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“I don't know, Tuck.”
“Come on, Danny. You said it yourself. There's not much else to do on a Friday night since ghosts trashed the mall. And the arcade. And the theater. And the mini-golf course. And the bowling alley. And the ice rink. And the roller rink.”
“You don't even like skating.”
“And Floody Waters. And the park. And the Nasty Burger. Both of them. And the McMasters.”
“We wouldn't be able to hang out in a McMasters anyway.”
“It's the principle of the thing. The park is closed, too–”
“The park isn't closed. It's just that the Amity Park New Religion Convention is happening there.”
“Do you really want to go to the park when it's full of cultists?”
“I don't know that it's fair to call them cultists–”
“One of the groups literally calls themselves the Coalition of Universally Lateral Thinkers.”
“No. That has to be a joke.”
“It isn’t. I've looked them up. They've got some kind of Scientology-level crap going on. They're convinced that you can astral project yourself to the Ghost Zone and travel to other realities that way.”
“Well, I mean, you can, but–”
“Wait, what? Stop. Stop walking. What do you mean, ‘you can?’ Are you saying that astral projection is an actual thing?”
“Yeah? Is that not what I said?”
“Right. So. Should we, uh, stop them? Is that why you've been so weird about coming?”
“I haven't been weird about coming. I've been questioning your decision to bring a dozen binders full of rules for a game when we've never been here before.”
“Excuse you, these are the latest Dragonpath PDFs that I got for the low, low price of free. And there are thirteen of them, not twelve.”
“Yeah, and then you made up the price difference by making color copies. Seriously, Tucker, I think community board game night is more like Monopoly and Scrabble, not, uh. Something with fifty pounds of rules. And no board.”
“Actually,” said Chance Counter, unable to resist butting in despite his eavesdropping being quite successful so far, “‘board game’ in this case is more shorthand for– What is that?”
He’d been listening in, but he’d thought the teens were exaggerating, as teens tended to do. Nothing had prepared him for the enormous stacks of white plastic three ring binders.
“Fifty pounds of rules for Dragonpath,” said the white one, deadpan. He was the one carrying most of the books. “Weren’t you listening?”
“Oh,” said Chance. “Yeah. Are you the only ones planning on playing… that.”
“I wasn’t planning on playing anything in particular, Tucker just needed help bringing them over from his house. I’d be perfectly happy with Monopoly or, I don’t know, that one where you’re building stuff on an island.”
“Catan?” suggested Chance.
“Could be,” said the boy. Thinking back on the overheard conversation, Chance was pretty sure his name was Danny.
“I can’t believe it,” said Tucker. “I’ve been abandoned. Abandoned by my own friend. Abandoned! For what’s objectively the worst board game ever.” He almost dropped the binders, but his friend shored up his stack with his hip.
“What, why is Catan the worst?”
“Not Catan! Monopoly!”
“Why is Monopoly the worst?”
“Because, as our dear friend Sam would say, it signifies and symbolizes the ultimate capitalist hellscape. And also it causes fights.”
“I don’t think Sam would say that.”
“You don’t think I’d say what?” asked a girl who had just walked through the door of the community center. “Oh, hi. Are you one of the organizers?”
“I sure am,” said Chance, smiling. “My name is Chance Counter. We’re right in here.” He gestured behind himself, into the room where he’d just finished setting up the last of the old folding tables. He hoped they’d withstand Tucker’s massive tomes. “You three are a little on the early side, but our regulars should start coming in soon enough.”
“You might get some extras,” said Sam, walking past him. “Basically everywhere else is torched. Ghosts.”
“It’s not only the ghosts. There’s also the construction and the convention–”
“But it’s mostly the ghosts. By the way did you see that one of the groups set up in the park has an acronym that literally spells ‘cult.’”
“Did everyone know this before me?” asked Danny. He circled Chance and deposited his load on the nearest table. It creaked alarmingly. “How much math do you need to know in order to play this, anyway?”
“Less than Monopoly,” said Tucker, also dropping his binders on the table. “Look, man, we can basically play Doomed with these rules.”
“Why would we do that when we can already, you know, just play Doomed?”
“Because we can do things that we can’t do in Doomed. Trust me, it’s going to be great.”
Danny blinked down at the books. “Look, I like a good TTRPG as much as the next guy, but this is a bit extreme. Sam, will you play Monopoly with me?”
“Sure,” said Sam, sliding the box out from the stack of games on the central table.
“Sam! You were supposed to rail against the greed and corruption of capitalist states where monopolies are allowed to form!”
“I can do that and still enjoy a fictional monopoly,” said Sam. “I get to be the race car.”
“I want the dog, then.”
“You two are horrible.”
“And our battle will be glorious,” said Danny. “Should we wait for the other people, or will they not want to play Monopoly?”
“Oh, our regulars are very easy-going. Most of them will go with whatever is set up, although we do have an RPG group that meets every other week. They mostly play Eldritch Endeavors, though.”
Tucker groaned. “I want the boot.”
“I sense a butt kicking joke approaching, but would you really kick a dog? A doggy? A cute little puppy?”
“I hate you.”
Chance heard the community center door open again. He poked his head back out into the hallway. “Andrew!” he said, as the teens mumbled something about sense. “Great to see you. We don’t usually get you on the first Friday.”
Andrew, who was tall, thin, and sported a goatee, paused. “The first Friday?”
“Lost track of the days, huh? Well, might as well make the most of it. We’ve got some kids setting up a game of Monopoly back there.”
“Yes, I suppose I might as well,” said Andrew. He pulled off his coat, folded it over his arm, and stopped halfway into the room. “You!”
“You!” replied Danny.
“Chance, you really can’t allow this poetry-destroying hoodlum in here!”
“I said I was sorry! And then you attacked me!”
“It was my magnum opus!”
“Hey! Hey! This is a community game night,” said Chance. “The center policy is that everyone is welcome here unless they start something here, okay?”
“What about restraining orders?” asked Danny.
“Do you have one?”
“... No.”
“Then I don’t see how that matters. Now, you don’t have to play together–”
“Oh, but I will,” said Andrew, pulling a chair up to the table. “I’ll take any avenue to give this brat the beating he so richly deserves.”
“Oh, it’s on.”
“Uh, could we maybe tone down the smack talk as well? Maybe to something that wouldn’t get you arrested when taken out of context?”
Andrew simmered. Danny glared.
“Hi, Chance, what’ve we got– What are you doing here?”
“Star?” asked Sam, incredulously.
“Mikey?” asked Tucker, more incredulously.
“Oh, uh, hi, guys,” said Mikey, shyly.
Danny looked between the two of them. “Did you guys not know that they’re dating or something?”
“How do you know that we’re dating?” demanded Star.
“We’re keeping it secret!” said Mikey, horrified and loud enough that any secrecy was most likely moot.
“Not very well.”
Star swallowed visibly. “If you tell anyone–”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, no threats during community game night, please,” said Chance. “My heart can’t take it.”
“Who would we even tell?” asked Tucker. “We’re social pariahs. Hey, Mikey, how do you feel about Dragonpath?”
“Third edition is better. And Eldritch Endeavor is better than all of them.”
“You’re dead to me.”
“Aw, Tucker, I thought I was dead to you.”
“Anyway, this is the first Friday,” said Star. “Not RPG night. Is this the set with the purse?”
“Don’t think so,” said Danny, peering into the box.”
“I’ll get it,” said Mikey, moving towards the stack of game boxes where the second Monopoly set was hiding. “Is anyone the iron yet?”
“The what?” asked Tucker.
“The clothes iron,” said Mikey. “I like the irony.”
“Oh, you mean the useless technological throwback.”
“I iron some of my clothes,” said Sam.
“Of course you do,” said Tucker, shaking his head. “Of course you do.”
“I would like to play the game, now,” said Andrew.
Chance clapped his hands together. “So, Danny, why don’t you start us off, since you were the first one in?”
“Mm, yeah,” said Danny. “Let me just finish dealing out Mikey’s money.” He set down a few more bills, then shoved them over to where Mikey had just sat down. “Okay. Dice?” Tucker handed them over, muttering imprecations. “And… seven. That’s… one… two… three… four… five… six… seven. Chance. Erm. Chance card, I mean. So, let’s see here… ‘Take a walk on the Boardwalk. Advance token to Boardwalk.’”
There was a wave of quiet as Danny happily paid the bank four hundred Monopoly dollars and set the Boardwalk deed card down in front of himself. He looked up. “What?”
“Danny,” said Sam. “This is nothing personal, but you know that we all have to destroy you now, right?”
Danny’s eyes narrowed. “Bring it.”