Unfinished Business

Conspiracy Theorists (The Quarrymen)

Because a dumbass friend of mine scared me to death with conspiracy theories yesterday:

21st century Quarrymen gang (plus Ringo, minus Paul) as bored teenagers with nothing better to do, researching the disappearance of one William Campbell, only to find out the lad never existed.

The 'official' story goes that William was reported missing around 2002, his picture shown amongst many others in a PSA, all of which were on notoriously bad quality. Upon research though, the lads find out that the bloke has been reported missing at different points of time, going back as far as the 60s, and the 80s, and 2011. People have claimed to see him, some say he was reported dead, or seen leaving the country, but no one knows who reported him missing. The numbers on the PSA don't lead to anywhere, no family of his has said anything or seems to even exist. It's a mistery these five idiots plan to figure out in one summer, which clearly doesn't happen.

They mostly just scare each others with the idea, and since they're british and the bloke is supposedly canadian they can't do much except look him up online and read up conspiracy threads and watch videos about him and sometimes tease each others about how the ghost of Billy Shears ((they take to call him that, jokingly)) will come to haunt them for digging on his story, especially to George and Ringo who are the more easily scared ones (John is straight up a dick about it, lemme just say. Pete is a skeptical who kindly requests to be left out of the madness but eventually just gets too curious to handle it. Stuart was the one who found out about the story first and proceeded to show it to all his friends through a group chat and created this madness).

They talk and discuss so many posibilities, it ends up becoming a meme of sorts. 'Billy Shears' is sort of the sixth Quarryman at this point, they joke about him and use him as a scapegoat and all that. George and Ringo are still lowkey scared but everyone else is just having their fun so, whatever.

And one day, a lad and his family move in to their neighbourhood. From Ontario, Canada, they meet James Paul McCartney. And are immediately scared out of their wits.

The lad looks *exactly* like William Campbell supposedly does. Needless to say they're all scared shitless, but some are more curious than others. John wants to be upfront and ask him about it, but Stuart convinces him not to. They all have different theories, none of them match all the way through.

Pete thinks it's all a huge coincidence, or a prank the bloke's friends in Canada did to him just to annoy him and it caught on on the internet. Stuart thinks it might be something worse, maybe the lad's really missing, maybe he was kidnapped by this family and they moved to England and made him use a fake name to cover up their tracks. John argues that William Campbell has disappeared many times throughout time, so he must be a time traveler escaping something else, something bigger, so he changes timelines and names often to avoid being found out. Ringo thinks William is something supernatural, maybe not a ghost but something else, that indeed has found out they were meddling with his story and has come to get revenge on them. Or maybe they summoned him. George is just sitting back, not finding an explanation, listening to their increasingly crackhead theories and avoiding the McCartney kid at all costs.

Tough luck tho, because the next week after moving in, Paul starts classes at the same school George does. Which he doesn't know about until he sees him around the halls in uniform, looking for his next class. Geo immediately reports to his friends, and they all ask him to spy on him but he can't bring himself to. The lad is older than him, takes different classes, and he can't just skip his own. John tries to tell him that school's not that important but Ringo quickly shuts him up.

They all see him around town, eventually. He goes to the Casbah Club (Pete's mum's business) once or twice, sees them play ((oh yes they're still a band in this. Ringo's with the Hurricanes but he's a supportive friend)) and, scarily enough, starts following them all around.

They see him very often but he never approaches them to talk, just stares at them. Pete the skeptical suggests it's because of the band. The rest are antsy but not fully insane just yet, so they accept the explanation but are still on edge for the possibility of something worse.

Paul McCartney officially talks one particular day of spring, after some gig they play in a church of all places. He speaks to John and compliments their playing, while they're all looking at him with slight worry, curiosity, fear, all sorts of intense stares that make the lad sort of shrink on himself. John notices and tells 'em all to take it down a notch, while still talking to the kid. He's enthusiastic about their music and, when asked, he can play guitar rather well (left-handedly, though), so John announces he's welcome to hang out with them when he pleases, to everybody else's concern.

When the lad finally leaves, they all ask John what the actual everloving fuck was he thinking, and he tells them that having him around is the easiest route to finding out what's up with him and the conspiracy, considering spying on him around town obviously has given them nothing.