User blog:SaenihpNnylf/Curse This Town Chapter 6

'''Hello! This took crazy long. Sorry about that. My co-author became very inactive and I ended up having to drop her and take over the story on my own. This was not an easy decision and many people told me that I should have dropped her way sooner but I kept giving her chances because I can be stupid sometimes and give people more chances than they deserve but I'm tired of giving her chances and if you're reading this Sacredheart, I'm sorry for this but it's what had to be done. I hope you understand and everyone else, I hope you're happy with the story. Keep in mind that about half of this chapter was still co-authored so I cannot take full credit for this chapter. All future chapters will be mine and mine alone though.'''

He couldn't believe it. This was so embarrassing. Crushed to death by his own pet only minutes into the morning. At least it was only a nightmare, or so he assumed, but he woke up steaming. What a fool he had looked like. He settled down some though looking out at his currently peaceful town. That's right, his town and pathetic nightmare, or not, nothing was going to take that away from him.

Might as well go out, the moose thought, pushing open his trailer door and stepping outside. Even the gods must work.

What a stupid nightmare. After all, it had seemed so unbelievably real... but he was alive now. If it had have been real, how could he have survived?

Lumpy shook his head, trying to dispel any thoughts of the nightmare. He needed to focus on his duties and, like every day, there was a lot of security footage that needed to be sorted through before everything opens. You can call him lazy all you want but it is not easy running an entire town.

He headed over to the hospital first, something telling him that this was important and was shocked to find that there was forty-eight hours of raw footage instead of twenty-four even though he had just sorted through the footage yesterday morning. Had he forgotten to collect this footage? Though it felt unlikely, it seemed to be the only explanation.

However, as he went through his rounds, everywhere else had the same and he knew for sure he didn't skip collecting the footage all together. "Now, this is strange... how come everywhere I go there's 48 hours instead of 24? Hmm... oh wait, the diner..."

The final stop before returning home to process the footage was the Happy Tree Diner, of course he owned it. He pretty much owned the town, and he wasn't afraid of letting Tree Friends know it.

Of course, the diner had 48 hours as well. It was as if Lumpy had somehow completely missed yesterday. That didn't make any sense, he could lose a lot of money by not doing so, he'd have to be dead to not collect any of the footage at all.

At that though, despite forbiddance he thought back to his nightmare. No, that was impossible. People, or moose, don't just come back to life after dying. "It was just a nightmare," the moose told himself sternly, shaking his head and returning home to analyze the footage.

Getting home, he decided it made most sense to check the newest 24 hours first... and something within him still kept telling him to check the hospital first. Why the hospital? he wondered to himself. Almost nothing ever happens there.

Putting the video tape into the player, he watched the screen. It was morning in the hospital, everything peaceful so far, even Petunia had shown up early for work and was manning the front desk. After a few seemingly harmless phone calls, and one that seemed to make the skunk look peeved, she went to shut the window. Now, she seemed to almost glow with importance.

Lumpy wondered "Why does it look like-" then he jumped back as a purple car smashed through the wall, just missing Petunia. Through the video, he could just barely make out Mole's dead body inside the car and it of course only got worse from there as the events of Achile's Heal went through.

"Dear god," the moose murmured, turning off the screen. If what had happened at the hospital was any sign of what the other tapes held, he couldn't bear to watch any more than he already had. He had to get some fresh air.

When he headed back outside his trailer, though the town was still relatively in one peice, words could not describe when he spotted Petunia a ways off, alive and well, despite having seen her die in the video.

He couldn't deny it anymore, yesterday was no nightmare. Someone or something was killing the members of the town and somehow bringing them back to life and whatever this is, has more power than him, and that did not bode well with the tyrant.

Pacing back and forth, an idea popped into Lumpy's mind. An interesting idea. "I'll just have to pull a few strings, blackmail a few Tree Friends, and everything will be back in my favor" he grinned, stroking his chin. "Lumpy, you are a genius."

He thought back to his initial reaction to yesterday and realized an advantage he most likely has over the majority of the town: they probably think yesterday was a nightmare, too.

Picking up a tape, it was placed in the small machine plugged up to all the monitors and with the press of a button it began to play. "This is the footage from the comic book store, something has got to have happened there" the moose said, hoping he was onto something. His intuition had never failed him before. Patrons walked in and out of the store, nothing too bad happening... but... an air of interest came about when a certain blue flying squirrel entered the store. "Why him? And who is that?" Lumpy pondered.

After what he saw at the hospital, he wasn't all that surprised by the attack but what of course really got him was when that flying squirrel literally flew over the shelves and, despite the name, he obviously knew that was far from normal. Possibly even weirder than the apparent reset button.

"I feel as... as if I know him," Lumpy thought, eyes following the blue flying squirrel's movements to stop the suddenly crazed bear, but eventually he shot out of the store and disappeared. His fist slammed onto the desk "There has to be more, more evidence...more blackmail..." he said.

The moose sighed, resting his chin on the palms of his hands, thinking. Just what had happened to Happy Tree Town? Tree Friends had died and come back, accidents like falling buildings and car crashes had just vanished as if it was all just some twisted magic trick, but magic was far out of the question. He'd seen a worker beaver come in with vanishing hands, and it seemed magic was not the cause and it wasn't all physical either, he remembered that one squirrel that went candy crazy, and he did mean crazy by every sense of the word.

There had to be some strange force at hand here, but what? It clearly was powerful, and while upsetting Lumpy's control, as it was causing the town to be plunged into havoc.

Realizing that he wasn't going to be able to figure this out on his own, Lumpy headed back out of his trailer to find the first previously dead tree friend he could find. He knew he had to be careful about it though, if they think yesterday was a nightmare, he had to make sure to keep it that way.

There was a flicker of movement out the corner of his eye, turning and seeing a familiar pink chipmunk walking down the path talking to herself. She seemed unnerved and she obviously looked it, her little conversation not far from being a panic attack. A good start, Lumpy thought, approaching her with an almost knowing gait, a grin on his face.

"What's going on with you?" He asked, actually catching her attention. "You seem awfully stressed."

"Oh," she said "I-I had a really surreal nightmare last night... I woke up in my bed in a cold sweat. M-my cat had... k-killed me... but I'm glad it was just a nightmare."

Lumpy hid his grin. Of course this one didn't know it was real, and he had her right where he wanted her. "Yeah, that's good, otherwise you wouldn't be able to work for me anymore." Lumpy said, flawlessly covering up why he would care. "Anything else weird happen though?"

Giggles hesitated whether or not to tell him but saw no harm. "Well, a few minutes ago I got this… really weird call from Cuddles."

Lumpy raised a brow "How so?"

"Well... he was glad that I was alive for some reason, that and I heard Flaky screaming in the background... which she normally doesn't do for no reason... I'm kind of worried though, I hope she's ok..." Giggles said, twiddling her thumbs worriedly.

Now that did get Lumpy suspicious. He recognized the name and she was one of the calmest tree friends in town, she wouldn't have just screamed like that unless, 'Unless she know's it wasn't a nightmare.' He realizes. "Did he say anything else?"

"No, nothing else. Why?"

Lumpy turned. "It's not important. I'll expect you at work?"

Giggles sighed clearly not liking it but answered, "Yes, Sir, I was just on my way there."

"Well, then get going!" Lumpy ordered as if he wasn't the one who stopped her.

She nodded and continued on her way, Lumpy thinking. If his suspicions were correct, that Flaky girl might know something. He nodded to himself "I need to find her, she could know more than what's good for her." He began to walk, trying to figure out where she lived.

He stopped, turning and stopping Giggles "What?"

"Where might Flaky live?" he asked her.

"Flaky? On Pine Way, 3178, just a few blocks down from here."

Lumpy nodded, repeating the information again and again to himself as he walked off down the path. Giggles called after him "Oh um... goodbye!" she said, waving. Even to a figure as distant and cold as Lumpy, the chipmunk remained her kind self.

"Pine way... 3178..." Lumpy muttered, not having noticed Giggles' goodbye.

Giggles went back on her way to work getting even more worried for Flaky, between the scream and now Lumpy apperently seeking her out for reasons she didn't know but she knew they couldn't be pure.

Meanwhile, Lumpy found Flaky's house just as Cuddles was dragging her out of it. "NO! You can't make me go out! Not after yesterday!" the porcupine protested, grabbing onto the front door frame tightly, not wanting to let go.

Cuddles struggled to pull her away "Nnng! Flaky! Let go! Come on! Nothing serious can happen! We're immortal remember?" he said, grunting from the effort to pull his surprisingly strong friend away from her door.

Though even before it, there was little room for denial, at the word 'immortal' Lumpy couldn't deny the truth that they both knew it was no nightmare. He didn't know how they knew but they did.

"I don't care if we're immortal! I don't want to die!" Flaky screamed in protest, clawing at the ground as the rabbit dragged her along to who knows what. Lumpy thought, and he wondered who else knew this little 'secret'.

He decided to move on in search for any more. So he went searching for anyone else that's alive. Which still at least seemed to be most of the town and he needed to get through this study before that changed.

After a while of walking, he came across Sniffles who was much more chipper than he could have expected anyone, even one who thinks yesterday was a nightmare could be. Then again, nothing about Sniffles ever made sense.

He didn't bother trying to come up with too clever of lies since Sniffles is too stupid to tell the difference. "Why are you so perky?" Lumpy asked, coming over to him.

"Oh! I just had a spectacular dream last night!" Sniffles beamed certainly surprising and also scaring Lumpy as to how anyone could consider yesterday a good dream. "In it, my lab had caught on fire which was bad in itself but then a real life superhero named Splendid came in to save me! I mean, I still died but it was so cool!"

Lumpy immediately remembered the tape he saw from the comic book store and even though he hadn't seen that specific "rescue", he could tell that the experience was obviously real and that made him wonder how many other friends Splendid had saved. Actually, now that Sniffles brought up his name up, Lumpy realized why he looked so familiar. "You are a weird one, Sniffles. Splendid is just a reporter for the Daily Acorn."

"So that's where I've seen him before! He interviewed me a few times about my brilliant inventions!" Sniffles shrugged walking on. "Oh well, it was just a dream. I need to get to my lab now. Maybe I can invent something that gets another interview and then I can tell Splendid all about my dream!"

Lumpy was about to stop him. After all, if Sniffles talks to him about his "dream" and they realize that they had the same one they could figure out that it wasn't a dream at all, in fact, he figured that was probably how Cuddles and Flaky found out but he couldn't stop him as Sniffles had already ran off.

However, he could still stop him as Splendid's boss by making sure that he never interviews him again, at least, for as long as he can manage to pull the wool over everyone's eyes. He wasn't sure how long that will be but he was going to try for as long as possible.

Yes, that is exactly what he'd have to do. There was still the chance for him to come up on top and there was no way he was giving that up. He had far too much to lose if this failed.

Lumpy strode back to his trailer feeling very confident about his plan. He already fought his way to the top once and he will do it over and over again if that's what he has to do. After all, he knew almost everything there is to know about the curse and no one else but Cuddles and Flaky knew anything about it not even that it existed. That meant he had a head start and you can do a lot with a head start.

Having some more time before he actually had to get to work, he went back to watching the videos from yesterday to find more ways to blackmail the Tree Friends into submission.

A while into looking, Lumpy came across the video for the apartment building and was more distressed than he would have expected to be to find that two raccoons had bought an apartment yesterday.

He recognized the two raccoons as Lifty and Shifty; they had quit working for him a while ago so he took everything away from them. Since then, he had arrested them many times for pick-pocketing but they never did anything worse than that. This left the question as to how they were able to afford an apartment at all.

That wasn't what was worrying him. As long as they somehow turn up rent every month, he supposed he could let them stay there but the real problem is that if they wake up in an apartment that they didn't have before the "nightmare", there would be no way to doubt that the events of yesterday must have really happened.

He decided to pull out a pad of paper and record down everyone who might know that yesterday was real. First he recorded down himself, Cuddles, Flaky, Lifty and Shifty but found that there was more to the list. When Handy wakes up with no hands, he'd have to figure it out. Same thing applies for Splendid waking up with superpowers.

There was also anyone those on the list might tell but he hoped like hell that would be it.

This did complicate things a bit but he still knew he could do it. After all, he was by far the smartest friend in Happy Tree Town so he didn't need a head start to come up on top. He didn't have one when he came to power the first time.

No, he will blackmail every single friend in Happy Tree Town and keep his spot on top. If they thought he was a tyrant before, they ain't seen nothing yet.