaps thirty strong, but there were only eighteen present in Maria's group of watchers. The line itself was around 300 long and every-so-often a pox-marked man in his thirties, in a red Cineplex vest would labor past, clicking a head count and letting everyone past 250 know that there were no tickets for sale, and no guarantee of getting in.

"Well look who it is," said R3dHors3, "Vinnie decided to show up."

Maria looked up to see a fellow Red Army watcher walking toward them, she had never met him before, but felt the instant camaraderie she'd felt with all the Red Army. Vinnie said, "Hey. I'm Vinnie," and though many didn't bother looking up from their phones, the group opened up to welcome him into its mass. "I'm seeing a lot of Death Camp shirts, there must be at least three lobbying the north wall. Don't kill the messenger, but I get the feeling that we should try again on another night, maybe not on a Friday when there are so many Firsties."

"Firsties are our best bet!" said ApocalForever as he came back from lobbying. "Half of them are content to be manipulated by the freaking soundtrack, but the other half are happy to hear what kind of movie they can choose if they vote for the right timeline."

RedArmy1 spoke up. "It's true. Apocal, how many did you get?"

"Twelve."

RedArmy1 nodded, "Nice."

Vinnie seemed unimpressed. "You know how Firsties are, they say yes, but half of them get wrapped up in the movie and forget when it comes down to the timeline choice! Then they try to tell you they voted the other way at the end when you're doling out rewards."

RedArmy1 squared off with him, "Who are you?"

R3dHors3 spoke up and tried to put himself between Red and Vinnie, "This is my friend Vinnie."

RedArmy1 ignored him, "What's your eu-en, Vinnie?"

"I don't have a username, I'm not on your forum, I'm from Newberg. Ryan --sorry-- Red horse said you guys had a chance to see the Red Army ending. I'm here to support, but it looks like you're outnumbered."

RedArmy1 backed down, "Well, thanks for driving all the way out here." He shook his head, "Gaaah, I want to see that ending so bad! I've seen this movie thirty freaking times, and I swear if I see another sappy ending where Pestilence and Famine team up with Gabriel and Death, I will drive-by the director's house!"

"Oh shit!" Maria said, "Twitter just exploded! A group of watchers down in Austin got the Red Army. They didn't spoil it, or give timeline directions, but they keep hashing 'darkest timeline'."

Redleah4, one of other women in the Red Army asked, "What if we vote FOR Death early, maybe there's a timeline vote that could paint the son of Death as a power hungry ass-bag? People will be more likely to route for the underdog later."

          Maria shook her head, but RedArmy1 answered, "We tried that last month."

Redleah4's shoulders slumped, and Maria offered, "Yeah. Remember the timeline where Leah gets in trouble with the gang of Morphine dealers? Within the first week of the ApocalEclipse opening, spoilers got around and everyone found out that when Leah chooses the Son of War, it puts the War compound in a position to side with Leah, but War would have to kill the Morphos--"

"And without the Morphos, Pestilence would have a foothold into War's compound," Redl4ah realized aloud.

Maria continued, "Right. It forces the Son of War to leave his family, but without the compound he's straight-up pathetic. Like Dudley Dursley pathetic. Leah starts doubting his ability to protect their child, but that's before he knows she's preggers.  Ever since the second week only firstie watchers ever vote for that Son of War timeline, unless we tell them how it ends."

"How we think it ends," Vinnie corrected.

Redleah4 sucked on her hair. "Hm. I knew I was supposed to vote for her to ask for the Son of Death's help, but I mean, we're Red Army so I never wanted to ask why it seemed like we were helping Death Campers."

RedArmy1 turned to Maria, "Madonna2000, go recruit some more Firsties."

In all fairness it was her turn, but she got the feeling that RedArmy1 was punishing her for mentioning their failed conquest. She nodded and started wandering down the line.

"Hey, hi," she said, approaching a couple obviously from the city.

"We have pre-buy," said the man/husband, assuming she was going to ask them for tickets, "Sorry non-transferable." he shrugged.

"I'm not here to buy, I was just wondering if you have put any thought into your timeline choices?"

They exchanged a look that only old people were capable of, and the woman shook her head. "Sorry. We don't vote."

"WHAT?" Maria couldn't help herself and probably lost two watchers in the process, "Why on Earth would you come to a 4D movie and not vote? The alternate timelines are the whole point? Do you also watch 3D movies with an eye patch?"

The man/husband stepped toward her, sheltering his wife like a delicate flower from a frost named Maria. "We just couldn't make it in time for the director's cut okay?"

Maria walked away. Not okay. Maybe I'll have better luck converting voting watchers, she thought and soon noticed a tall young man reading the ApocalEclipse fan forum, she stepped into his cloud of Old Spice and asked, "What's your timeline route?"

The young man looked up. He had piercing green eyes like the Son of War himself, and ice-green piercings in his lip and eyebrow. He swiped his finger across the screen of his phone and read, "Yes to the rave; No to morphine; Yes to the ride home.--"

"Pssh," she interrupted playfully, "I've seen that movie already, it's so Disney Princess the only thing it's missing is talking mice!"

He narrowed his eyes challenging her, "Well, at least tell me your favorite timeline so I can crap on your parade."

She grinned, "The one I haven't seen."

"You'd have to go hundreds of times to see all the endings."

"Two-fourty-three to see every variation, but there are only three endings--"

"Hashtag spoiler alert!"

"You're on the AE forum!"

"But think of the other people within earshot," he said lowering his voice.

"True," she copied his volume level and leaned deeper into his cloud, "I want to see what happens when she falls in love with the Son of War."

He seemed to realized that he was being lobbied,  "You like the bad boy type huh? I could be persuaded, what're you offering?"

Oh my God, this cute guy is flirting with me. I mean he's kind of cute, which is to say that he is cute, but a little out of my league. Yeah, cause I totally have a league, it's whatever sports metaphor means the very bottom. Bottom feeders, that's my league. Catfish, Lobsters, those sort of things. Suddenly she knew without a doubt that if she flirted with him, he would vote on her route and they would see the Red Army ending. It was just like the movie, she could even see the prompt jump up before her eyes.

Timeline choice in 3... 2... 1...

1) Flirt with him

2) Shoot him down

#

Audience chose:  Flirt with him!

He seemed to realized that he was being lobbied,  "You like the bad boy type, huh? "

Maria smiled out of the corner of her mouth and said, "Depends, does your dad command the Red army?"

"Maybe? Is that what those guys with the armor made from truck tires are called?"

"Oh my God, I love that guy with the shield made from a car door!"

"That's the Red army? Really? No wonder you haven't gotten your ending, those guys are hella communists!"

"No they're not! They're stylized after the Vikings! The loot from the raids was given to the lord and redistributed according to valor!"

"Wow, calm down on the Discovery Channel."

"Read Beowulf bitch! and next time you try negging, pick someone who's within your IQ bracket, and Old Spice does not replace a shower."

As Maria watched the Angel Gabriel leading the charge with Death, Pestilence, and Famine at his back she thought back to that moment and wondered if it would have been worth it to let that asshole walk all over her, after all, they did lose their timeline vote by one, and Maria knew exactly which one it was.

#

Audience chose: Shoot him down!

He seemed to realized that he was being lobbied,  "You like the bad boy type huh? I could be persuaded, what're you offering?"

"Excuse me? What kind of girl do you think I am?"

He raised his hands, "I... I didn't mean it like that; Death Camp came by here earlier and they were offering 10 unique Twitter followers for their ending."

Maria shook her head, "Damn, that's good. We've got a man on the inside who can get us first in line to buy tickets for the final showing of ApocalEclipse next month."

He seemed surprised, "That's better! I supposed you'll require proof for that."

"So you'll vote for our route?" Maria could barely contain her excitement.

He looked back to his phone, "No, this is the last time I'm going to watch it. I'm writing an ApocalEclipse fan fiction where Leah gets sold as a human commodity. I've already got everything I need from the movie, now I just need the followers."

"That doesn't make any sense, no AE fan would ever read that," But then Maria realized he didn't even know what the Red Army was, he'd never even seen that timeline. "Son of a bitch you're a Troll!"

He laughed in her face, "Nice to meet you. I'm Austin, as in Austin Texas." It felt like a cold knife through the heart, and then he twisted it, "Didn't you ever wonder why the Red Army ending is so illusive?"

She hadn't even considered it before and yet it had been her life for the last three months. "There IS no Red Army ending."

#

The tall young man who smelled of Old Spice was staring at her with a concerned look on his face. "Hellooo? You okay? You just like... zoned out or something. How long have you been in line?"

Maria shook her head and the dust of alternate timelines flew off and away from her like a flock of pigeons from an oncoming car. "Yeah, I'm okay. A few hours."

"Here," he reached into a black messenger bag with the ApocalEclipse moon and anarchy 'A' symbol stitched onto the front, and pulled out an unopened bottled water.

"Thanks," she said, taking it from him.

While she drank he asked, "What are you offering if I vote for your timeline?"

"How many times have you seen this movie?" She asked.

"5. I didn't want to get on board at first, but then I started reading the forums and got sucked into the Easter Egg hunts. This time I'm going for 'No morphine' because it unlocks a bonus scene between Pestilence and Gabriel, where Pest has a momentary change of heart and decides to hide the Nephilim child. It's Fiennes' best performance since Deathly Hallows, supposedly that scene is the why he decided to do the role."

Maria looked at the people standing around him. He seemed alone. "Are these your watchers?" she asked not even believing it herself.

"No, I'm solo."

She shook her head, "You're never going to get that scene if you don't build up voters. Basically you're just taking votes from the Red Army ending."

"Maybe, but this is the only reason I'm at the Cineplex. I'd rather do something else than watch a movie I don't want to see, much less sit through a movie just so I can vote to watch a movie I don't want to see." He sighed, "How do they get us to do this? You know we can just watch all the endings when it comes out on DVD."

Maria started to cry, "But I don't want to miss it. I've spent three months of my life watching, and voting for this one movie that I'm going to kick myself if I'm not there to see it and celebrate with my people."

He shrugged, "My people are hunters, we search alone."

"Not anymore," she said. "Can I cut?"

He smiled, moved over, and she stepped into line beside him. "I'm Mado--I mean-- Maria."

He looked embarrassed about something. "I'm Gabriel, and before you ask: yes, it's my real name; yes, I know I'm named after the bad guy in the movie; and yes, I do vote for my namesake to  die."

Maria took another sip of water and thought, maybe there's a reason the Disney princess ending is so popular...