Tally House

15: "Labyrinth"

   andrew dressed as santa, because most likely when this is published it's late november or early december. or anywhere after thanksgiving. thanksgiving is over which basically means it's christmas time now. prepare.

   also, this is the chapter that I didn't wanna publish. this means that it's very intense. this was probably the most intense chapter that I've written so far and I beat my record for the longest word count in a single chapter of 8481. obviously, this chapter isn't 8481 words and way beyond that.

TW: strangling/choking, fighting, punching, nose bleeds (no death, ofc)

~

  Simon sat in his chair, reading the [UNDISCLOSED LOCATION] newspaper. He took sips from his coffee as he read. Totally wasn't planning to stalk the tallies again by looking through the newspaper! Nope... That's when his eyes glanced over the recent baking contest winners. In 2nd place were Ross Federman & Andrew Horowitz. Simon smiled.

   "Oh! See they're back in town," Simon said as he set down his coffee. "It's my chance to shine."

   He ripped the section about the baking contest out of the newspaper and taped it on his wall. Besides it, there were maybe hundreds of notes about the band and pictures of them Simon had taken or pulled from somewhere. He grinned at the "little" collection he had. Actually, collection was an understatement. Horde was the right word.

   "Oh, tallies...I'll come back. I don't always do, but I will. Eventually..."

   Simon's laugh echoed through his office as if it were a cave. He had that weird but also scary villain laugh, also with him laughing for too long. After he coughed and straightened his tie. He was...plotting his revenge for the tallies. Many ideas were in his head, but he had one sticking out from all the other ones. It was an idea with fire. MUCH fire.

   To the tallies, they all sat on the floor, watching a horror movie from Joe's laptop. The hotel room was dark. The only light was from the screen and the moonlight from the windows. Everyone was horrified or almost about to scream. Ross was a mix of both. He knew there was gonna be a jumpscare any minute now so he tried to prepare himself by setting the bowl of popcorn down beside him so he wouldn't spill it.

   Joe was different from everyone else (quirky haha). Since his second emo phase, he got used to horror so he didn't flinch at the jumpscares. Soon as the jumpscare popped up everyone either screamed or flinched so hard. Joe didn't at all. Ross, of course, ended up knocking over the popcorn bowl anyways. He awkwardly tried to scoop it back up into the bowl quickly.

   "Ew man! Don't put it back, it's already been on the floor." Zubin said as he saw Ross scooping the popcorn back into the bowl.

   "5-second rule." Ross replied.

   "That's just a lie made up by gross people so normal & clean people like us can accept them."

   "Zubes. Leave him alone." Joe said. "I don't blame him for being him, but he can't blame you for hating it."

   Rob heavily sighed and paused the movie. "Stop quoting Fall Out Boy! You know what- that's it!" He looked around everywhere in all the drawers of the nightstands. He huffed when he finally found what he was looking for. It was duct tape.

   Joe's eyes widened. He had already got his mouth taped this year! HE DIDN'T NEED TO DO IT AGAIN. He started to run into the bathroom, screaming as Ross did that one time. But it was too late... Rob had jumped on him and started taping him.