The Haunted Love

Chapter 18

A war cry rose from both sides as the door hit the wall. Dipper, Mabel, Wendy and Soos busted their way in. Dipper had a golf club somehow. “Stan?” The twins said in surprise, seeing their Grunkle standing before them.

“Kids?” Stan reacted back. They suddenly threw their weapons to the side and ran up to their Grunkle. He opened his arms wide as he welcomed them into a big bear hug. “Kids! I can’t believe it!” He said almost in tears. “I thought I lost you two.” Soos and then Wendy joined in, almost squishing the twins.

Stan felt half relieved once he dropped the twins down from his arms. “Sabrina! You’re here too!” Mabel commented, running up to her and hugging her leg. Dipper followed and took the other leg.

Sabrina smiled and rubbed their heads. “Of course I am. I honestly was thinking your uncle wouldn’t let me in.”

Stan just scoffed. “Ha, like I had a choice.” Sabrina just c****d a brow towards him as the twins took a few steps back.

“So what is this? Why is multi-bear and the gnomes in here?” Dipper asked, pointed towards them.

“That’s a long story.” Stan replied. “Welcome to what is left of normal around here.” He gestured to the room where everyone was gathered. Wounds were being treated and rations handed out. It was quite a dreary scene.

Sabrina followed them in, assisting Toby with the removal of the darts he was hit with. Toby thanked her as she rose and crossed her arms while taking it all in. At least no one was dead is all she could really think. But everyone in here was being paranoid, like they should be. Especially with the fact that Bill’s eyebats have been fluttering around recently. Every time one got close, Stan would order everyone to get down, be quiet and turn every light off. So far at least, that has worked as they just skim over the shack before moving on. That is what was turning the town into stone and flying off with them to the pyramid Bill has built for himself.

“Wouldn’t call everything in here normal, Grunkle Stan.” Dipper commented.

“Does it really matter at this point?” Stan replied. “Besides, half the town is in Bill’s clutches.”

“Including Clayton.” Dipper mumbled. He watch the others move around before he clenched his hand into a fist. “We have to get him back.”

“But how?” Wendy asked, adjusting her crossbow. Sabrina and Stan shared a glance. What are they going to do? They didn’t have a plan of any sort.

His fist lessened at his side. “There has got to be something.” He skimmed around the empty faces, recognizing McGucket in the crowd. “McGucket. He might be able to help.” Dipper suggested, pointing towards him. He was fiddling with his banjo behind the Several Timez boys.

“You really think the loon that lives at the dump can help?” Stan said in disbelief.

“He’s a lot smarter than he looks.” Mabel insisted.

Sabrina had heard Clayton talk about him. His real name was FiddleClayton, which still was an odd name. What can you say? Everyone has to be weird around here in someway. So FiddleClayton was Clayton’s assistant while he was working on the portal. He was known for being a magician when it came to mechanical things of any sort. Dipper actually showed Sabrina the page he did for the Gobblewonker, which they discovered was McGucket all along behind the controls of a giant, mechanical sea creature.

For a guy whose took his own sanity away, he sure knows how to do things with his hands. He probably subconsciously built that monster and whatever else. But since they discovered the Blind Eye Society’s secrets, they found McGucket’s memories. He actually wanted to watch them once they retrieved them. And since then, he seems to be slowly regaining his correct subconscious thoughts. But the damage has been done and years of neglect, he may never remember everything.

“McGucket?” Dipper said calmly as they approached. He glanced up from his banjo, the broken green specs made it difficult to read his eyes.

“Well howdy. Whatcha need?” He replied with an excited twang. He must of recognized the twins for he had no need to ask for confirmation.

“We need your help.” Dipper pleaded. “Do you remember a StanClayton Pines?”

He hummed to himself, putting a bandaged finger up to his chin. Sabrina noticed a light bulb go off in Mabel’s eyes as she ran upstairs. She returned with a photo of younger Clayton in her hand. “This is him.” She said, handing it over to McGucket.

“Mabel, your a genius.” Dipper empathized.

“I know.” Mabel smiled cheekily.

McGucket was fully fazed into the photo, concentrating on it until his head perked up. “I know this fella. StanClayton.” He repeated. Dipper gave a thumbs up towards the girls. “He hated being called that.”

“Well he’s here, in Gravity Falls.” Sabrina added as he handed the photo off to Dipper. “And we seek your help to save him from Bill.”

McGucket plucked one of his banjo strings. Wasn’t sure if it was gesture of thought but he suddenly came to life. He started to walk away, only to turn halfway down and gesture them to follow. “Aren’t we gonna save the fella? Come on, ya lazy bones.”

They all shared a glance with each other. “I can’t believe that just worked.” Dipper said in disbelief.

“Obviously we triggered something.” Sabrina added, taking a few steps forward.

“To the drawing board!” Mabel proclaimed to the room. Everyone just looked up from what they were doing as they stood awkwardly front and center. Dipper just nervously chuckled to himself once the eyes bored in.

“Ok Mabel, that’s enough.” Sabrina said, dragging them out of the room.

Stan was just wandering back in when they crossed paths. McGucket came through first to his bewilderment. Wendy and Soos were hanging out in the gift shop area when they arrived.

“What’s the plan?” Wendy asked, cracking her knuckles. Stan reluctantly followed them in, joining the circle.

Sabrina started clearing off one of the cork boards. She then would take one of the Gravity Fall maps from the stand and pin it to the board. With a black marker, she started to sketch out a rough pyramid above town hall. The others all awed at how well it was done in so little time. She still had the marker cap in her mouth when she was handed the photo of Clayton and pinned it next to the pyramid. She then drew arrows from it to the pyramid and on a blank sheet of paper, she wrote out “Plan” on top. She backed away, spitting the cap out and putting it back on.

“This is what our goal is. We need someway to get in, but I’m thinking we need a distraction of some kind for Bill cause he’ll be watching closely.” The others were slowly piling in at this time, so it was turning into a group meeting.

They all begun brainstorming soon after. Many ideas were super far fetched, others were just too hard to accomplish with what they had. That is when it hit Sabrina and McGucket. Their solution was what they were standing in.

“That’s it.” Sabrina said suddenly. She had met eyes with McGucket at the moment when he gave her a reassuring nod. “Stan, does Clayton have the blueprints for here somewhere?”

Stan had an inquisitive look on his face before snapping his fingers. “Yeah, its in the safe. Give me a sec.” He returned a few seconds later with the rough blueprints in his hand.

“Thank you.” She said as her and McGucket examined it closely. The shack wasn’t attached to any main vertical lines of any sort. “You thinking what I’m thinking?” She whispered to him.

“Hmm, I bet ya I am.” McGucket replied smartly.

They turned back to the group who was talking among themselves. Sabrina stepped up on the gift shop counter and tapped her marker on a Pitt Cola bottle. Everyone’s eyes went up to her as the chatter stopped. “Guys, I think we have an idea.” She glanced down to McGucket who gave an awkward smile and thumbs up which kind of grossed her out. “This shack has been warded as you all know. So why don’t we use it? McGucket?”

He drew out a blueprint quickly and pinned it up on the cork board. Once he stepped back, the group was flabbergasted at what they saw. “No way.” Dipper and Soos said in union.

“Ladies and gentleman, I give you – Shacktron.”

-

It took all of them working together to build the Shacktron. McGucket worked on assembling the thing and making sure it functioned. The others all gathered parts and pieces. Soos suggested they’d put a gun sword on it, but McGucket didn’t know what that was. He would then offer to educate him on such things. The goal wasn’t to make it super cool really, but everyone just went with the flow.

A T-Rex arm and Gobblewonker head later, the Shacktron was ready. There wasn’t really any room inside for them to sleep in it, so they had a camp out the night before. They all gathered around the massive fire pit near the shack. It was quite awkward as everyone would just share a look every once in awhile. You start to realize that you never really knew any of the people you were stuck with.

“So – think we gonna win this?” Pacifica broke the silence finally. She was wearing the llama sweater Mabel had offered her, cause it was pretty nippy that night. Most of the others had one as well – at this point.

“Guess we’ll find out.” Sabrina simply answered. Mabel was dozing off in her lap with Waddles curled up on hers. Dipper was between Sabrina and Stan, trying to write something down in the dim light. “What you writing?” She asked him when she glanced over.

Dipper let out a sigh, readjusting his hat. “Nothing much. Just what I think will happen tomorrow.”

Sabrina turned her attention to the night sky. It still had the red tint Bill had dyed it. But you could still see and count all the stars. She leaned back on her hands, a smile growing on her face. “You’ve ever been taught the constellations, Dipper?”

His eyes would move up to towards the sky. “No.” Stan was silently worrying beside them, but he was tuning in. He too turned his attention towards the blood red sky, leaning back on the log behind them.

“Then I’ll show you.” She replied, her eyes melting into the stars beyond them. They slowly fell back on to him. “We might be able to see the Big Dipper. But it depends what direction the sky is going which constellations you see.”

“So when the world rotates then it changes. I get it.” He replied, leaning back on the log now.

Sabrina was amazed how easy he caught on. No wonder him and Clayton has such a connection. “Exactly. And the seasons also play a role as well. It’s summer. So we’ll see ones like Hercules, Lyra and Draco.” She scanned the sky, seeing if she can spot any of them. “Oh there is Draco. It kind of has a long snake of stars with a dipper-like head.”

Dipper was concentrating pretty hard until he spotted the tail. “Oh there it is.”

“You got it.” Sabrina congratulated him. “See if you can find another one. Just imagine the sky as a piece of paper and your the pencil.”

It seemed they spent the rest of the night finding the constellations. Dipper did ask her to teach him. So that’s what she did. Maybe it’d inspire the kid to look more into science then. But they may have to do one last sky hunt before the end of the summer. Sabrina did end up promising him after all.