"Oh god.. is that what I think it is?" I whispered, staring down at the abyss.
Home had a smiling mouth under the floorboard, seemingly drooling as it noticed us staring at it. Home was definitely hungry.
"A mouth? Yes. I had no idea Home had one.. aw shucks, I'm getting sick staring at it." Wally said warily.
This was one of the missing pieces. Home had to eat somehow, and this was it. Whoever created the show had to include a guest room even if it wasn't seen on TV just so they could lure them in and feed Home. I shivered at the thought of my mother leading defenseless children into our home and into.. this. Wally sighed next to me and turned to face me.
"I'm guessing this is how he.. y'know." Wally muttered quietly, seeming uncomfortable.
I nodded and peered back over again, getting closer so I could take in every feature of the mouth. It was humongous. Home had sharp teeth, showing he has to be a carnivore. Creepy. I watched as he opened his mouth and a long tongue slithered out, licking his barely existent lips before shooting straight for us. I shrieked from terror and moved back swiftly just as Wally slammed the floorboard down to stop his tongue. Blood began to leak out from under the board, showing Wally had closed it off just in time. It was disgusting. I was hyperventilating when I choked on some bile that had made its way up and into my mouth. I quickly shoved it back down and cringed at the burning trail it left behind.
"Let's get out of here, it's not safe." Wally said, standing suddenly and taking my hand up with him.
I didn't respond, opting to let Wally lead us out of the room and back into the paint room. He shut the door and slumped down against it, burying his head into his palms. I slowly made my way back over to the wall, examine it and getting ready to add the final information to a few unanswered questions. I pulled out the notepad, chose a pink sparkly pen off of Wally's desk, and began writing what we discovered. I stopped midway and struggled to make sense of everything in my mind.
"God, I wish the detective was still around. He'd know how to direct me.. I'd know where to go from here." I muttered, finishing the bland note and pasting it into an empty space on the wall.
Wally began to laugh, it growing from a whisper to almost yelling. I turned around and stared at him with both eyebrows raised. Was Wally going crazy again? God, I hope not.
"Please! That oldie doesn't remember a thing he works on. If he did, he would've told you about m-" Wally cut himself off mid sentence, his laughter dying down and an unsettling silence began filling the room.
"Told me about what?" I said, facing him fully and dropping my hands to my sides.
Wally scoffed and a mischievous smirk rested on his lips.
"Why spoil it for you? You'll figure it out eventually, detective. Isn't that your job?" He said mockingly, removing his hands from his face and standing.
"Anddd, I do quite like watching you lose your mind in hysteria." He stalked over to me, moving one of my stray hairs back into its place.
I rolled my eyes and decided to brush off his creepiness for today, I've had far too many discoveries for one night and I do not want to deal with a psychotic puppet at the moment.
"Okay, so now that we have all of this information.. where do we go from here, Wally?" I asked, glancing back down at the notepad.
"Hm. Well, you did want to solve this case, right? If we found a way to expose everything about the show, you could get your silly little job back and not risk going to prison. Live your normal little life again." He hummed in delight.
"You're right! But- how would I do that? We'd need to expose the church and the experiments. There is just no way I can go back up there with my crazy mother home. If she found out.." I got lost in my thoughts, swallowing down the spit that had started to pool in the back of my mouth.
"She won't have time to react, my dear." He said, smiling down at me.
"How's that?" I scoffed, crossing my arms.
"Because, we'll broadcast it! Like on a radio.. or a television. Or maybe even a phone call, whatever you prefer." He said cheerfully, taking my hand in his.
I bit my lip and thought about his idea. It could work, but everything here hasn't been updated since the 70's. There is no way Wally had the technology to broadcast anything from here, I don't think anyone here would.
"I guess it could work, if this place had updated tech. There's no chance, Wally. We can't broadcast anything to multiple radios or televisions without a Wi-Fi connector of some sort." I sighed annoyingly.
"Yes, but fortunately for you, Sally happens to be a major tech theatre genius. She's bound to have something of use to us. With your brains and her.. theatre brains, we can surely figure something out!" Wally exclaimed brightly, flashing me an even wider smile.
A smile began to creep onto my lips at Wally's encouragement, this might just work out. If Sally has a few connectors, wires, copper and maybe some tech deck boards, I can muster up some crappy invention. Anything is possible here, right?
"Okay, let's do that. Do you think Sally would be up to it though? Based on how she ignored us, I don't think she'd take very kindly to us borrowing her tech.." I rambled on, starting to give myself a headache.
"She'll be fine, I assure you." Wally's smile began sinister for a few seconds but was quickly changed as he started again, "we'll go over there to her house and ask her tonight. We'll bring her a.. a pie! She used to love my apple pies. I'm sure she will agree to help if she gets something out of it." Wally said, laughing a bit.
I smiled in delight at the silly plan we had made up.
And who knows,
It might just work.
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