Starlight

XXXVIII: Show Stoppin' Number

A show stoppin' number is something you die for!

- "Show Stoppin' Number", The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals

xx.xx

"You stay in the car. I'll go ahead, make sure it's safe."

Emma ducked out of the cop car and scampered across the road to the intercom as quickly as possible. McNamara's gun in hand, she pressed the button, tapping her foot as she waited for it to click on.

"Come on, Professor," she whispered to herself. The sun had long since sunk over the horizon - she had been gone for much longer than 20 minutes, after all. That tends to happen when your rescue mission gets circumvented by the military, but at least they had a way out of Hatchetfield now. The end was in sight. She just had to grab Hidgens and Robbie - and Ted, if she had to - and get them out of here.

Finally, a mechanical voice came from the speaker: "Who's there?"

Emma scrunched up her face with confusion. "It's me, Emma. Is that Ted?"

"Yeah - is Paul okay? Bill? Alice?"

She ignored his question: "Ted, why did you answer? Is the Professor down in the lab?"

"Yeah," Ted replied, and although the sound quality was more than a little fuzzy, Emma heard emotion in his voice. Was he upset? Afraid? "But he'll be here real soon."

And then, somewhere in the distant background, Emma thought she could hear singing.

"What's going on in there, Ted?" She rattled the gate with her hand, turning her head around to look back at the car. Wait here, she mouthed.

"I'll open the gates," Ted's voice crackled. "Just - just get over here quickly, okay?"

The metal bars finally swung open, and Emma ducked through, barreling down the gravel path, her grip on the gun tightening.

The gravel was disturbed in spots, scraped clear to reveal hard, dusty earth underneath. Emma hopped over a shovel and a pile of dirt - it was only once she'd run past it that she realized it hadn't been there when she left. Something had been dug up; something had been buried.

And what was that smell? What was that plume of black smoke disappearing from round the back of the house? Had something been burning?

She put her ear to the door. She could hear it more clearly now: singing. Two voices, singing. One was far louder than the other - rich, tuneful, a male voice.

She slammed against the door with her fist, hammering and hollering to be let inside. "Ted, it's me, let me in!"

The door swung open and Emma burst through, shoving Ted from her path, gun raised and ready to shoot.

Hidgens noticed the weapon before his partner did, skidding to a halt from some kind of dance move - Robbie, on the other hand, trailed off, finishing the line she'd been singing... Something about it being five o clock.

Oh God, she really is a bad singer, Emma thought, as she went to pull the trigger.

Wait a second...

A bad singer?

~~~
A few hours earlier...