Chapter Text
The low rumble of an overworked bus engine, the sound of snoring, the musty scent of barely washed, moldy seats, the constant flickering of orange sunlight, filtered by an onslaught of evergreens passing by.
After almost ten hours of constant driving, Dipper Pines was sick of it. He was sure the dissatisfied frown hadn’t left his face since their parents had put him and his sister on the ‘Speedy Beaver’ at 7 in the morning.
His twin sister, Mabel, had of course been the exact opposite. Even at the early hour she’d been, well, a busy beaver, excitedly pointing out anything remotely interesting or funny for the first hundred miles or so, leaning over him to get a good look out the window whenever she did. By the time they’d crossed the state border she’d abruptly fallen asleep for the rest of the trip, leaving him to get bored out of his mind.
And worse, he was expecting this summer spent in Oregon to be more of the same, with Mabel being the only bright spot around.
It had started out with him expecting just a typical summer break. Their parents were always too busy with their jobs to line up a good few weeks to go travel and stay somewhere, so usually the summer was spent back home in Piedmont, with the occasional day trip to the nearest water park or Six Flags.
What quickly became clear within the first week of summer was that their parents had different plans for them this time around.
Dad had pulled out his ‘back in my day’ card and told them they’d arranged for him and Mabel to spend the summer deep in the woods, all the way up in Oregon, far away from the modern world.
And alright, maybe he was a bit right in doing so, as his summer plans had been much less ‘frolicking around the neighborhood meeting up with kids his age’ and more along the lines of playing puzzle games on his new handheld and browsing some good conspiracy forums he’d found on the computer. But that didn’t mean he was alright with all his plans getting thrown out with barely a week’s warning! He’d been left panicking on what to do the whole time, all seven days!
Embarrassing stuff aside, as his discarded plans might have revealed, if there was anything you could call Dipper Pines, it was an aficionado of mysteries. The unexplainable and inexplicable, the hair-raising, the unanswerable, the incomprehensible, it was all fascinating to him. It’d started a long time ago, with him and Mabel exploring their neighborhood, before it became very clear there wasn’t much mystery to be had in their cookie-cutter community.
Since then, mystery movies and novels; puzzle games; cryptids, myths and urban legends; and most recently, conspiracy theories, had become his…interest. And definitely not an obsession, Mabel, no matter how many times you called it that!
…Right. So, with the latter, he was a bit ashamed to admit his first foray into the field was with the ‘Ancient aliens’ conspiracies, courtesy of the History Channel. He was just glad he hadn’t ever fallen for the other notorious theories, the ones giving the public the classic impression of cooky, overly paranoid bunker dwellers with tin foil hats. You know the ones. Flat earth, chemtrails, vaccines causing Autism, lizard people, Stanley Kubrick’s faked moon landing, though Dipper quietly had a weird feeling about the last one, all those.
To him, it was less about the almost inevitable and usually pointless accusations towards certain groups, and more about spotting weird or inexplicable trends or series of events and then attempting to come up with a logical way to explain it all. That it always ended in conspiracists accusing the government or Big Whatever was something Dipper wasn’t sure he wanted to understand for a few more years.
After letting go of the Ancient Aliens one, realizing it was so much more impressive that ancient humans really were capable of all those engineering feats, his interest had moved to the less grand conspiracies, the more niche ones.
The most notable one of which, one he was proud to have discovered in the bowels of the internet without traumatizing himself or bricking the home computer, being a globe-spanning conspiracy dubbed ‘the missing eleven-year-olds.’
The conspiracy arose from the observation that a small number of kids all over the world all seemed to disappear during their first summer after turning eleven. Much older and more connected people than him had done the sleuthing, and paper trails and all other kinds of registration just stopped at that point. In a lot of cases, only some appearances confirmed by the occasional family member were what remained of them after they turned eleven. In the rare case one of them popped back up after turning eighteen and stuck around, it was with a changed demeanor. They were much more secretive, and all shared a strange ‘out-of-touchness’ that made them fail to get any real jobs.
One of the more active users on the forum that talked about the conspiracy the most, one Jacob Hopkins from Connecticut, had personal experience with it. His cousin from England had disappeared after turning eleven over twenty years ago and was never heard from again. Even the parents, when called, had an, in his words, off-putting attitude towards the subject upon asking.
Then again, that might just have been because he was the one calling them. Dipper was definitely taken by the theory. Heck, when he discovered it two summers ago, he’d holed himself up in their room in response, trying his hardest to stop Mabel from moving out of his sight while he anxiously waited for their eleventh birthday to pass.
No such disappearances came, thankfully, and Dipper still had no idea what the reason behind them was, but he was certain that member was more on the ‘cooky tin foil hatter’ side. How could you not, when he concluded that demons from Mars were responsible and were harvesting children for their milk teeth to power their time machine, with the ones that returned being brainwashed drones tasked with kidnapping the next batch?
Yeah, that was a bit too out there and baseless of an ‘explanation’, and he wouldn’t be surprised if the man was joking around. Though he’d been banned from that forum several times before, somehow finding his way back every time. It wasn’t a great track record.
But he had to admit, seeing the list of suspected victims of the conspiracy, one that spanned decades, expanding by the dozens every time he checked back up on it was hair raising, especially the ones as recent as last summer. It didn’t help that he’d always felt there was something extraordinarily odd out there, just out of sight. Moreso than your traditional cryptids. Something…bigger.
A bump in the road knocked Dipper out of his thoughts. Letting the paranoid train of thought go, he leaned back against the window, looking outside with a bored sigh.
It was there that he was greeted with an imposing, striking sight. Just ahead, a steep cliffside loomed over them, a valley carved out right in the middle, except…
How were the two sides of the cliff being held up with those gigantic chunks carved out of them?!
A tingling sensation spreading over his skin as they passed a road sign welcoming them to Gravity Falls jostled him out of his shock, and his first course of action was to shake Mabel awake.
“Mabel, Mabel, we’re here,” he said, not bothering with lowering his volume since they were literally the only two passengers at this point. Despite the seemingly deep sleep, his sister shot awake with an enviable lack of effort, immediately gaping upon registering the almost floating cliffs.
Maybe this middle of nowhere town was going to be much odder than he’d expected.
It was with a heave and a grunt that Dipper dropped his bags to the pavement, his wobbling, groggy legs making him stumble when Mabel bumped into him from behind, having had the great idea of holding her heavy luggage up in front of her while exiting the bus. The heavy backpack on his back didn’t help his balance either.
“Whoops, sorry Dip,” she said, sounding at least a little sorry, before audibly breathing in through her nose.
“Aaahhh, fresh country air!” she chirped. And Dipper had to agree, the lack of exhaust was an unexpectedly nice change of pace from Piedmont.
She looked around the street as the bus started back up, leaving them behind on the sidewalk, and gasped.
“Look, this town has teenagers too!” she said excitedly, pointing to one end of the street, where a group of teenagers was walking away, leaving another behind who waved them off.
“Why wouldn’t they have those?” Dipper asked bewilderedly, before realizing… Oh no, was she about to enter her-
“Hey.”
The new voice interrupted his thoughts. Looking around, it became clear the voice came from the last teenager, a freckled girl wearing flannel, boots, and a traditional lumber hat that barely covered the top of striking red, waist-length hair, who was now walking up to them, hand raised in a lazy wave.
“Hi!” Mabel returned, as eager as always, even if he himself was lacking words at the moment.
The older girl stopped, giving them an appreciative look. “So, you the two squirts Mr. Pines made me pick up?” She smiled, hand lowering to sit comfortably once more within the pockets of her jeans. “I’m Wendy. You’ll be seeing me around, I guess.”
“And I’m Mabel!” his sister said without hesitation, emphasizing with a smile that showed off her barely year-old braces. “And this is…”
She gestured at him in anticipation, and with an internal sigh he added ‘Dipper. Hi.’
Really Mabel, the ‘finishing each other’s sentences’ twin stuff was only a thing until last winter! Did she forget about the Incident?
“Wait,” Dipper spoke up before Mabel could continue endearing herself to the first local they’d met. “Why can’t our great uncle be here to pick us up?” Stranger danger was a thing, after all, even with teenagers.
The teen- Wanda?- No, Wendy, shrugged. “Eh, he’s preparing his late afternoon tour, so he handed me the keys to this baby.” She pointed at a nearby alley with a satisfied grin, where the front of something was poking out-
“Is that a golf cart?” Mabel almost yelled. “I’ve always wanted to ride in one!” And then she did, catching the attention of several passersby.
Welp, that was her bribed.
And it was with a subsequent pull on his arm that his question remained unanswered, instead becoming preoccupied with freeing himself to pick his and Mabel’s luggage off the sidewalk before it was left behind.
There was one thing that left him with an uneasy feeling in his stomach.
What did Wendy mean with ‘tour’?
Prior to arriving in Gravity Falls, their parents had told them all they knew about their upcoming caretaker, great uncle Stanford Pines. Which turned out to be ‘not a lot.’
It was to be expected. Granpa Shermie had already long since moved out when his younger brother left. According to him, the man was a veritable genius, graduating top of his class in university and went on to attain his doctorate a dozen times over, taking the grant money and setting up shop in the Oregon wilderness after getting his first one. To study what? Dipper had no clue. Ecology? With twelve doctorates, who knew? That said, that may have just been familial exaggeration.
Since his departure, his family hadn’t seen hide nor hair from him. The most recent contact of any kind was, funnily enough, when he and Mabel had been born, their parents telling them about how their great uncle had shown up at the hospital on the same day, exchanging greetings with them and granpa Shermie, before apparently engaging him in a fight over holding them?
Apparently, great uncle Stanford’s overprotectiveness(?) towards them must’ve left a good impression, because their parents had obviously decided to foist all responsibility of them on him for the upcoming three months of summer. And despite the weird feeling Wendy’s answer had left him, he still hoped things wouldn’t turn out all too bad. Really, someone who achieved at least one doctorate and decided to live on his own in the woods to study sounded like the kind of person he might actually get along with.
“Dipper, this attic is amazing. Check out all my splinters!” Mabel’s enthused observation cut through his now thoroughly dashed hopes, his sister’s hands displaying a worrying collection of wood shards.
Because after passing a turn on a dirt road and a totem pole, the ‘Mystery Shack’ had revealed itself in all its tacky tourist trap glory. The man of the summer himself had appeared in a surprisingly well-executed puff of smoke after they’d stepped out the cart, wearing a well-tailored suit, a fez…an eyepatch…and a cane with an eight-ball glued to the top, proudly proclaiming himself ‘Mister Mystery,’ “or just Stan. Calling me Mr. Pines is gonna get weird.”
Either their family had gotten a completely wrong impression of him, or he’d gone through some serious midlife crisis.
Taking his eyes off of Mabel’s splinters, he could no longer ignore the one thing he’d been hoping was a hallucination since they’d been led into what their great uncle had called their bedroom, or ‘Grunkle Stan’ as Mabel had coined, which also happened to be less of a mouthful.
“Baaaah!”
“Aaand there’s a goat on my bed,” was the only thing he could say in acknowledgement. Really, what else could you? He was not equipped to handle this!
His sister, however, fearlessly walked right up to the creature, holding out an arm, which was promptly chewed on.
“Hey friend!” she greeted. “Oh yes, you can keep chewing on my sweater. It has cotton candy flavor sprayed into it,” she faux-whispered in its ear, as if the dead-eyed goat could understand her.
With a sigh, Dipper let his backpack fall to the floor with a thud, hearing a brief but concerning groan from the planks below.
“I’ll just…go and empty my bladder and hope the goat’s gone when I’m back,” he said, backing up to the door, getting only a brief ‘okay’ from Mabel before he slipped out.
Right, getting to the bathroom. He had no idea where it was yet, but he had faith in his exploring ability. It definitely didn’t seem to be in the attic. Not enough room for it.
Getting down from the attic on the rickety stairs, he immediately realized he had no idea where to go once he reached the entry at the bottom. To the right was the living area, in front he could see the kitchen, and the left was the back entrance. Not that he’d used it yet, great- Grunkle Stan had forced them through the entire tour of his DIY museum upon arrival. It’d been through the front door, through the whole exhibit space, and then ending up at the gift shop for them, where he’d led them through an ‘employees only’ door into the living area and up the stairs to the attic.
Well, only one direction was left unseen, so Dipper turned and moved past the stairs, leading into a hallway with a left turn.
He decided on rushing past the corner, haste setting in with the pressure down-
-only to run right into a pair of legs, making him stumble back from the sudden stop.
“Sorry, Grunkle Stan,” he said hastily. “I-” before cutting himself off when he took in the person staring down at him. Because those eyes and clean-shaven face were not Grunkle Stan’s.
Before him stood a tall man who looked as old as their dad, and who definitely did not have the broad figure belonging to their Grunkle, wearing a white button-up with collar and nearly black jeans. Messy black hair covered his forehead, and went to his shoulders at the back, tied together in a low ponytail. But the eyes, a striking, almost supernatural green, magnified by the glasses he wore, startled him the most.
And right now, those eyes did not look the friendliest.
“Good day to you too,” the man said in a clipped tone, green eyes narrowed as they looked down at him over his nose, clearly not impressed. The British accent wasn’t helping things either.
Dipper could feel his face pale at the almost hostile response he’d completely unexpectedly run in on…literally.
“I- Uh…”
The man closed his eyes with a sigh, shaking his head, ponytail shifting with the motion. “Bathroom’s down the hall, last door on your left,” he said instead as he pointed over his shoulder. His voice was in monotone, as if having had to explain it countless times before.
Not looking a gifted horse in the mouth, Dipper nodded and skittered past the man’s thin yet imposing figure, hurry returning to his pace as his bladder once more reminded him of its contents.
Finding the last door on the left was an easy task, and before rushing in and getting everything out, Dipper risked a glance back down the hall, where he just barely saw the green-eyed stranger head through the first of the doors on this side of the hallway, not reemerging.
He took no more chances with his bladder after that, though the brief encounter was not going to leave his mind anytime soon. Neither was the fact that the only full bathroom in the entire shack appeared to be only one door removed from the exhibit space of the museum.
The first thing he did after relieving himself was to rush back up to the attic, though he quickly remembered why he’d left in the first place upon seeing Mabel using measuring tape to get measurements of the goat. Said goat was still standing on his assigned bed and chewing his pillow, no doubt awaiting its sweater.
With a shake of his head he went back down, hoping to find someone else to talk to.
And in the gift shop he did, spotting the flannel-clad figure of Wendy, sitting back with her rickety chair dangerously tipped backwards, her boots pressed down next to the cash register.
She looked up from her magazine and shot him a look. “Hey,” was her lazy greeting.
“Hi,” he returned automatically, mind still on his last encounter. “So, I just encountered a weird man in the hall? Should we be worried about someone wandering around?”
Wendy looked up again, this time putting her magazine down on her lap, cover facing up. “Mr. Pines’s current tour is still outside. You sure?” She paused, before her eyes widened. “Oh, you probably ran into Soos.”
Zeus?
Her newly returned laid-back tone made Dipper untense a bit. “Who’s that?” Didn’t sound like a fitting name. Or was it? Oh wait, was it ‘Soos’?
“He’s the Shack’s handyman,” she answered with a shrug. “He’s worked for Mr. Pines for ages. Always shows up before dawn and leaves after sunset. You’d think he lives here. But he’s great at his job. Give him anything that contains wires, gears, or pipes and he’ll have it fixed up in a snap.”
“Oh.” That was a surprisingly mundane answer for who he’d run into.
“Hey Wendy.” It was then that a new voice piped up as the door to the living area swung open. “Got the boiler’s piping fixed up. Mr. Pines is taking a look.”
Dipper turned around to see a portly man walking in with a toolbox in hand, wearing a cap and shirt that matched the Mystery Shack merchandise hanging on the wall.
Wait…
Somewhere below, a loud chunk was heard, followed by a hiss and a growled scream.
“Soos!”
The now named man tensed up, eyes wide. “Oh no, my righty wasn’t tighty enough!” he declared dramatically, turning around and dashing back through the ‘employees only’ door like a man on a mission. “Coming, Mr. Pines!”
As the sound of heavy footsteps faded behind the still swinging door, Dipper slowly began to process what he’d just seen. One thing was for sure though.
“That…was not the man I bumped into.” About the furthest thing from it.
“Oh.” Wendy frowned next to him, actually seeming genuinely pensive now.
An awkward few seconds later and the silence was broken by a snap of her fingers. “Ah, you met Harry!” she said, sounding satisfied with her answer.
That still didn’t help him. “Hairy what?”
Wendy snorted.
“Nah, just Mr. Potter. Harry Potter, that is. Mr. Pines lets him live here in the basement. He’s usually holed up in there during the day, except for bathroom breaks. That’s probably why you bumped into him,” she explained, but it certainly didn’t clear up his confusion.
“He- Grunkle Stan lets someone live in his basement?” he asked incredulously. “Why? What does he do?”
“Security.”
Dipper yelped and barely caught himself from slipping at Grunkle Stan’s gruff voice piping up behind him.
He in turn quirked a bushy eyebrow as he came into view, his face surprisingly red and his suit sporting a large wet spot around his chest.
“Geez, nerves much? I wasn’t even trying to scare you there.”
So he was going to?
Grunkle Stan barked out a laugh, at his expression no doubt, before elaborating. “Look, Harry makes sure no ruffians or wild animals get in here during the night, so he sleeps and does whatever he wants in the basement during the day.” He paused, digging a finger into his ear to let a dribble of water escape. “He’s also a great cook.”
“…How’s that relevant?”
Grunkle Stan snapped his fingers, some wet earwax stuck to one, much to Dipper’s disgust. “And he brings in some new exhibits once in a while. Top notch stuff, am I right?”
Wendy shrugged at the question directed at her, eyes not leaving her magazine. “He’s pretty good at arts and crafts.”
Grunkle Stan shook his head, putting his focus back on Dipper. “So don’t worry about him creeping around and watching you sleep or something, that’s what he’s here to prevent. And I trust him, so mind your business. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to find a dry suit.”
And with that clear dismissal, along with how it seemed like he was just going to take off his suit right here in the gift shop, Dipper rushed back up to the attic, his doubts no less assured than before. He had a feeling he had to figure this burgeoning mystery out on his own, and maybe enlist Mabel too if she wasn’t still busy knitting a sweater for the goat. Knowing her, she was already done.
As a side note, it was also up there that he discovered that one of the doors he’d run past before contained a small toilet, making the entire trip downstairs completely unnecessary.
That embarrassing discovery aside, this was the perfect time to get out the camera he’d packed! He’d been wanting to do something like this since he’d first gotten it!
“Did you turn it on?”
The first thing seen in the shaky video is Mabel’s face, smiling back down at it.
“Yup! Heyo!” She waves at it with a bright smile, before noticing a bit of grass stuck in her braces. “How’d that get there?”
“Mabel, at me please!”
She boos, but turns the camera around nonetheless in a fumble of fingers, revealing Dipper holding a bit of cardboard with sharpie-writing on it as it steadies once more.
“Thank you.” He clears his throat. “Welcome to…uh- Right, Dipper’s Guide to the Unexplained, number one!” He pauses again, lowering a bit of paper covering up the lower half of the cardboard, revealing more words written in sharpie. “The man in the basement.”
Mabel doing a spooky oOoOo behind the camera can be heard.
Dipper solemnly nods in agreement before continuing, dropping the cardboard as he begins pacing. “Apparently our Grunkle Stan is housing a man named Harry Potter in his basement. Why? Who is he? What is he up to down there? The Shack has a basement?” A turn to the camera. “That’s what we’re going to find out in this series of-”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Mabel can be heard, her hand appearing as she gestures in Dipper’s direction. “Is this gonna be a whole thing? Because I wanted to go get my knitting stuff before everything closes.”
“I-” Dipper pauses, before sighing. “Alright, yeah, you can go. I only needed a steady shot for the intro.”
Mabel cheers behind the camera, the view going dark as she drops it on the bed. “Thanks, lil’ bro!”
“It was only five minutes!”
That last statement seemed to be purely for the camera’s sake, the door’s prior slam indicating Mabel wasn’t around to hear it.
~~~
The recording starts back up again. Dipper is visible in front of some striped wallpaper, now alone.
“This is where I saw him going in, so this must be the way to the basement.”
The view turns around, revealing a door. Dipper’s hand comes into view as he opens it, revealing a winding, rickety staircase.
“Aha!”
The camera descends down the two turns in the stairs, the sound of creaking wood coming from below. At the end, a hallway with three doors comes into view, a small window near the ceiling at the end the only source of natural light.
“Alright, now which door is which?” Dipper’s mumble can be heard over the low buzz of white noise, the camera sweeping across the hallway, revealing an ornately carved door on the left.
The camera turns right next, showing two doors on either side of the hallway.
“Let’s try right first,” is mumbled as he approaches one of the doors, hand hesitantly appearing in frame as it reaches for the handle. An ominous low rumble can be heard coming from behind the door.
With a burst of confidence the door is opened-
Only for a burst of water to rush in.
The camera is fumbled around in a panic, settling again after a few seconds, showing a startled Dipper standing in ankle-high water, spluttering.
“Really shoulda put up a sign,” a chuckling voice comes from behind the camera, where the just opened room sits. “Sup dude. You Mr. Pines’s nephew?”
Dipper is taken out of his startled look, the camera turning around to reveal the handyman.
“Hi?”
Behind Soos, another rattling pipe bursts violently.
Surprisingly, he reacts with another chuckle. “Looks like I’ll be busy for the rest of the day. Talk to you later, dude.”
The door closes again, leaving Dipper alone in the hallway.
“…should we evacuate the shack?” he questions the camera, before shaking his head.
Dipper takes a few steps towards the second door, cringing at the squishing and sloshing sounds coming from his shoes.
“What’re you doing here?”
A shriek is heard as the camera nearly drops to the flooded floor, only barely being caught. In its upwards facing state the black hair and sharp green eyes of ‘Harry’ are seen, looking down at Dipper with an unreadable look.
“There’s nothing for you to see down here. Go back upstairs, before you get hurt.”
Dipper gulping can be heard at the intimidating tone of voice, before another loud clang from the boiler room takes the piercing green eyes off him. Taking the break in focus as an opportunity to slip past, the camera rapidly bops up and down for the next few seconds as Dipper runs up the stairs, wet socks squishing in his shoes.
Behind him “Jesús Ramirez! What are you doing in there?!” can be heard before the door to the basement is shut.
For a brief moment, panting can be heard as Dipper leans against the striped wallpaper.
“Okay,” he says to the camera after a particularly large exhale. “I think that’s enough for today.”
~~~
The camera turns on, revealing the upstairs bedroom, only a lantern on the wall behind Dipper lighting the room.
“Okay, so, I just woke up. I think it’s, like, 1 am? And I’m pretty sure I heard someone moving outside.”
Creaking of the camera is heard as it’s fumbled around, the triangular panes of the window coming into view moments later. A few moments later the focus settles on the clearing outside.
Below, a figure can be seen walking through the clearing, holding up what looks like a torch, the end of it emitting a beam of light. The low static makes it hard to see in the dark though.
“So he does go out at night,” is mumbled as the camera is moved around, following Harry as he disappears into the forest bordering the clearing.
“This is the perfect time to check things out!”
“Wha…?”
Dipper freezes. “Nothing, Mabel.”
Snoring can already be heard again, and he sighs.
“Okay, let’s go before he gets back inside.”
The camera goes dark as it’s covered, the sound of creaking wood and quiet breathing can be heard for a short minute until the lens is uncovered again, revealing the previously seen ornately decorated door, basking in the moonlight from a small window off-screen.
“So, it’s gotta be this door, since he came at me from behind last time. This is the only door that fits. Don’t know why I didn’t try this one first last time.”
Dipper cautiously approaches the door, before noticing that the door is already ajar.
A gulp is heard as a slightly shaking hand appears in frame, cautiously reaching for the door, an unnaturally dark void obscuring the view beyond the crack.
After a moment of stillness, the camera bursts into motion as Dipper soundlessly rushes through the door, a loud buzz of white noise flooding the audio for a few seconds as things go pitch black, before finally clearing.
“Okay, I’m in,” he audibly breathes out. “Now what are you hiding, Harry?”
Some fumbling is heard for a moment before a flashlight clicks on, new light illuminating the darkness.
“Let’s-” Dipper’s yelp loudly cuts off his sentence as the flashlight reveals giant slitted eyes staring back at him. The camera drops to the ground, landing up to reveal the eyes belong to a grizzly bear sized, unnervingly realistic frog statue.
After a brief grumbling, the camera is picked up again by Dipper.
“Why is that even here? Looks more like a discarded exhibit for upstairs or something.”
The camera scans the room with the light of the flashlight, revealing more stuffings and other weird objects.
“Wh- But I thought this was…”
Dipper and the camera turn around to face the door he’d come through, hesitating for a moment before opening it and stepping through, re-entering the hall-
-and facing the boiler room door.
“What the-?!” The camera swivels to the right, where the ornately carved door innocently sits at the other end of the hall, now fully closed.
“But I just went through- How could I end up all the way over-”
His whispered questions are cut off by the sound of a door creaking open upstairs, soft light spilling in from beyond the corner.
The camera is dropped to the floor by a startled Dipper, landing on its side, revealing his retreating figure as he hides in the boiler room in a panic, the sound of someone descending the stairs overshadowing the door shutting.
Not a moment later and Harry appears from behind the corner, descending the last few steps as his eyes survey the hallway.
He pauses at the bottom of the stairs, before heading for the door the camera is lying near, opening it and looking in. Muttered, unintelligible words are picked up before a rat scurries out and Harry closes the door again with a sigh, turning around and heading for the ornately carved door down the hall.
Another pause as he turns to survey the hallway again. Despite the lack of night vision and minimal amount of moonlight, his eyes are like luminescent green pinpricks in the dark as they scan the surroundings. A tense few moments later he opens the door and heads in, the actual action obscured as the camera briefly glitches out.
A minute passes before the boiler room door creaks open and Dipper sneaks out, a jitter in his step. The camera’s picked up but any remaining footage is useless as Dipper tries and fails not to run up the stairs.
It’s only when the striped wallpaper of the ground floor hallway is visible that the camera steadies again, revealing a heavily breathing Dipper.
No comment is made before the recording ends.
~~~
The feed turns on again, revealing Dipper standing in a clearing. The back porch of the Mystery Shack looms over him, sunlight basking the shack and the nearby trees in yellow.
“Alright, so, after…last night, no more attempts at entering the basement room,” Dipper says resolutely, despite looking a little spooked.
“Aww,” Mabel’s voice is heard behind the camera. “Is that why you woke me for a hug?”
“I woke you up by accident,” Dipper denies in a hurry, his reddening face betraying him.
He clears his throat, shaking his head. “Anyway, with any direct approaches off-limits for now, and Harry rarely out during the day except for bathroom breaks, we need a different way to figure out what’s going on down there, which is why…”
He takes a roll of paper from his shorts and unrolls it.
“According to this map of the Shack I put together-”
“Oh! Oh!” Mabel cuts in, waving her hand. “I made one too! Look!”
“What?” Dipper questions, before grabbing the bit of paper Mabel brings into frame, its depiction too blurred to make out beyond the fact its surface is decorated with gratuitous amounts of crayon, glitter, and stickers.
He stares down at Mabel’s map with a frown.
“The shack doesn’t have a ball pit,” he deadpans.
“I think I can convince Grunkle Stan.”
He rolls his eyes at her overconfidence and hands the paper back off-screen to her, before properly revealing his own to the camera. Somehow Mabel had already gotten to it with marker, but he doesn’t comment on it.
“The back half of the shack and the gift shop are built on raised foundations, which is where the basement is,” he goes on to explain. “It’s just raised enough for windows to let in light at the top, near the ceilings. There’s at least two I’ve seen, one in the basement hallway and one in the boiler room. There’s also basement access next to the giftshop.”
He points at the highlighted bits of wall on his map of the basement. “So there will obviously be at least one window looking directly into Harry’s room,” he continues to explain, gesturing at the room he’s labeled with question marks. “According to this, it has to be somewhere in the back left corner of the shack.”
“Bet you the window isn’t on the left,” Mabel comments, with Dipper shaking his head.
“No bet, I already looked, only the one to the boiler room, so,” he grimaces. “We’ll have to crawl and check under the porch.”
Mabel cheers. “Time to get down and dirty!” Though Dipper is already standing next to the side of the porch, lowering himself onto his stomach.
With a fumble of fingers the camera is laid down next to the steps up to the porch, giving a decent view of below the planks as Mabel appears from the side, crawling in, though it’s difficult to see in the darkened area, the feed having gained a permanent low static.
Once the both of them are out of the sunlight, barring some tiny holes in the planks above, Mabel snorts.
“Isn’t that the only set of clothes you packed, Dip-Dop?”
“I packed another. It just looks the same,” he rebuts awkwardly, looking to the wall next to them. “Can you check that window over there?” he asks, pointing at the visible window at the left.
“Oki-doke,” is Mabel’s reply as she shifts and crawls the last bit. “Hm, looks like the hallway.”
“Ugh.” Dipper grimaces, head turning more to the right as he surveys the gray stones.
It’s several more seconds of quiet later that he makes a much more frustrated grunt.
“There has to be another window. Why can’t I see any? Who’d live in a room with no windows?”
Meanwhile, Mabel’s gaze has started wandering to the bottom side of the actual porch, head turning to the side as she looks at-
And then she gasps.
“Dipper!”
“What?”
“I just saw a window in- uh, from the corner of my eye!”
“Yeah, right.”
“Seriously!”
Dipper’s narrowed eyes can easily be seen by the camera before he looks away, putting the wall in his peripheral vision.
After a moment he looks back at the wall, then to the side again, and back again.
“Mabel, I swear, if you’re about to say ‘made you look’ I’ll-”
And then he gasps too, head snapping back to the gray bricks.
“What the-?”
He repeats the motion again, getting frustrated the more he does it.
“I just saw it too!”
Mabel doesn’t sound as frustrated, however. “Told you!”
“It was yellow and pink, right?”
“Yeah, stained glass!”
“I know! But now I can’t see it at all!”
“Right? It’s like magic!”
Dipper scoffs, before turning pensive, but before he can say anything a loud bleating peaks the audio, the camera abruptly being lifted off the ground and going dark.
“Hey, hey, drop that camera!”
“Gompers!”
Grass is soon seen speeding by as the goat runs off.
~~~
The feed turns on again, surprisingly undamaged, revealing Soos mopping the floor next to a large sasquatch statue wearing XXXXL underpants.
“So, Soos,” Dipper begins, walking a bit closer. “Could you tell me about Harry?”
The man pauses in his sweeping, before resuming with a chuckle.
“Sure thing, dude. Dunno why you’re so tense about him though. He’s, like, pretty great.”
“…right.”
“Yup, it’s pretty difficult to imagine the Shack without him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, he’s been around for a really long time, even before I started working here.” He pauses his sweeping again, putting a finger up to his chin. “I’m pretty sure that was almost ten years ago, at least. I can’t think ‘Mystery Shack’ without thinking Mr. Pines or him.”
“And you’ve barely seen him outside the basement in all that time?” Dipper questions incredulously.
“Oh, no, I see him all the time, dude,” Soos denies. “He’s always around to help when you need it. Almost like he just knows.” There’s an unnerving pause as he stares directly at the camera for several moments. “Like, when the boiler was acting up three days ago,” he continuous like nothing happened. “I was thinking ‘Oh no, this water damage is going to take all night to repair!’ And Mr. Potter just put a hand on my shoulder and said, ‘I’ll take care of it.’ And when I came back the next morning it was all fixed up!”
“In one night?” Dipper nearly shouts, realizing he had actually been back downstairs just a day later and had not even noticed any water damage while there. “But if he’s so good, why does Grunkle Stan even need-” He cuts himself off, but Soos doesn’t seem bothered, having gone back to sweeping.
“Does Mr. Pines need what?” Soos questions innocently.
“Uh…nevermind. Thanks for answering, Soos,” Dipper says lamely, the camera turning away as he stiffly moves away and through the curtain separating the museum from the gift shop.
~~~
The camera turns back on again, not much time seeming to have passed between now and the last clip.
“Hey Wendy.”
The teen behind the counter looks up from her magazine, giving the camera a lazy wave.
“Sup.” She then notices the camera. “Whoa, are you filming?”
“…It’s for my parents,” Dipper says awkwardly. “So, Wendy, could you- uh, what do you know about Harry? You’ve worked here for a bit, right?”
“Oh!” She lightens up, leaning back in her chair. “Well, like Mr. Pines told you, Harry’s a pretty great guy.”
“A-huh.”
She gives the camera a raised brow. “Dude, don’t be like that. I mean, fair, he can be pretty imposing at first. He has this whole ‘I have seen and done things you will never do’ vibe going on,” she emphasizes with a lowered voice. “And he always seems extra grumpy this time of year, but he’s great when he gets used to you.”
“Like a cat?”
Wendy snorts at the comment, before seeming to think of something else. “Oh! One fun thing about him. When he first came to town everyone mistook him for some kind of new local cryptid or something.”
“Huh?”
She nods. “Yeah, he just showed up in town one day ten years ago and never left, even though people rarely saw him. And when they did, they saw him walking into alleys and just disappearing, and he never talked to anyone. He never showed up at any stores to get food or anything either; there was just some stuff missing the next morning with the appropriate amount of money on the counter. When they tried to look, their cameras just glitched out.” She chuckles. “My dad found him wandering the woods in the dead of night several times back then, nearly took his head off with his ax once.”
“Your dad?”
She levels him a deadpan stare. “You’ve definitely seen him, dude. Town calls him ‘Manly Dan’.”
A gulp is heard as Dipper processes who she’s talking about.
“He actually helped build this shack, y’know?” she continues, before going pensive. “Does that mean me getting hired is some kind of…nepotism?”
“Wendy?”
“Anyway-” She snaps out of it. “So everyone’s just calling him ‘the green-eyed forest cryptid’ for a few years. Only saw him once or twice myself, mostly heard ghost stories from others and some of my friends growing up, so imagine how shocked I was when I started here last summer and just…stumble into him coming out of the bathroom!”
“Sounds familiar.”
“It’s like I said, he’s pretty imposing at first. Like, crap your pants imposing, but really he’s just…a socially awkward guy.”
“I’m not sure I believe you.”
Wendy shrugs. “Took over a month, but he eventually chilled out around me. And turns out he’s just a very private person.” She straightens herself. “He actually comes over for family dinner twice a month now. No idea how he can handle my family, but he seems to enjoy it, and it’s always great to have him visit. Oh, and this pie thing he brings, treacle tart, is to die for.”
Dipper doesn’t say anything, but based on the way Wendy reacts, his expression doesn’t make it seem like he’s convinced.
Another shrug. “Well, I’m only here part-time, you’re the one living with him in the Shack for the next three months. So, you’ll see soon, no doubt,” she says, adding a wink before returning to her magazine.
Based on the quiet gulp right before the video ends, the statement is not taken as reassuring.
~~~
With a sigh, Dipper turned off the camera. Maybe a good night’s sleep would do him some good, and tomorrow would bring his breakthrough.
And get a breakthrough he did…in the monkey’s paw way.
“Hey, do you think Harry’s a vampire?”
Dipper was so out of it he only barely registered Mabel’s question, mind still on that morning.
He tore his eyes away from the sidewalk below him, wondering if they’d gotten far enough from the shack by now.
“Because he’s never out during the day, and he pops up in the dark out of nowhere, and maybe he has, like, hypnotic eyes that make you trust him! Ooh, do you think if we expose him to sunlight he’ll sparkle?”
His eyes glanced past the buffalo statue occupying the middle of town square, before finally noticing an empty alley between two stores.
“That’s not important right now,” he said, nervously scratching his arm, deciding on making his way to the alley.
“Whoa, Dip-Dop?” Mabel said as she walked after him. “I thought you’d be all over that. You feeling alright?”
“No, I-” He shook his head, making his way into the alley before finally stopping and turning around. “Look, this is a lot more now than just ‘Harry might be supernatural,’ okay? I- I woke up early this morning, and I saw him leaving the shack, so I followed him into the woods, and…”
“Sounds more like you were being the creep, bro-bro.”
“I’m serious, Mabel!” he yelled in frustration, immediately regretting it when she startled at the noise. He went back to scratching his arm. “I- He walked pretty far away from the shack, and- I was too nervous to actually get close and watch, but I heard him meet up with someone.”
Dipper awkwardly scratched at the bite infested arm as he trekked through the woods, following the trail of footsteps. Ugh, how had so many mosquitoes gotten to him in one night? He bet Mabel was bite free. She always was. Maybe he should just take after her and wear pajamas or something, but he always ran annoyingly hot, even up here in Oregon, where it was a lot colder in the summer compared to what he was used to.
He hoped Harry wasn’t…well, wherever he was going, hopefully it wasn’t too much further, because they hadn’t been circling back towards the Shack, or the town, and he’d been trailing him for nearly half an hour. After a week of not getting any closer and becoming more frustrated at the lack of answers, he thought following Harry when he went into the woods was the one thing he hadn’t tried yet, and this morning had been the perfect opportunity, despite the mosquito bites, even if they’d probably been the reason for him waking up early.
He also wasn’t actually close enough to see Harry himself, so he really didn’t want to lose the trail. He really didn’t want to risk getting caught snooping again either though, not out here, especially since the sun was already rising, casting long shadows on the woods. That, and he’d always found suspect shadowing scenes in cop shows unrealistic, by car or by foot. Would the one being followed really not notice that?
Finally, however, when he approached some shrubbery he began to hear a voice in the distance, difficult to hear through the pecking of a woodpecker.
“-sure…can’t bring…ruby?”
Dipper frowned as he awkwardly waded through the shrubbery, silently thanking the same woodpecker for masking the noise. Also, that sounded more like a woman’s voice than Harry’s, even if he’d only heard a few words from him over the past week.
And what was that about a ruby?
“No, absolutely not.” Ah, that was Harry’s voice, loud and clear now that the woodpecker had stopped. Apparently he’d missed the start of this…meeting? “Just you coming here once a season is risky enough already.”
In the direction the voices were coming from, Dipper could just about make out a clearing, a few more rows of trees separating the shrub he stood in from the voices. Not wanting to risk it, he decided on crouching down in the shrubbery, hoping the woodpecker wouldn’t start up again.
“Right,” the female voice responded stiffly. “Well, I know arguing over this for the umpteenth time won’t change anything. How are things on your end?”
A frustrated sigh fills the woods. It was the most emotion Dipper had heard from Harry so far. Not that he’d heard Harry much so far to begin with.
“Absolutely no closer to a solution, as per usual. And what’s more, Stan has his great niece and nephew over for the summer, and I’m not sure I can handle them staying around for all that time. I’ve already caught the boy snooping several times now, and it’s barely been a week. I really don’t know if I’m ready for if those kids figure things out, because then I’ll have to-”
The woodpecker started hammering at the nearby tree again, obscuring the next few seconds of conversation, and also allowing him to gulp audibly. He really didn’t want to imagine what Harry thought he’d have to do to him if he discovered…whatever it was, because that was definitely confirmed now.
The first thing Dipper could hear once the pecking ceased was another sigh, a weary one.
“So that’s everything over here. How are things at the ministry?”
Ministry?
“They’re getting antsy at having you back again,” the female voice answered. “A part of me wants to have them figure it out, just to see their faces when they realize they’ve been following fake trails and ghosts and meeting stand-ins all those times. Right now they think you’re in the Dominican Republic.”
An incredulous bark of a laugh came out. “I wish I was.”
The woman sighed. “Besides that, I have made no progress either, even with my promotion in the Department and all its resources.”
“About what I expected, really. I think you might be right and that getting out will require a once-in-a-lifetime genius. A whole decade…” Harry sighed dejectedly. “Keyes isn’t showing signs he’s getting comfortable enough to consider spilling, is he?”
Who?
The woman let out a chilling laugh. “Oh please Harry, with everything I did to him, he’s never going to speak up.”
Dipper gulped. What shady stuff was he listening in on?
He hesitantly took a step backwards, the shrubs rustling around him.
“Harry?”
“Shh, Hermione, I think I heard something.”
Dipper’s heart lurched in his chest. And even though he couldn’t see, he almost felt those piercing green eyes lock right onto him.
“Your time here has made you way too paranoid, Harry. You-”
And then, thankfully, the woodpecker picked back up again, and Dipper snatched the opportunity, turning around and dashing off with all the strength his spindly legs could muster.
It was a few trees later, however, that a loud cracking sound shut the woodpecker up completely, the bird departing in a panic.
Was that a gunshot?!
He had to find Mabel!
“And that’s why I had to pull you out here,” Dipper finished his story about that morning’s overheard conversation nervously. “I just don’t know how much and where he can hear from, or if he can just pop out of some dark corner.”
“Whoa…” He looks up, surprised to see Mabel actually speechless. “Wait, is that why you had me check him before you pulled me away?”
He nodded. “Mhm…”
“Why do you want me to do this again?”
“Look, Mabel, there’s no time to explain,” Dipper panted, needing to lean against the side of the stairs to recover. “Just approach him when he gets back through that door and…I dunno, do whatever you do when you bewitch people.” At least he wouldn’t suspect her of doing anything weird.
“Bedazzle!” she corrected excitedly, right when the planks outside creaked.
“He’s here!” he whisper shouted, dashing up the stairs as fast as he could to turn the corner. Not a moment later and the door opened, and Dipper had to awkwardly try and peek around the corner and at the entryway through the narrow gap between the stairs and the nearby ceiling.
He almost thought Harry was going to look up and directly back at him, but then Mabel came skipping back in from the living room, singing a ditty.
Way to overdo it, but sure.
“La la la- Oh!” she said, acting surprised. “Hi Mr. Potter!” From Dipper’s view near the top of the stairs, he could easily see her wave excitedly at him, straining her neck to look up at him.
He really was tall.
“…hullo,” Harry’s voice came through, sounding surprised. There was a brief silence that would’ve been awkward in a funny way if Dipper’s heart wasn’t currently threatening to escape through his throat. “You’re Stan’s great niece, right? Maple?”
Mabel snorted. “No, not Canadian, silly. The witch!” She cackled loudly for emphasis, startling even Dipper. Probably not for the best, as that almost meant a tumble down the stairs.
“A-huh.” Harry sounded amused, but also confused, so whatever Mabel was doing was working! “Sorry, I’ve known too many women with tree or flower names.”
“No prob, Bob!” Mabel returns cheerfully, before holding up her arm, pensively sniffing her armpit. “Now that you mention it, you think I can make a sweater taste like syrup?”
“Uh, I’m sure there’s-” But whatever else Harry was going to drawl out was cut off when Mabel glomped him from a standstill.
“Uh…” From the gap between the ceiling and the stairs, Dipper could only make out the stiff way he reacted to having someone like Mabel hugging him. Definitely even more suspicious. Why would anyone react to a hug from her like that? Not unless they had something to hide!
“You know what? I’m gonna find out right now. Thank you!” Mabel continued as usual, stepping back with a smile, before turning and racing up the stairs, pulling Dipper with her after turning the corner. “Bye, Mr. Potter! Have a nice morning!” she shouted over her shoulder.
Dipper couldn’t see the man’s reaction, but it probably was just more confusion.
After getting dragged back into their room and closing the door behind him, Dipper turned to Mabel and asked “So, did you feel any guns, or knifes, or…whatever under there?”
She stared at him, before nodding gravely. “Oh, he’s armed and dangerous alright.”
He gulped. So he’d heard things correctly. How were they even-
“With these guns!” she continued cheerfully, aggressively flexing her arms.
“What?”
She nodded, grinning. “Yeah! I thought he was going to be all skinny like dad since he’s not that big, but it’s all hard muscle under that shirt!”
“Mabel!” he snapped back. “I’m being serious!”
Seeing his frustration, she simply shrugged back. “I don’t know what’s got you all paranoid, broseph, but there was nothing. Besides, I heard Grunkle Stan say he has ten guns hidden in the house. I found one under the armchair cushion,” she whispered conspiratorially, leaning in.
Setting that horrific realization aside, along with the delayed relief Harry didn’t have any actual weapons on him, even if he might just be hiding them in some shrubbery outside, Dipper decided he had to make Mabel see how serious things actually were. But not here, with that man right below in the basement.
“Alright, fine,” he said, heading back out the door. “I just remembered I need more batteries for the camera.”
“Oh, coming!” Mabel replies, following after him.
“Do you think he could lift us with his bare hands?” Mabel mused, back in the present.
“That’s what you’re thinking about? After what I just told you?” Dipper asked incredulously.
“Come on, Dipper,” she whined. “What you heard sounds sketchy, sure, but Grunkle Stan’s not the type of person who’d harbor a wanted international criminal in his basement.”
Dipper inhaled sharply through his nose. “Mabel, he’s exactly that type of guy!” he said, his hands chopping for emphasis. The fact they only needed a single week to be sure of that did not help either.
She paused. “Oh, hm,” she conceded, before perking back up. “Well, even if he’s a wanted criminal, I bet he got framed or something and he’s just hiding out until he’s cleared!” She smiled. “Seriously Dipster, he seems like a nice guy. Start looking at the bright side instead of looking at all the spooky shadows!”
Well, that was a new nickname for the books. Also-
He lowered his head at the answer, groaning. “Not you too. You’ve only met him once.” Did he actually have hypnosis powers? It felt like everyone was insisting the same thing now, and it was not helping his paranoia.
“And what an impression,” she said wistfully. “Mysterious demeanor, hair that’s like he just finished jumping out off a plane but still looks nice, and only cool guys have long hair in a ponytail.” She gasped. “And his accent! And those dreamy eyes that make you feel like he’s seeing straight through you and-”
Dipper coughed awkwardly, not liking where this was going.
“Mabel…” he tried to bring up carefully. “I know you’re going through your boy crazy phase right now, but can you go crazy about a boy, please?” And not a potentially highly dangerous criminal at that?
She shushed him. “Let a girl have her unrequited, possibly problematic dream men, Dipper.” She flicked her hair with fake indignation, the following giggle ruining the gesture.
He groaned, stepping back out of the alley. “Seriously, I’ve seen you jump from boy to boy almost every day so far, just pick anyone else to focus on, like- uh…” His pointer finger scanned the town square, slowing down on the first non-adult he could see.
Said non-adult was a pudgy boy…wearing a sparkling blue suit and stark white hair styled in a ridiculous pompadour, and thus his finger hastily sped back up again in search for another sacrifice.
“That one,” he said decisively as it landed on the next.
And then he registered the lanky, hoody wearing teenager stumbling out the cemetery with a low moan, swaying and slamming into the side of the rusty gate, but the gasp next to him signaled he was already too late to retract anything.
“Wait, nevermi-”
-and she stormed off.
“Mabel, wait, I changed my mind!” he shouted after her.
“But my heart’s already set!” she shouted back. Okay, yep, lost cause.
He groaned, falling back against the nearest wall, knowing he wasn’t going to get Mabel’s attention back for the rest of the day, not unless her newest target was scared off by her, like that…mattress king yesterday.
Maybe it was best to just get back to the shack, even with who was waiting there in the basement. It was still the morning hours of the day, but surely it couldn’t get much worse? Was his wish for a more productive, exciting day last night completely backfiring on him?
“Oh good, Dipper, there you are,” Grunkle Stan said in lieu of a greeting as Dipper entered the gift shop. “I need you to hang up these signs in the spooky part of the forest.”
Before he could process and react, a pile of wooden signs was dumped in his arms, and he was sure he’d just gotten at least one splinter in his frantic attempt at not dropping any of it.
“Huh? Why?” he asked upon recovering, wondering how Mabel hadn’t winced from her encounter with this shack’s splinters.
It wasn’t actually too hard to figure out the answer. It was the same reason the man had probably accepted responsibility of them for the summer in the first place.
Unpaid child labor.
“Because the best customers are grateful ones that only found their way out of the spooky part of the forest thanks to those signs,” Grunkle Stan pointed out. Before adding, “And because we all said, ‘not it’,” as an afterthought.
“Wh- I didn’t get to say, ‘not it’!” Dipper replied indignantly.
“And that’s why you’re it, kiddo,” Grunkle Stan said unapologetically, giving him a conciliatory pat on the shoulder for his troubles.
Dipper huffed, stepping away. “I bet Harry wasn’t here to say, ‘not it’,” he grumbled. He probably was right back in the basement, being all mysterious and highly dangerous. He would’ve crossed his arms too if not for the pile of signs they were holding.
His grumbling wasn’t unintelligible enough for Grunkle Stan to not hear it though.
“Yeah, well, last time I forced Harry to do it, they all pointed to the Telepathy Tent,” he returned, looking seriously disgruntled. Dipper had no idea what this tent was, but it was clear what his Grunkle’s thoughts on it were.
At the counter, snickering rose from behind the raised magazine.
“And it was not funny!” Grunkle Stan denied loudly, accompanied with a turn and a glare in Wendy’s direction.
She in turn lowered her magazine, forgoing any subtlety.
“It was a little funny, Mr. Pines,” Soos conceded apologetically as the ringing laughter filled the gift shop.
“You…didn’t even notice…until halfway through August!” Wendy managed to get out through her laughter. Looking at Grunkle Stan’s expression, this was probably the closest Dipper was going to get to seeing the unflappable man look embarrassed.
“Corduroy!” he snapped. “I can and will cut your pay!”
Her laughter froze. “Yessir!” she saluted, stiffening up. “Understood, sir.”
Grunkle Stan continued to grumble some more as his employees went back to regular work, before returning his attention to Dipper.
“Now go hang up those signs before tourists start getting lost for the day,” he said, trying to return to his gruff demeanor, before narrowing his eyes as he noticed Dipper’s bare arm.
“And get some bite cream while you’re at it. Geez, kid, what are ya? Catnip for mosquitoes?”
Dipper felt a blush come on, and hurriedly made his way out the gift shop, resigning himself to the boring task. The most exciting thing that could reasonably happen was him hitting his thumb with the hammer.
“Mabel, this journal could explain everything!” Dipper couldn’t help but shout excitedly as he flipped the pages of the book bound in burgundy sitting on his lap. Who knew getting sent out to hammer up some signs would be the best thing to happen to him this summer?! His bite-ridden arm wasn’t even registering right now thanks to the excitement! “I just knew this place had some kind of secret dark side!”
Mabel leaned in from her sitting position on her bed, knitting supplies set aside. “That sounds amazing!” She paused, turning dreamy. “Do you think there’s something on vampires in there too?”
Dipper ignored her burgeoning fantasies, her legs already kicking from excitement, in favor of getting back to paging through the journal. Just the aged, thick parchment making up the pages made it feel incredibly important.
And then a thought hit him. “With this, I’m sure I can figure out what Harry is!”
Mabel’s swinging legs came to a stop. “Wait, I thought he was a wanted criminal hiding from the cops now?”
“He could be both,” he retorted, flipping to another page, this one describing a squash with a human face.
“Ooh, international vampire crime lord.”
Dipper sighed, putting the book aside. “Mabel, can you please take this seriously? What if he’s something dangerous and he realizes we’re onto him? What if you run into him doing something shady? What if he does something to shut you up? I-” He groaned again, burying his face in his hands. At first the Harry mystery had been slightly nerve-wracking but really intriguing, but after the morning he was getting seriously terrified, and his sister just kept being-
A hand landing on his shoulder brought an end to his anxious thoughts.
“Hey,” Mabel began as he raised his head, voice softer than usual. “I promise, okay? No goofing off or being near Harry until you’ve figured out how to kick his butt if he tries anything.”
He took in the earnest expression and raised fist and felt his shoulders drop. “Thanks Mabel.”
He smiled, and she gave one in return, before stepping back. “Anyway, you’re in luck,” she said. “Because this gal is gonna be away from the Shack for the whole day with…” A beat of anticipatory silence. “-her first ever boyfriend!”
Dipper took in the self-congratulatory jazz hands in confusion. “You mean the graveyard guy? It hasn’t even been an hour. How’d you do that?”
Mabel snickered. “I bedazzled him, duh!” She paused. “And he didn’t run off when I jumped him at all! He’s dreamy too, so he’s perfect.”
“A-huh.” Dipper raised an eyebrow, questioning Mabel’s idea of ‘dreamy’ after she’d also described Harry with it. “Did you even ask for his name?”
“It’s gonna be a great ice breaker,” she returned, happily denying it. “Anyway, better not keep him waiting!” And with that she ran out the room, throwing one last, “good luck with your nerd reading!” over her shoulder as she disappeared.
Dipper sighed, a small chuckle escaping him, before putting his attention back on the journal. At least Mabel was going to be away from any potential danger. A whole day, possibly more, was more than enough time for him to skim through every page. Hopefully by the time she came back he’d know what Harry was and how to ward him off, maybe even how to stop him from doing anything to them.
Right now he really was leaning towards some kind of vampire, like Mabel had decided on. Hiding in the dark all the time, only going out at night, appearing out of dark corners, supernatural eyes, possibly some kind of thrall-like power to convince people he’s innocent and a great guy?
It all lined up, except for the fact that vampires in fiction could have almost any kind of power or weakness, and that Harry had been more than comfortable standing in the sunrise just that morning. The only way for him to get any reliable information was if the author of this journal had encountered and documented any. And even that might not be guaranteed. The giant three at the front of the cover, while it could mean a lot of things, most likely meant this was the third in a series, and a lot of pages were either torn out or had left only a charred residue at the spine, meaning a vampire entry could be lost to him altogether.
He could glimpse Mabel running outside through the triangular window towards her current crush and smiled, readying himself for a long read.
Except it was then that he flipped to the next page, and the drawing, along with the description, ensured Harry was about the last thing on his mind.
“Zombie!”
And yet, despite the urgency the uncanny resemblance the guy he’d sicced Mabel on had with the zombies the mysterious author had described, after two days of following behind the…couple- ew, imagining Mabel in a serious relationship was weird- and trying to convince her of his suspicions, he still was no closer to proving anything! That, and anything related to Harry and whatever he was had gone on the backburner. He’d honestly forgotten about him for the most part, especially with how little he actually saw of him now that he wasn’t constantly on his mind.
He couldn’t even be happy about Mabel being away from the Shack for most of the past two days, because now it was very likely the person she was spending all that time with, Norman- though he was almost certain he’d said ‘normal man’ at first before she’d corrected him!- was as much of a danger to Mabel as he’d thought Harry was!
Was he going crazy? If Harry was something nefarious, he’d have tried something already, right? The overheard conversation was three days ago now. But the gun sound, the conversation… He couldn’t just let that go. And on the other side of things, Mabel’s current crush, while…quirky, showed no ill intent either.
Maybe he really was just being the creep she had teased him of being, shadowing all of her outings with Norman, to the point she’d blown up at him for his paranoia not too long ago. After that she’d headed out for a date on her lonesome.
Maybe it’d be better if he just stopped rewatching all the recordings he’d made and went back to-
And then he spotted the guy’s hand falling clean off on his last rewatch, and pure terror took over.
The next minute would forever be a panicked haze of rushing through the shack in his mind, trying to find someone to talk to, before finally running into Wendy lounging in the gift shop, seeming about ready to head out for the day.
“Wendy!” he shouted in an equal mix of relief and panic. “MysistergotkidnappedbyazombieandIneedtofindherbeforeshegetshurt!”
The teen blankly stared at him as he continued to pant, before smirking. “If you wanted to go on a joyride, you coulda just asked,” she said, dropping the keys in his hand before heading out. “Cart’s out back!” she called over her shoulder before disappearing.
With a hurried nod she’d never see, Dipper turned and legged it through the shack. It’d only been a few minutes, so hopefully he could catch up and-
And then, as he passed the stairs, he ran into the same pair of legs for the second time that week.
Dipper stumbled back, squashing the feeling of déjà vu.
After three days of no sighting, now really wasn’t the time to bump into him again!
“Sorrygottagosavemysisterfromgettingeatenbyazombiebye!” the words rushed out again as he shoved past the man and ran out the shack, eyes quickly finding the parked cart Dipper was sure Grunkle Stan had stolen from the local mini-golf course. In his hurry to put on a seatbelt and fumble the keys into the right slot he didn’t even notice Harry swirling around to stare at him with shocked green eyes.
Instead, he was already pumping what he was sure was the gas pedal, silently thanking himself for having fastened the seatbelt as the cart was jostled harshly into acceleration, speeding down the dirt road.
