The Game at Carousel: A Horror Movie LitRPG

"That's a slightly less scandalous version than what I read in the journal," I said after listening to Kimberly's story about Clara Withers.

When I had read about it, it was a hush-hush murder situation. But the way Kimberly's story went, it was almost a tragedy of parents willing to do anything to help their daughter—anything other than letting her be a werewolf.

"Unfortunately, this does nothing to resolve the question of why the werewolf curse seems to have changed in the last 200 years or so," Andrew said.

I shrugged. "That part might get cut," I said.

Andrew nodded.

We were Off-Screen until we got to the stairs, right after Antoine said, "I'll stand guard out here. If you need help, scream."

"You're not coming?" Kimberly asked.

Antoine thought for a moment and then said, "Look, guys, I just need a break. I was in the woods all night, and I'm not sure I can be at 100% On-Screen."

"Do we need to use your nightmare trope?" Kimberly asked. "We have time."

Kimberly acted all concerned and hugged Antoine. Andrew looked wary, like for the first time he might have been second-guessing advocating for Antoine.

Personally, I didn’t mind. At least he was finally being open about it. Usually, I was the last one to find out when he was having trouble.

"We'll be down there. Just gotta walk around in circles for a while, and then I'll show them around the crypt," I said. "No big deal."

"Thanks, Riley," he said, brandishing his gun like he was on guard. "I'll make sure nothing comes down after you."

For some reason, I didn’t feel any safer. Maybe I was more worried about whether Carousel was going to keep the tunnels empty like they had been the night before.

After a few steps down the stairs into the basement, we were On-Screen.

"What exactly did you see?" Kimberly asked, not missing a beat.

"I swear it was some sort of crypt," I said.

"A crypt?" Kimberly repeated. "Like a place where Clara Withers might have found her final resting place?"

"There's only one way to find out," I said.

We had picked up flashlights and lamps from the fort. We had much better lighting than I’d had the night before. As I had told Antoine, I mostly spent time leading Kimberly and Andrew around in circles just to make sure Carousel got as much footage as it needed.

The crypt wasn’t too awfully far away. In fact, it was a little too conveniently close.

Once I knew the family had been digging down there and had my little connection about there being no cemetery, my high Savvy helped beef up my exploration where my low plot armor would have let me down. It also didn’t hurt that Lila had been alive back then, and her Bad Luck Magnet gave me a nudge in the right direction—or so I assumed.

Eventually, I led them directly to the hole I had crawled through into the crypt.

"Have you been inside yet?" Andrew asked.

"Of course, I haven’t," I lied. "I’m not going in there alone."

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"It’s not the dead we need to worry about here," he said.

"Right," I said. "It’s the werewolves. One of which is lying inside a tomb in there."

Of course, I had been in there before and knew that Clara Withers' tomb was empty.

Kimberly was the first inside, followed by me and Andrew.

Kimberly was very anxious to see what was going to happen. I just wanted to know where the story was going once our characters discovered that the coffin Clara had been buried in—allegedly—was empty.

We took some time to get familiar with the area. The crypt looked like something you might have found in your average cemetery, but it had a very low ceiling and everything carved out of the stone of the earth we were standing in. There were dozens of individual cubbyholes where different members of the Withers family’s coffins were held in eternity.

Some of the members had special areas—individual tombs that were a lot like the fancy cemetery houses in New Orleans. What were those things called? Mausoleums.

Except, of course, they were underground and covered in cobwebs. Somehow, the spiders had survived down here where nothing else had. I was half expecting a pit of snakes to be next.

"Ebenezer Withers," Andrew read off one of the inscriptions.

"I read about him," I said. "He was a real miser."

Andrew looked like he would say something, but he didn't get the chance.

"Clara," Kimberly announced, interrupting us. "Here she is."

She had found her way right to her, right where I said she would be. It was almost as if she had a magical connection—or at least, that’s what it would look like to the audience.

The three of us crowded around the tomb built for Clara, shining a light up into the little cranny of the mausoleum where she was kept.

"They really loved her," Kimberly said. "Look at her resting place. It’s beautiful."

It really was. This wasn’t carved out of the same stone that everything else was. This was marble, and if I wasn’t mistaken, it had silver inlay that made an intricate, beautiful pattern.

"So what now?" I asked.

"We look for clues," Kimberly said. "There must be something here."

"All right," I said, "but we gotta come back here and set this place up with proper lighting so I can get a good shot of this. I wasted a whole reel of film last night just trying to capture something."

Kimberly looked around the cramped mausoleum. Andrew and I helped. In the center was the giant slab that served as the lid to her coffin. Around her were little nooks carved into the stone where things like a ivory combs and a teddy bear could be found.

"These are all… hers," Kimberly said, reaching out for the teddy bear but stopping right before she touched it. She looked almost scared. I didn't know what she was going for there.

She was putting on a show, staring at these belongings.

"I hate to be the one to say it, but from my perspective, there’s only one way to find out if Clara is running around as a giant werewolf every night," I said.

"You’re not serious," Andrew responded.

"Unfortunately, I often am," I said.

There was a moment of silence as Kimberly continued to look at the various items of Clara’s that had been left around—a pair of shoes, a neatly folded dress that was deteriorated to the point of being threads.

"Let’s open it," Kimberly said. "We need to see."

So Andrew and I stood at the head and foot, respectively, as Kimberly got on one side, and we all heaved with all our might.

Suddenly, the lid was very hard to move. The night before, it hadn’t been easy, but I was able to open it up enough to look inside. Andrew was looking at me like, How did you open this last night if we can barely move it right now? But he couldn’t say anything because we were On-Screen.

I started to wonder if maybe we should have brought Antoine down to get some proper Mettle. But finally, the slab budged, and once we got momentum, we were able to move it all the way to the side.

Glad to be done with it, I took my flashlight and shined it inside the coffin.

And then I jumped back. I barely suppressed a scream.

Because while this tomb had been empty the night before, what I was looking at now was the desiccated corpse of a young woman with long blonde hair.

I was breathing heavy, and I couldn’t help but smile at how Carousel had played the switcheroo.

"I guess she isn’t running around as a werewolf at night, huh?" I said.

The others didn’t answer. Their eyes were fixated on the silver necklace that lay against her mummified torso. It was beautiful in a dark way.

Andrew started to reach for the necklace.

"Don’t do that," I said. "Haven’t you ever seen a mummy movie?"

He looked at me like I was a crazy person.

"I’m serious," I said.

Then I looked back down at the necklace and reached my hand out—not to grab it, but as if I was feeling something in the air, as if it was letting off some sort of aura.

It may well have been letting off an aura—I had no idea. But when you’re canonically psychic, you gotta give the audience a show.

"More of your grandmother’s gift, I assume," Andrew said mockingly.

"Just don’t touch it," I said, acting freaked out. "There’s something… dark… here."

"A dead 19-year-old is pretty dark," Andrew said. But even though he was mocking me, he didn’t reach for the necklace again.

Kimberly was absolutely enchanted by the necklace, but I assumed that was just an act.

For a moment, we were On-Screen without saying anything, just as Kimberly stared at the deceased young woman.

And then we went Off-Screen.