Devil's Night: The Hunt for Laughing Jack

II: DANSE MACABRE (Pt. 3)

II: DANSE MACABRE (Pt. 3)

"But- But we took down all those hidden surveillance cameras and burned them in the fireplace!" Dark Link said incredulously.

"I helped!" BEN added.

Smirky sighed impatiently. "Correction: you found, and removed, the cameras he wanted you to find and remove. We bugged every room in this mansion, er... then doubled back and smashed the bathroom ones. Good times."

He snarled quietly as Smiley squeezed him around the middle; whispering nefarious mumblings about dissecting the imaginary teddy bear. The not-so-good doctor seemed to be enjoying his dream immensely.

"Oh, Mr. Tiddlywinks; I didn't know your intestines were like cotton candy! Hush, hush, I'm just snipping off an itty-witty bit for science... Mmhm! It is cotton candy!"

He licked his lips blissfully. Smirky would've bit him, but couldn't quite twist around to reach anyplace painful. Or not-so painful. Or anywhere at all, since he was stuck.

So he puffed his cheeks and exhaled loudly instead.

"The point I'm trying to make is, it's possible that his cameras recorded the entire struggle in Jack's room. He likes watching you do stupid things in your sleep." He paused thoughtfully. "So do I, for that matter. But that's not importan-"

Jeff gave a girly shriek. "He's been spying on us in our sleep!?"

He looked around the place with a newfound paranoia in his lidless eyes, covering himself with his hands like a lady in the shower.

BEN slowly span in a circle with wide eyes, waving at the ceiling. "Am I on camera right now? Quick! Smirky, is this angle getting my best side?"

Smirky's head tilted. He looked past the little elf, to where he knew the minuscule globe of a camera's lens would be, hidden behind the lush backdrop of a fake flower bouquet.

At the moment, the only thing it could capture was a perfect view of BEN's backside.

"... Something like that."

Delight shining in his starstruck eyeballs, BEN struck a truly ridiculous pose. And another. And another. Jeff went around him with a paparazzi camera, never one to pass up the opportunity for blackmail material.

Loathe to watch the blonde midget make an even bigger fool of himself, Smirky turned a cheek and pretended not to notice. The movement of his head invoked a reaction from Smiley – and a most undesirable one at that.

"No, no, no, Mr. Tiddlywinks! Don't cry. I'll cut your neck gentler next time, I promise. Shush, shush, you're losing so much blood..."

The not-so-good doctor soothingly stroked his brother's face, singing the tune of 'London Bridge is Falling Down' as sweet as a nightingale.

Looking unnervingly disturbed, Smirky's brilliant eyes crossed as they followed Smiley's hand. The moment it came in contact with his lips, his fierce bite was poised to activate like a spring-trap.

Unfortunately, fate decided that Smiley needed both hands for his inhumane acts of medical malpractice and intervened in the form of Dark Link, who distracted Smirky at the last moment.

"It won't work."

"What won't work? Your intellectual capabilities?" Smirky asked irritably, rather displeased at missing an opportunity to have his brother lose a couple of fingers.

The shade scratched the nape of his neck far too ferociously for a causal itch. He stopped short of drawing blood.  "Your master is our greatest enemy – he won't just let us look at his surveillance footage while cheerfully answering all our questions. He'll kill us on the spot!"