Purple And Yellow

Chapter 6

Owen was very quiet as they walked into work the next morning. Curt had tried to ask him why, but all he had gotten was that he was 'tired' or 'a little stressed'. And Owen was walking so quickly to their office that Curt was struggling to keep up with him without running.
"What's up with him?" Xander whispered as he walked past.
"I'm not too sure. He's been acting weird recently."

"Owen, would you slow down? I can't keep up when you walk that fast!"
There was no answer as Owen sat at his desk and got out his laptop. Then he sighed, "I'm sorry."
Curt sat at his desk on the other side of the room and looked at Owen. "You don't have to apologise. And, since I know it's completely useless, I won't ask again what you're stressing about, but I can tell it's something."
"Curt, just-"
"It's fine. You clearly don't wanna talk about it so I'll leave it."
"Thank you. Now, come over so we can have a look and see if the camera caught anything useful."
"Okay." After throwing his jacket over the back of his seat and putting his bag on the floor, he pushed off from his desk and wheeled the chair over so he was next to Owen and they were both looking at his laptop screen.
All they could see at first was the theme park as normal. It made Owen shudder, but, luckily, Curt was too focused to notice.
After skipping through some of the footage, they got to Saturday. In the morning, they saw a teenage girl walking in with a man who they assumed was her dad. The way she flipped off a security camera and looked disgusted by Blinky lead them to the assumption that she did not want to be there.
A few more hours passed and they watched a few other guests before they noticed that, as soon as one family left, the rollercoaster the girl and her dad were on broke down. They both started to climb down but, once they were at the bottom, they walked in opposite directions, the girl looking angry and the dad looking upset.
Before long, she had a rifle, he had a mallet and, as they had heard about happening in other cases, all the other park guests cheered as they tried to kill one another.
"My god," Owen said.
"Please don't tell me there's been another one."
"Can't see this ending any other way."
Bracing themselves, they kept on watching. Until they both dropped their weapons and left.
"Curt, zoom in and see if we can find out their names."
"Already on it," Curt said slowly as he clicked a few buttons. "Alice Woodward." He paused. "Why does that sound familiar?"
"Dad's name?"
"Bill Woodward."
"You're right. It does sound familiar."
"Oh god," Curt said quietly.
"What is it?"
Curt looked at Owen, terror in his eyes.
"Curt, what is it?"
"She- She killed him. During the whole singing alien debacle."
"So... She killed him once back then... Now they're both okay and she tries it again... And he retaliates by trying to do the same to her..."
"What the hell is going on here?"
"I want to know why all the bloody park guests were cheering!"
"Uhh." Curt watched the screen. "I don't think those are park guests..."
Owen watched as Curt rewinded the footage. He saw Blinky clap, making masks disintegrate from the guests' faces.
"Sniggles," Owen whispered.
"Shit."
"What the fuck are they up to?"
"Why are they trying to get people to kill people they're close to?"
"We'd better talk to Xander."
"M-hm."
Owen printed out a few screenshots taken from the video and pinned them to a board on the wall, then they went to Xander's office.

"None of them were real people?"
"Seemingly not," Curt said. "They were all sniggles."
"Well, that explains the park guests encouraging murder. But it doesn't explain why these two didn't kill each other. We've never had a case like this before where they both came out alive."
"How do we know there haven't been more?"
"Over the weekend, we were able to get into their security system. It shuts off the second the park closes, I expect to ensure nobody sees what you two did. And this all started at the first murder and this case is the first where both people have walked out alive.'
"Ah. I wonder why they're the first two to have been able to resist whatever Blinky is doing."
"That's what we've got to find out." Xander turned to Owen and clasped his hands together. "Owen, you're awfully quiet."
"It's just that Blinky reminds me of Wiggly. It's a little unnerving."
"Oh. Well, if you're saying he reminds you of Wiggly, it might be worth talking to Webby if you're up for it."
"Yeah. She might be able to help."
"All right. I'll get John and Wilbur to help you get set up."

A few minutes later, they were walking into a dimly lit room, slightly overwhelmed by the amount of information being thrown at them by Wilbur.
"So, you just have to speak into these microphones," he said, gesturing to them, "And make sure you speak loudly and clearly."
"Okay, thanks," Owen said, and they sat down.
"No problem," John said as they left.
"You nervous?" Curt asked.
"A little."
"It'll be okay. You still don't have to talk to him. And if you need to leave you can, okay?"
Owen nodded, "Let's do this." And he pressed the button.
"Hello?" Curt said apprehensively.
"Curt," she responded, her voice as soft and sweet as they remembered.
"Yeah."
"Can I assume that Owen is with you?"
"Hi," Owen said nervously.
"Hello."
Curt cleared his throat, "We actually wanted to ask you about something. Well, someone."
"Go on."
"Blinky-"
Webby groaned, "What's he done?"
"How do you know him?" Owen asked.
"He's my brother, just like Wiggly. I have five brothers. The other three are called Pokey, Tinky and Nibbly. And they're all a pain in my ass."
"Blinky's a bit of a pain in our arse too at the moment. A lot of people have died at his theme park. And we've just caught footage of him with sniggles."
"Yeah. All my brothers use the sniggles as minions."
"How do we stop him?" Curt asked.
"I wish I could help you more. But I know nothing of his plans. I've recently had to keep my focus to Tinky since he's just trapped a dead guy in a box."
"I- What?" Owen said, baffled.
"You don't wanna know. But, I'll try to find out what I can and let you know."
     "Thank you," Owen said.
     "I'll speak with you when I've got something. Goodbye."
"Bye," Curt and Owen said in unison.
"There are five of them?" Curt said, rolling his head back.
"We need to stop the bastard."
"Yep. Should we go tell John and Will we're done?"
"Yeah."
But, when they walked into the office, they instantly regretted it. Wilbur had a hand tangled in John's hair and the other one on his waist. John's hands cupped Wilbur's face and their lips were locked together.
Owen cleared his throat, much to the horror of the two, "Just came to tell you we're finished."
Wilbur looked at him, blushing, "O-Okay."
"Okay."
Curt and Owen walked out, staring at each other wide-eyed before walking back to their office in silence.
"Curt?" Owen said, sitting at his desk.
"Yeah?"
"Do we have anything else to get done today?"
"Well, yeah, there are other cases."
"Well, we only have fifteen minutes until lunch..."
"Are you suggesting what I think you are?"
"Well, one has to de-stress somehow." Owen smirked.
"I like where this is going."
"Lock the door."
"Good idea."