Chương 258: Book Six, Chapter 20: The Gorging

Ramona and I stood over the broken remains of the Madame Macabre fortune teller. Like so many of the other things we had seen, this was a pale imitation of the actual animatronic, a mockery when you looked inside.

"Do you hear that?" she asked.

"The whispering?" I nodded.

"The demon that was possessing it still seems to be in there. Freaky. I think these things get injured when you destroy their host." You think you know demons, but the demons from this storyline seemed so pitiful, able to be hurt like this. It was surely a good thing. Being able to physically harm a demon was a rare gift in a horror movie and usually only occurred when the demon had a corporeal form.

"It's sad," Ramona said. She stared at it with real concern.

"They're in pain, all those little voices. I wonder what their story is."

"Camden probably knows," I said.

"Maybe," she said.

"I meant their real story." I stared down at the sad, tortured shadows.

"Probably not a happy one," I said. After a moment, we walked forward. The next Madame Macabre we found was still destroyed, but much less so, as if the person holding the wooden pizza paddle didn't want to put in the work once he realized there would be multiple. The third one was nearly intact, except for its head, which didn't seem to bother it that much compared to the others. She still invited us to stick our hands in and get our palms read. There was no way in Hell.

Especially since the blades she intended to stick us with were clearly visible. We continued to follow a path of carnage, destroyed props which sang gently in the tortured screams of whatever souls these demons were composed of. The sooner we met up with Isaac, the better. He had been down here for hours already, and from the looks of it, he had gotten some good footage for Carousel.

"We need to pick up the pace," I said.

"If Isaac has been fighting everything that moves, he's probably not that far away. We might still be able to catch him, join up, and he can protect you On-Screen. It looks like he already got the demons that were meant to capture you."

"Isaac's down here?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"How did he get taken? I thought they couldn't, because he was too young," she said.

"Well... he kind of went on his own," I said. She looked skeptical.

"I know. But Avery's Dream Girl trope really spoke to him."

"If he's down here alone, we need to find him," she said. It was great that she was concerned, but with all of the tropes propping up Isaac, he was probably doing far better than we ever could. We ran forward, following every broken animatronic, prop, and shattered window. And it led us right to him.

He was still wearing his Frankie the Fire Ferret mascot costume, and he was engaged in combat On-Screen with a strange centaur, whose top half was Bella Mozzarella and whose bottom half was the Pizza Boxer on all fours. These weren't real animatronics. No, they almost looked like plaster knockoffs, a mockery of what was above, once again. Isaac was breaking through the monstrosity with the pizza peel and screaming the whole time he did it.

He chopped away at the plaster or whatever that material was, one hit at a time in rapid succession, until the top half was separated from the bottom half. Black strands of shadow tried to pull the halves back together, whimpering in their tortured whisper. He was a madman, filled with some sort of frantic madness. Or love. At fourteen, what was the difference? We were in a recreation of the lobby, except there were dozens of doors leading in all different directions. But I wasn't focused on the doors.

One entire side of the room was an abrupt drop-off, like the building had fallen apart, but of course, this wasn't really the building. Down below was the dining area, sunk into a giant pit. And it was filled with people. Not to capacity, but there were at least forty down there, I observed, as Ramona and I snuck closer for a look.

"Are those demons?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"Those are the unsatisfied customers." They were just ordinary people, wearing ordinary clothes that were dirty and torn. The dining room was where they were sleeping, and they couldn't leave because there were no exits except up a pair of stairs that led off in the opposite direction from where we were spying on them. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. The tables were filled with empty pizza boxes.

"What's going on here?" Ramona asked.

"What kind of Hell is this?"

"I think we just found the Sin Eaters," I said. After I had explained everything we knew about this little miniature version of Hell to Ramona, Isaac had gone Off-Screen and was able to come over to us. Of course, this being a storyline, we then had to wait around and recreate the meeting of Isaac and Ramona to explain how they were together. They were On-Screen while I stuck as far away as I could get. I had to put my headphones on just to hear what they were saying.

"But why are you wearing that?" Ramona asked, glancing at his mascot costume.

"I didn't want to burn myself on the oven," Isaac said. Ramona looked at him strangely but said nothing more.

"I've been scouting this place out," Isaac said.

"This is where they keep the captives. Avery's down there. You see that tablecloth tent between the tables over there? Ruck's guarding her. I guess he didn't just go away to his dad's place." Ramona followed where he was pointing.

"But why are they being held captive here?" she asked.

"Is this our eternity? Are we trapped here forever?"

"Huh, I haven't thought about that," Isaac said as sincerely as he could muster.

"I came here to save Avery. The way I figure, we have to defeat those demons blocking the stairway and get everyone to that weird version of Hot Head over there." He pointed to what appeared to be a giant version of the pizza oven that we cooked with every day. Standing next to it was Miss Pryce and her demon posse. Ramona stared at Isaac with some kind of reverence.

"You're really brave, you know that?" Ramona said, trying to drive home the point of her Foil trope, which had helped empower Isaac. Isaac reflected on what she said and then replied, "Thanks, but we still have a lot to do." Ramona nodded. Soon afterward, a bell started to ring down in the dining area pit. Some of the prisoners had apparently been working as cooks. They were bringing boxes of pizza down into the hole, dozens of boxes, dozens upon dozens.

We had only seen Pryce do their little Sin Eater ritual with a few balls of dough. This would have taken a lot of dough, but then maybe a little sin went a long way, because they were piling on those pizzas.

"What's happening?" Ramona asked.

"I think they're forcing them to eat the pizza," Isaac said.

"Look, you know how we ate pizza and they tried to bring us here? Well, they've got a lot of pizza they need eaten." And so they did. Demons, some in skin suits and some in strange amalgamations of different props from the store above, lined up and forced all of the people down there to sit at the tables and gorge themselves on the Sin Pizzas. No one was spared. Not Avery. Not Ruck. It was so off-putting to watch. I wished that I had some better reaction, but that's how it felt.

The demons forced them to eat faster and more. I had no idea this storyline held that kind of oddity. The thing was, I had pretty good reason to believe that our trek down into Hell to save these poor Sin Eaters wasn't even required. It was a subplot, but rescuing people was a good thing when you were trying to get rescue tropes. All the same, I regretted it. There was something so grotesque about seeing people forced to eat quickly.

The prisoners shoved the pizzas in their mouths, not even being careful to stop the toppings from falling down their fronts. They ate handfuls. They kept eating even though they looked like they were about to blow. Ruck wasn't having a bad time. The demons watched on, seeming to enjoy themselves. And I watched in revulsion. But Isaac didn't watch, well, he didn't only watch. Whatever Avery's Dream Girl trope had done to him, he seemed to actually feel compelled to save her, and it wasn't just an act.

Maybe it was because he was younger in this storyline. Maybe he was finding it easier to be less cynical. Or maybe he just had a taste for the violence, because he started to descend down a set of makeshift stairs that I hadn't even seen. The cameras followed him. I could tell because I could see them with all of these enemies around. Well, I couldn't see what the cameras actually looked like, but I could see certain areas that were lit for filming. It was beyond description.

I could see that Isaac had cinematic lighting, whereas Ramona no longer did, as she had gone Off-Screen while Isaac descended the stairs. Her lighting was more natural and unforgiving, like a news camera. My light was dull and gray, as no cameras were pointing at me, whether On-Screen or off. I didn't actually see cameras floating around. All the same, Isaac was on his way down for a fight, carrying his pizza paddle.

He had put the head of his costume back on, so none of the demons down below appeared to think anything of his existence. He blended in. I continued to listen through my headphones. Isaac managed to climb all the way down into the pit before any of the demons gave him a second glance, and the first one that did got its head bashed in with a pizza peel. The demons stared on, stunned.

The one he had hit was wearing a skin suit, so the head just kind of deflated, and the demon within struggled to push his noggin back out onto the outside of his body. He wandered around, unable to see, trying to regain control. Isaac mowed through a couple of demons made from chairs, each with the head of an animatronic. One was Bella Mozzarella, and the other appeared to be one of the animatronic trash cans. Then, the demons really started to attack. I, of course, could do nothing. But Ramona could.

She followed Isaac down the stairs and grabbed a giant misshapen table leg that Isaac had lobbed off of a demon amalgamation, and she started wailing on the nearest demon she could find. But none of her attacks could do a fraction of what Isaac could. Still, they fought on. All of the people who had been forcibly chowing down on pizza had stopped to watch the fight, apparently confused. They didn't stay that way.

When the demons started to attack the people to drive them back into the corner of the dining room, one of the men in the skin suits backhanded Ruck, sending him flying into a table. The demon then closed in on Avery. Isaac was on it before Avery even had a chance to react. He ran past half a dozen demons, and then with one slice of his pizza peel, he cut the demon bearing down on Avery in half at the waist. But Avery looked at him, unsure of how to feel.

All she saw was a mascot costume, and up to that point, all of the props from the restaurant had been inhabited by demons. Isaac moved one hand over his head, pulling the Fire Ferret's head off and revealing himself as demons gathered around.

"Isaac?" Avery asked in awe.

"You do know my name..." he said, almost surprised.

"Of course I do," she said.

"They captured you, too?" Isaac shook his head.

"No, I came here to get you. I saw you in my dreams, and I knew you needed my help." Avery looked on with tears in her eyes. She was in awe. The demons couldn't attack for that moment because Avery had a trope that prevented it. In fact, it made them invulnerable for a bit. But not forever. Miss Pryce stood at the top of the stairs on the other side of the pit and said, "Capture him. Put him in chains. Lock him in the safe if you have to. Clean this up before I get back." It was nice of her to speak English.

She didn't have to. She then walked over to the giant Hot Head, climbed up a small set of stairs leading into his mouth, and as she stepped inside, she disappeared as if being beamed up. Several of the skin suits followed her. It must have been morning time. The Finale would be happening soon. I just had to hope that Cassie, Camden, and Anna knew their parts as well as Isaac knew his.