Roses Manor, Weston Chapter 8
There were no new hints on social media, just those same smug little updates that told the world how incredibly clever the game and all its players were. Gabriella had been hoping maybe today would be the day. That their luck had been so shitty lately that she’d find the key to what made this game so exciting laid out for her on social media, maybe with an encouraging little note telling her to keep going.
But of course she didn’t. And she spent another hour and a half scraping through every social media account even slightly connected with this thing before surrendering and going back to the game itself.
The phone rang as she was walking out to refill her coffee. “Hey, it’s me,” James said when she answered. “I’m still at the ER with Bradley.”
So they’d allowed him in. The possibility of him being barred from coming into the emergency room had occurred to Gabriella, considering how furious he and Bradley had both been yesterday. Not that she would have mentioned that to James, he was clearly all too aware of how bad things were.
“How is he?” she asked.
“Better than I thought,” James replied. “He dislocated his kneecap and did some damage around there, but it’s not broken.”
That was better than some of the possibilities that had still popped up in her mind as she’d tried to distract herself with her work. “Good,” she said, unsure if that was the right thing to say here. It still absolutely sucked, but could be worse. “So things are going okay?”
“He’s tried to throw me out a few times, but didn’t mean it.”
“I meant it,” she heard Bradley say behind him. “Go away.”
“Fuck off,” James said mildly away from the receiver. Then back to Gabriella, “Yeah, so now we’re waiting for them to pop it back into place.”
Gabriella shuddered. “Do you know when that’ll be?”
“No idea, they’re slammed,” James said. “So they’ve got him supplied with this, like, foam brace thing to stabilize his leg and a shit ton of morphine. I still think maybe we should try to get him treated at St. Hildegard’s instead.”
“Unless it was fucking…” Bradley groaned. “…Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that hit me, they’re not going to be interested.”
“No, you’re right,” James admitted easily, as though they hadn’t been at each other’s throats for almost a week now. “But yeah, we’ll be here a while.”
“‘We’ aren’t,” Bradley said. “Get the fuck out.”
Gabriella winced, but James seemed unfazed. “Oh, are you driving home?” he asked. “Are they going to just let you walk out and drive away after they pop your knee back into its fucking socket?”
There was a sullen silence behind him. “I’m planning to stay here until they let him go or admit him,” James said to Gabriella. “Unless there’s an emergency back there. Do you need anything from me today?”
“I don’t know,” Gabriella admitted. “Amelia’s in the gym, want me to get her?”
“Please.”
A few minutes later, Amelia had taken the phone and Gabriella left the room. She went out to the back hallway and spotted Graham sitting at the top of the stairs to the unkempt backyard. He didn’t look like he wanted company, so she went back inside to where Amelia was looking serious as she talked to James.
She kept going down the hall, getting the laptop and moving it into the back bedroom, hoping maybe a change of scenery would help her find the clues that were avoiding her. Her first step was going back to the official channels, then jumping between social media posts and rereading posts on tiny blogs.
An hour later, she was no closer to an answer.
***
James called again around three. “Gabs, you shouldn’t still be there,” he said through a yawn when she answered the cordless phone she’d tossed on the bed in the back bedroom while she worked. “Go home.”
They’d been two people down all day, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. Again, he knew. “How’s Bradley?” she asked instead.
“They just put his knee back in place, so I stepped out to call you and Meredith while a hundred different people check him over. Apparently he doesn’t have a concussion or need surgery, so they’re going to let him leave today.”
“Are you planning to bring him home, then come back here?”
“No, he’s going to stay with me and Graham for a few days. Oh, do you know where he put his spare backpack? He said I’m not allowed to go to his house and rifle through his room, but his backpack has everything he needs for now.”
Gabriella glanced over at the backpack tucked beside the bed. “James?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you planning to smother Bradley with a pillow?”
“Probably not? Psychic fucking douchebag would see it coming.”
Maybe not, since he literally got hit by a car that morning. But she felt guilty even thinking that, let alone saying it out loud. “Is he going to smother you?”
“Doubt it. There’s a step to get into my room, he’ll never make it.”
“So you guys have been horrible to each other for, like, a week, and now he’s going to stay on your couch?”
“Basically. But Gabs, you have to understand. His roommates can’t take care of him. I appreciate that she called, but I’ve heard stories about Nora and I know the cat survives, but it’s like fifty-fifty if Bradley would. He’s an asshole, I’m an asshole. But we’re fine now.”
“Did you talk about it?”
“Oh, fuck no. But I’m not going to leave him alone in his apartment when he can’t walk and has to be on serious painkillers for a couple days. We’ve got the pullout couch, it’s a three-minute walk from work, and it’s no big deal. Graham already had clean sheets on it before I hung up with him earlier.”
“And Bradley’s fine with this? Didn’t he kick you out?”
“I mean, when I got there, he called me a huge fucking piece of shit,” James said. “And I kind of get the feeling he mentioned me to the nurses.”
“James-”
“No, but when he was done, I asked if he wanted me to stay and he said I didn’t have to. I’ve known him for five years, that’s his way of saying ‘I want to say yes, but I’m too much of a stubborn jackass to actually say it.’”
“Right.”
“Then when the doctor asked if he wanted me to leave while they put his knee back, he said no, he’d rather I stayed. The frigging fingernail grooves on my hand back that up.”
His explanation made as much sense as it was going to. “Ouch,” Gabriella said, instead of any of the other half-formed arguments that came to mind.
“It beats a dislocated knee. And he didn’t break the skin, so I’m fine. But yeah, I’m going to bring him back to my house. I’ll be there tonight if you guys need me.”
Gabriella remembered the date she’d overheard him planning with Meredith and yet again kept her mouth shut.
She spent the rest of the afternoon working on Sixteen Roses. By five, three hours after she’d planned to go home, she reached the last level and started working, watching the energy reader carefully. They were already shorter staffed than usual, so the last thing they needed was for her to get sick too. So she moved quickly, but thoroughly and carefully through the level.
And then, forty minutes later, she had it.
SIXTEEN ROSES
She held her breath, waiting for either a sudden heart attack or some kind of title screen. But instead, a short credit sequence rolled, all the names clearly usernames of some kind. Then it said CONGRATULATIONS.
She waited a moment for something – anything – to happen, but the message stayed the same, large red letters on a black background.
And after a few minutes she had to accept that it wasn’t going to change. She got up and went out to the living room, where Madelyn and Graham were sitting at the computer bank. She still had the energy reader in her hand and it gave a little whistle as she passed the supply closet. Gabriella paused, then she kept moving as Graham nodded, acknowledging he’d heard it too.
“I finished,” she said to Madelyn. “But nothing happened.”
“You finished the last level?”
“I did. It’s on a congratulations screen right now, it’s been up for four minutes or so. No energy spikes and I feel fine. Something isn’t right about this, though. I kind of think that it’s not the real ending.”
Madelyn’s eyes lit up, but she tempered her expression into something more neutral. “There’s more to it,” she said.
“I think so,” Gabriella said. “But the game itself seems to be over and nothing’s happening.”
Graham looked thoughtful. “I used to buy CDs when I was a kid that would sometimes have bonus tracks,” he said. “So the last song would play, then there’d be like ten minutes of silence, then a secret song. Could it be something like that?”
Gabriella and Madelyn exchanged looks, then Gabriella turned and bolted for the back bedroom, Madelyn moving slower behind her. She got there just as the computer screen went to sleep. “Wait, wait, wait,” she muttered, wiggling the mouse to wake it up. It came back up immediately, the same red letters hurting her eyes against the black background.
Madelyn came in behind her and they both watched the screen for any change. A moment later, rushed footsteps in the hallway made them both jump and turn around. James was there, hurrying into the back bedroom.
“Ignore me, ignore me,” he said, coming through the room without stopping. “I’m not actually here. I’m just grabbing…”
He glanced around the room. Gabriella pulled out Bradley’s backpack from where he’d left it against the bed. “This?”
“Yeah,” James said, taking it and slinging it over one shoulder. “Thanks. He’s in the car outside. Amelia just got back, so she went to talk to him.”
He stopped and looked at the screen. “What’s this?”
So much for “I’m not here.”
“It’s the end of the game,” Madelyn said. “Apparently.”
James frowned at it. “We’re waiting a little bit, to see if anything shows up,” Gabriella explained. “Like a secret track on a CD. Graham’s idea.”
“How long has it been?”
“Five minutes?”
“Graham’s right. See what happens at ten. Alright, I have to go. Amelia’s taking the overnight and you’re both going to go home and rest. We actually have someone from a Rhode Island branch on call tonight as a favor, Riley Something, so Graham can take a few hours off. So go home when this is done. Unless something cool shows up at the ten-minute mark, then write it down first and then go home. Call if you need me, I’ll just be at my house.”
He hurried out, clutching Bradley’s backpack. As the front door closed behind him, Madelyn sighed. “At least they aren’t fighting anymore,” she said, wiggling the mouse to keep the screen lit.
A moment later, Amelia came into the room. “Man’s a mess,” she said as she sat down on the bed beside Gabriella. “I know both those geniuses were saying it’s not that bad, but it’s that bad. He’s sitting there with his pants all cut up, road rash everywhere because he got hit by a fucking car, this huge brace on his knee, telling me it’s stupid and he’ll be back at work in a couple days. But like…”
She let out a heavy sigh as she shrugged and looked at the screen. Gabriella wished she’d set a timer for ten minutes. But she knew after five more minutes that it had definitely been longer. “Damn,” she said. “I don’t think this is happening.”
Madelyn and Amelia walked out to talk to Graham as Gabriella looked at the screen in dismay. Days of eye-meltingly boring work and she’d expected more than just CONGRATULATIONS mocking her.
The screen flickered. Busted old laptop glitching again. But then she noticed something and leaned in closer to see. There was a change, just a tiny one. Three numbers in the middle of the R in CONGRATULATIONS. One, three, and seven.
And then it changed, the screen flashing to show a hideous monster snarling directly in her face. Gabriella screamed and fell backward, landing on her ass and scrambling away from the desk. In seconds the others were in the room. “What happened?” Madelyn demanded as she sat on the floor beside Gabriella, a hand on her back.
Heart still hammering, Gabriella realized what had happened and how it must look to the others. “I’m fine,” she said breathlessly. “I got trolled with a fucking jump scare.”
Her heart rate was settling back down as she looked at the screen, which was back to saying CONGRATULATIONS like nothing had happened. But the numbers were gone. “Can you hand me that notepad?” she asked Graham, keeping the numbers from before in her head as he passed it to her.
She wrote them down quickly in the margins of some unrelated notes. “That’s our hint,” she said. “What’s it mean?”
“We’ll figure it out tomorrow,” Amelia said. “How about you head out?”
