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Ah, summer. For the Pines twins it meant a time of fun, adventure. Staying out on Glass Shard Beach until late in the night, working on the Stan o War, or just chatting over the sandwiches their mom packed. A simple time, away from bullies and the constant feeling of not being smart enough. The pressure of school and their parents seemed far away while fixing their boat, a little bubble of peace. Of course, this summer wasn’t going to be like any other summer.
Within the first week their plans had changed. Stan had taken a gold chain from the pawn shop, intending on fixing it up, but had instead broken it. Rather than telling their dad in the first place, he had lied, with Ford defending him, and the two had set off to find the ‘Jersey Devil’, with Ford under the impression that it was what had stolen the chain. He had found out the truth on during their search and, despite being rightfully upset at first, Stan had lied to him after all, they had worked it out. In the end, while they did find the creature, the boys had to take accountability. Their punishment was a grounding, forced to stay in their room as prisoners for the whole summer.
At least, that would’ve been their punishment, if their parents hadn’t packed their bags and shoved them on a bus a couple days later, giving them tickets and the address of a house across the country in the sleepy town of Gravity Falls.
Over four days of constant travel later, they finally crossed the threshold into the town, the large billboard announcing it passing by, and the old bus driver, who’d been driving the bus since they entered Oregon, turned to them. “This is your stop, kids.” He said, before looking back to the road. Giving a quick nod to him, though the driver wouldn’t see it, Stan turned to his brother.
Ford was fast asleep, leaning against him. His notebook was held loosely in his hands, almost falling out of them, and his glasses were askew. A line of drool had dripped onto Stan’s shoulder. He shook Ford a little, though that was all it took for his eyes to shoot open, then blink, taking in their surroundings. “Are we there yet?” he asked, voice scratchy with sleep.
“Yeah,” he said, “Come on, lets put this stuff away.” He gestured to the books and markers they had left scattered around their seats, where they had practically lived for the last few days, since their parents hadn’t paid a little extra for plane tickets. The bus gave a grumble and screech as it came to a stop. The doors opened and, with one last look to the boys, the driver stepped out to get their bags, and the boys followed.
“Say cheese!” were the first words they heard as they walked down the stairs, then a bright flash of light, so different from the dull lights inside the bus. It took a moment for Stan to rub his eyes and see the woman who had said it.
His first impression of his great aunt Mabel was that she was the coolest person he’d ever seen. Though she was in her, what, late sixties, early seventies, she looked like she had run through a rainbow. A bright magenta sweater with a shooting star sown into the front, a long flowing skirt with a million patterns, ruffles, and patches. Her cropped grey hair was filled with streaks of dye and sparkly twine, and even her glasses were a sparkly cat-eye shape. If a crafts store was a person, it would be his aunt. He then noticed the camera in her hand as it made a noise, and a photo was printed out. She plucked it from the machine and shook it a little, grin never fading. “It’s so good to see you two.” She said leaning down and pinching his cheeks, then Ford’s.
“It’s nice to meet you, Great Aunt Mabel,” Stan said, deciding to go polite. She shook her head.
“That makes me feel so old. Please, call me May. Or Aunt May, or whatever you kids these days say,” She said with the wave of her hand. She glanced to the photo that had finished developing, “That’s one for the scrapbook!”
The trip to the house was quick, even though they had to drive through the whole town to get there. Aunt May had suggested to get something at the diner at one point, but Stan and Ford had asked to just go to the house, tired from the trip and wanting to take a nap.
The house was nice, even if half of it had been turned into a tourist trap. There weren’t many bedrooms, so May led them to the attic, where two ancient looking beds were set up, though the sheets seemed brand new, one emblazoned with planets, and the other with the ocean and sailboats.
“I wasn’t sure what you two liked, so I just sort of guessed,” May started, but was interrupted by Ford racing to the bed with the ocean pattern, claiming it as his own with a loud ‘mine!’.
“No fair!” Stan shouted, though his voice gave away his amusement at the situation, “I didn’t even get a chance to pick!”
“I can get you another set like his, if you want.” Mabel pointed out, but Stan shook his head, plopping down on the space bed.
“Nah, I like space too. Look, there’s even aliens on it!” he pointed to the UFO on the pattern. May smiled at the two.
“Well, I’ll let you get settled. Dinner will be in a couple hours, I’m making pasta.”
“Bowtie?” Ford and Stan asked at the same time.
“We’ll see.”
The next week had them begin a routine, much to Ford’s approval, and Stan’s begrudging acceptance, though thankfully their aunt wasn’t too strict with it. Everyday they’d wake up before the Mystery Shack opened, so before ten, and have breakfast. After that they would help out until lunch, at two, and after that they were given the options of continuing to stay at the Mystery Shack, or to have free time. Ford tended to stay up in the attic doing summer schoolwork or reading, unless Stan dragged him into his own adventures in the town.
On one of the days Stan didn’t bring Ford with him, Stan found something interesting.
He had been exploring the forest, something Aunt May had suggested not to do without adult supervision, when he saw something in the corner of his eye. It was only for a brief moment, a flash of red and white and a little blue, which quickly vanished, but now that Stan had seen it, he decided to chase whatever it was. He followed the noise it made running through the forest. He didn’t notice as the trees and bushes scratched at him, curiosity outweighing everything else. He was sure he had almost caught it, mere inches away, when his distraction lead him to run straight into a tree, a loud metal clunk echoing around him as he fell on his butt.
“What the heck?” he said, rubbing at his face and looking at the tree, the thing he was chasing forgotten, and by now probably long gone.
Standing up, he approached the tree, knocking lightly at the trunk, which again made the sound of hollow metal, not solid wood. He knocked again, just to make sure he wasn’t hearing things, then ran his hand across the wood, trying to find a…
There! A seam. He followed it around, until he could figure out the size and where the hinges probably were. He couldn’t punch it, he knew, so he instead looked for something he could use as a lever. Remembering the screwdriver he kept in his pocket, just in case, he pulled it out and shoved it in the seem that was opposite of the hinges. With a little finagling, the metal door popped open, revealing a machine with switches and toggles.
At this point he probably should have gotten Ford from the house, since he was better at the whole sciencey thing, and this looked very sciencey, but once again his curiosity got the better of him, and he flicked the switch, then another. Behind him came a whirring sound, and he looked back to see a part of the ground had opened up. Inside it was a book, covered in dust, with a couple spiders crawling over it, but he brushed them off and picked it up. He started to flip through it.
“Whoa.” Stan whispered, taking in the pages. Flipping to the start, he began to read, “I can’t believe it has been more than ten years since I first started my research into Gravity Falls.” From there he quickly passed through the pages again, not reading, but taking in their changes. It started off well organized, drawings and pictures of whatever was described on the page, notes organized in their own spaces with only a few scratched-out mistakes, sort of like his Auntie May’s scrapbooks. As he went on, though, he noticed the pages getting messier, pictures stopped showing up, and the drawings looked less professional. The scratched-out bits became more prominent too, and indecipherable codes began. Halfway through the journal it stopped abruptly, the last pages about hiding the other journals. On the final page, in big letters, was written, TRUST NO ONE, NOT EVEN YOURSELF.
Stan jumped as a loud crack echoed in his ears, looking up. Instead of some indescribable beast he had expected, instead his brother stood there, head tilted to the side, watching him. “Aunt May told me to get you.” He said, then came closer, “What do you have there?”
“This weird book,” he said, showing his brother the journal, it’s dyed blue leather cover emblazoned with a golden pine tree. He flipped it open and showed his brother the other pages, ones with floating eyeballs and cursed doors, “It talks about a bunch of monsters and stuff.”
“Did you get it from Aunt May’s giftshop?” he asked, taking it from Stans hands and flipping through it on his own, eyebrows furrowing as he looked through more, “This looks like a bunch of nonsense.”
“Didn’t we just fight the Jersey Devil like, a week ago?” he pointed out.
“Well, yes, but that’s logical. This isn’t.” He said, then flipped over the book to show Stan a page describing a squash with a human face, “these are unfounded conspiracy theories.”
“I thought you liked conspiracies.” Stan snapped, taking the book back.
“Not when they’re dumb.”
“You’re dumb.” He said, and Ford rolled his eyes in response.
“Come on, Aunt May made cookies, and I am not letting Waddles eat all of them.” Ford turned around, heading back to the house, and Stan followed. As annoying as Ford could be, at least he knew the way back to the shack, in his chase of whatever thing it was, he had completely lost his way. Though, with the amount of damage he had caused chasing it, broken branches and bushes creating a pretty obvious path, he probably could have found his way back.
They made it back just in time to finish off the batch of cookies before Waddles, their aunt’s pig, could eat them all. After that Stan headed to their bedroom and curled up on the bed, opening the book and continuing to read it. It was interesting, something he just knew that Ford would love, if only he actually looked at it.
“You’re not even gonna look at it?” he asked for the hundredth time, “Look, there’s even zombies!”
“Really Stan? Zombies?”
“Yeah, look, there’s even a spell summoning them.” He said, then began to repeat the incantation.
“What the heck are you doing?” Ford asked, jumping up from the bed.
“Well, you said this is all fake, so why are you worried?” he asked, then continued to read it out loud.
“Just because I think it’s fake doesn’t mean I want to test it out,” he said, voice cracking. He started to pull on Stan’s arm, trying to get him to let go, before moving on to pull the book from his hands, but by then it was to late, Stan had finished reading the spell. They both waited for a few moments, holding their breaths. Abruptly, Stan realized he didn’t even know the weaknesses of zombies, and it didn’t seem like there was one written on the page.
After a minute Ford’s shoulders untensed. After five, he stood and said, “I told you it was fake.”
Stan crossed his arms with a pout, “fine, it’s fake. Is that what you want to hear?”
“I want you to do the ‘Stan was wrong’ song”
“What? Why?”
“If this book was real you would have caused a zombie apocalypse, just to prove it was real.” He said, “If that doesn’t deserve an ‘I was wrong’ song, then nothing does.” Ford looked down at the book still in his hands and pulled it to his chest, “I’m keeping this too. You obviously can’t be trusted with it.”
Stan was about to protest, when their aunt called from downstairs, “Boys! Dinner.”
In a flash, Ford had shoved the book in his bag and ran down the stairs. With a huff, Stan went down too.
Stan spent the next day sulking in the living room, watching whatever came on Gravity Falls TV. There was a surprising abundance of good shows, some he had never even heard of, so it wasn’t like his sulking was boring. The couch was comfy too. He had just settled in to watch a re-run of Ducktective when the front door was slammed open and a furious Ford stormed into the living room, face murderous. Without a word Ford sat on the armrest of the couch, arms crossed.
“You okay?” Stan asked his twin shuffling a bit to give him more space. Aunt May also entered the room, concern showing on her face.
“Yeah, I just ran into this kid.” Ford huffed, and Stan’s blood went cold. Their aunt seemed to have the same reaction.
“Who?” Mabel asked.
“You wouldn’t know him, he’s on vacation here too, and he’s from Tennessee.” He said, “He’s the worst. Took my notebook and wrote all over it.” Stan winced. Ford was overly protective of his books, he didn’t even let Stan touch them, but somehow this kid had taken it and written in it. He could only imagine what he wrote.
May placed a hand on Ford’s shoulder and gave him a comforting smile, “I can talk to his parents, okay?”
“You can’t” Ford said, “That’s not going to do anything.” Their aunt looked about to protest the statement, but without another word he left, heading up to their room. Mabel looked at Stan, a worried look in her eyes.
“Can you talk to him?” she asked, barely above a whisper. Stan nodded and followed him up.
They did talk. And then they planned.
Well, they didn’t talk much, but they did plan. It was a simple one. They would try to scare the kid, Fiddleford, with the book. They’d tell him everything is true, see if he believed them, and then say the incantation. They knew it wouldn’t work, but he didn’t, so hopefully by the end he would have run away scared, or have fainted with fright.
Of course, everything had to go wrong, starting at the very first hurdle, with the kid himself.
Fiddleford came to the shack with a wide smile and a banjo strapped across his back, arriving at four on the dot, just like Ford had told him to. The boy was a few inches taller than the twins, with fluffy blond hair and a bandage on his chin.
“Hey Stanford,” he said when Stanley opened the door, southern accent shining through. “You said you wanted to see me?”
“Yeah,” Stan coughed, trying to get his voice to sound like Ford’s, “Lets go to the back.” He said, going out the door and gesturing for the boy to follow. He didn’t look like a bully, at least not like the kids that picked on them back in New Jersey, but maybe that’s just how bullies looked down south.
“Look,” the boy said as they walked around the shack, “I’m real sorry I messed up your notebook, I just thought I could fix some of your equations…” his voice trailed off as they turned the corner and the real Ford came into view. The boy blinked. He turned to Stan, then back to Ford, then to Stan again. He looked to Stan’s fingers. “Oh, you’re twins.” He said, dumbfounded. Stan shrugged.
“Yeah, sorry about that. It’s just a thing we do.”
Fiddleford snorted, “Yeah, I can see why. You fooled me.”
“Hook, line, and sinker.” He said, and a little hesitance wormed its way into his heart. This kid was way too nice. This couldn’t be the kid who Ford was so upset about. But then Ford looked up from the book Stan had found a couple days before, and a veil of annoyance crossed his face, before he covered it up with a smile.
“Fiddleford.” He said, standing, “It’s good to see you.”
“Nice to see you too,” he said, walking to meet him, Stan behind, “What was it you wanted to show me?”
“This” he held out the book for the kid to take. The boy flipped through it.
“Is this a new product your Aunt is selling?”
“That’s what I thought too” Ford said, voice turning conspiratorial, and when had his brother become a good actor? “But look at this,” he flipped to the zombie page, “we said this spell the other day, and it actually worked! There was a whole zombie army.”
“He’s right” Stan said, though he could hear the uncertainty in his voice. Fiddleford rolled his eyes.
“Don’t you think everyone else would have heard what was going on in Gravity Falls? My parents would’ve never allowed us to come here is there were apocalypses going on.”
“Wouldn’t it be apocali? Since it is a Greek word?”
“It’s apocalypses.” Fiddleford confirmed. Stan watched as his brother went bright red, and everything made sense. The kid wasn’t bullying his brother, he was correcting him.
“Well, anyway,” Ford continued, as if the aside hadn’t happened, “This book-”
“I’m not a baby, Ford.” The boy said, “Zombies don’t exist, the whole book is a fake. I thought you were too smart to fall for this kind of stuff.”
“I didn’t fall for anything!” Ford insisted, taking the book and turning back to the zombie page. Stepping back, he began to read the incantation.
“Come on, Ford,” Stan said approaching his brother, but he only stepped away, pausing for only a moment before continuing. “Ford, stop it.” He tried again. Stan reached to pull the book out of his hands, but he grabbed it right as Ford finished. They all froze for a moment, waiting.
“See,” Ford said, “Nothing happen-” he was cut off by a loud grumble, and the ground beneath them began to shake. “That-that’s nothing. We’re near the ring of fire, earthquakes happen.” Ford insisted. There was another loud grumble, and the earth beneath Ford began to crack open, emitting a green light. Stan pulled Ford from the growing chasm.
“Why did you do that?” Fiddleford squeaked. From the chasm a rotten arm stuck out.
“I didn’t think it’d actually work!” Ford insisted, stumbling back, “I thought it was fake too!”
“Where did you find it?”
“Stan found it!”
“In the woods!” he answered the unasked question.
“Well,” Ford said as they watched the zombie crawl all the way out, bones visible and clothing ripped, “At least there’s only-”
“Shut up!” Fiddleford shouted, while Stan jumped to cover his brother’s mouth.
“Don’t you know that if you say at least it’s not raining, it’s gonna rain?” Stan hissed. Ford looked at him confused, before the realization hit him. He nodded, and Stan let go. “Okay,” he continued, “What does the journal say about defeating zombies?”
“It doesn’t say anything!” Ford’s voice cracked. With a grunt, all three boys hit the edge of the shack, the zombie still heading towards them. Stan glanced at the two other boys, then at the roof. It was low enough for them to climb up it.
“On the roof!” he said, pushing Ford to the edge and giving him a boost to climb up it. He then turned to Fiddleford.
“Wait, what about-”
“You’ll pull me up,” he said, “now come on.” Fiddleford did as he asked, scrambling up to the roof, then joining Ford in helping Stan up.
He was almost on the roof, too, when he felt something cold grab onto his leg. His mind was a series of nos as he felt the zombie pull him down, and someone let go of his arm. As he tried to make peace with his upcoming death - undeath? – a weird, slightly musical twang echoed with breaking wood, and the zombie’s hold came undone. The hold on his arm returned, and he was pulled up completely.
Looking to the two others, both boys were breathing heavily, and, on the roof nearby, the arm of Fiddleford’s banjo sat, chords broken and sticking out in different directions, the round bit completely gone. It was then that it began to rain, because of course it did.
“What do we do?” Stan shouted, stepping away from the edge as he turned to watch the zombie right itself.
“I don’t know!” Ford replied from underneath the awning of a window, flipping through the book as if it would have what they needed.
“Would destroying the head work?” Fiddleford asked, “That’s what they do in movies.”
“Do you have another banjo we can use?” Stan asked sarcastically.
“Well, no, I-”
Suddenly, through the window nearby, a radio was turned on, and a song started playing. The summer hits channel. Through the speaker a woman’s voice rang out, followed by another. Below them, the zombie stumbled.
“No way.” Ford muttered, “there’s no way music is what defeats them.”
“Well, I don’t see any better options!” Stan replied. With a deep breath, and feeling himself going bright red, he began to sing along to the radio. The zombie stopped in its tracks and began to tremble. He paused to turn to the other two, “Come on, guys!”
Taking the hint, Fiddleford joined him in the chorus. After a moment, Ford began to sing too. The effect was almost immediate. The zombie began to shake, trembling like a leaf in a hurricane. Then, with a loud pop, its head exploded.
Stumbling back from the roof, Ford looked like he was going to throw up, his face gaining a sheen of green. “That’s,” Ford covered his mouth and steadied himself, “That’s revolting.”
As if their aunt knew that the danger had been taken care of, she called out to the boys from the porch, "Stanley, Stanford, come inside, it’s raining!”
“You boys were having fun out there, huh?” their aunt asked as she wrapped them in a blanket and gave them each a cup of hot chocolate, “You were shouting so much, I had to put on some music.”
“Yeah. Fun.” Stan said as she left the room.
“Are we not going to tell her?” Fiddleford asked.
“No.” Ford said, “Now that we know this book is telling the truth, we need to investigate it. Aunt May would only stop us to keep us ‘safe’.”
“I don’t know, Sixer, maybe Aunt May could help us, she has lived here for years. She might know more than she lets on.”
“I doubt it.” Ford replied, “Why would she have a tourist trap full of fake stuff if she already knew about the real things in Gravity Falls?”
“I guess you’re right.”
That night, when he and Ford were getting ready for bed, Stan turned to him. “So,” he said, “I was right.”
“What?”
“I was right about the book, the zombies.” Then, “Also you caused a zombie apocalypse.”
“One zombie is hardly an apocalypse.” He muttered, then shook his head, “What’s your point?”
“Well,” he tilted his head one way then the other. “I was right, and you were wrong.”
“You want me to do the I was wrong song.” He stated, deadpan.
“Well, it’s only fair.”
Ford groaned, faceplanting into his pillow.