"So you're worried about a game that only has one known instruction manual and was being played by three people. Two of them are now dead and the third is stuck in the hospital with no access to anything related to the game."
"It's not just the game, it's the Farm, too," Betty said. "They've gotta be connected somehow."
"The Farm is nothing but a cult," Dakota said. "I've heard about them."
"Yes, thank you," Betty said. "We have to put a stop to all of this somehow."
"Okay, but we don't even know they're connected for sure," I said.
"The Farm showed up around the same time Ben and Dilton started playing G&G, Jughead said. "And Betty's Evelyn always seems to be around when someone has a seizure."
I sighed. "It could be a series of coincidences. The Farm hasn't left town, but after Dilton died, and Ben offed himself, no one else has played the game."
"Until today, when I played it with Ethel Muggs."
"And here I thought you were trying out something new with blue lipstick," I said with a laugh, watching Jughead scrub at his lips.
"Come on, Abigail, this is serious," Betty said.
"I'm not worried about the game," Hunter said. "You said people have been having seizures?"
"Yeah, a few," Jughead said. "Why?"
I looked at Hunter, trying to figure out where he was going with this. "Do you have those pictures of the jingle jangle lab?" I asked Jughead.
He shook his head. "I don't, but Veronica does. Veronica!" he waved her over from where she and Mantle were taking inventory. "Do you still have those pictures?"
"Of the jingle jangle lab? I gave them to my dad, but I still have copies," she said, looking around the table.
I ran a hand through my hair. "If Hiram knows, then he's already moved the lab. I need to see those pictures."
"You think they're changing the recipe?" Hunter asked.
"Or making something new," I replied.
"Great. We have a new drug in town and a Sheriff who won't be doing anything to stop it," Veronica said.
"We're not going to find anything tonight. Let's get home," Hunter said.
I followed the boys out, Veronica promising to get the photos. We rode back to Centerville in silence, the three of us lost in our own thoughts.
A few days later, Jughead woke me up earlier than necessary, calling my phone nonstop. "This had better be good," I growled.
"Abigail, everyone had a copy of the Gryphons and Gargoyles manual in their lockers the other day," Jughead said.
"Okay?" Maybe it's because I was still half asleep, but I didn't see what was so important.
"Ethel told me the copy she gave me was the only one, and while we were at Veronica's opening night, my dad went through my things and found it. He burned the only copy there was and now they're everywhere."
"You really believed that was the only copy? Sometimes I forget how gullible you can be, Jug," I said with a laugh. "But if this happened days ago, why are you calling me freaking out about it now?"
Jughead sighed in frustration. "The game is spreading like crazy, almost every single student at Riverdale High is playing Gryphons and Gargoyles. For every manual confiscated, two pop up in its place. Our parents are going insane trying to shut it down but it's spreading like an epidemic."
"All right, I get it," I said. "You're not playing it though, are you?" He didn't answer, which told me all I needed to know. "Damn it, Jones. Why?"
"For most of us, it's an escape from reality," he finally answered. "But I realized that the game holds all the answers. And the only way to get them is by playing the game. If I don't play, I don't ascend. And I have to ascend to meet the Gargoyle King."
I stared at the phone after he hung up, wondering how he'd gotten sucked in so fast. Just days before he'd been totally against anyone knowing about the game, and now here he was, trying to get further.
Sighing, I rolled out of bed, pulling up my text messages. Fangs and I had been in touch since that night at Pop's, and he'd been asking when I'd be back in Riverdale. "See you soon," I messaged him. Then I opened the text from Sweet Pea. "Can we talk?" I'd been putting off replying, not sure what to say.
"Who are you texting so early in the morning?" Dakota asked, coming to sit next to me.
"I still haven't replied to Sweet Pea."
Dakota gave me a sympathetic look. "Do you want to talk to him?"
I sighed, nodding. Honestly, I wanted to more than just talk to him, but after all this time and how I left things? I doubted that was ever happening again. "I do, but what if he feels the same as Cheryl and Toni? What if he just wants to say he hates me and he wasted all that time with me?"
"I promise you, that's not gonna happen," Dakota said.
"How would you know? You don't even know the guy."
"No, but I saw him last night. Abi, when we found you outside, Sweet Pea was looking at you like Hunter looks at me after–"
I shook my head, laughing. "Nope, stop there, I don't want to hear the rest of that sentence. I get your point. Now, get out of here, I need to pack."
"Wait, why are you packing?" Dakota asked, standing to follow me to the closet. "I thought you were just gonna talk, not move back in with the guy."
"Calm down, I'm not packing because of him," I said. "Remember that G&G game Jughead and Betty told us about? Well, Jughead's gotten himself mixed up in playing it, along with most of the town. I can't just stay here and let the game kill him."
Dakota watched me throw clothes into a bag before gently pushing me out the door. "You're never going to be able to find anything if you pack like that. Go tell Hunter to get our things ready too."
I knew arguing would be useless, so I made my way down the hall to the other bedroom, explaining everything to Hunter. "We're not letting you go alone," he said when I was done. "I know a place we can set up camp outside city limits."
I left the two to pack, making my way to the kitchen. They'd left just enough coffee for me, and I sat down to finally reply to Sweet Pea. "Yes. I'll be in Riverdale soon," hitting send before I could change my mind.
That afternoon we set everything up. More specifically, Hunter and Dakota set everything up. They wouldn't let me help, not wanting to risk me hurting my ribs again in any way. So, I took the opportunity to make some calls.
Betty was more than happy to fill me in on what she had learned. "Our parents are freaking out about this game. Mayor Lodge came by the school to talk to us about it. Abigail, she's so worried about it, she banned Gryphons and Gargoyles."
"Like that's actually going to do any good," I said. "Doesn't she realize that banning something only makes it more interesting?"
"You're totally right," Betty replied. "But what's even more interesting is the file I just got from Dr Curdle Jr. Back when our parents were our age, there was another suspicious death, maybe murder that took place at Riverdale High where the corpse had blue lips."
"Okay, so what? You think that person was playing G&G and your parents are afraid it's going to kill you too?"
I heard Betty take a breath through the phone before answering. "Per my mom's Farm testimony, I know she's played the game before. And I'm betting FP has too."
"Okay, we need to talk to them, get them to tell us what they know," I said. "You try to get through to Alice, I'll get what I can from FP."
An hour later, I was sitting on the couch across from FP. "Come on, this game's not going anywhere, so you may as well tell me what you know," I said. "Betty already told me about the guy that died when you guys were back in high school. The guy that died the same way Dilton Doiley died."
FP sighed. "You're not gonna let up, are you kid?" I shook my head at him. "We had an agreement to never talk about it again, but we never expected to have a reason to."
"FP, what happened?" I asked, pulling him out of his thoughts.
"Get comfortable, I have to go back to the beginning, before that night. It's not going to be a short tale." I leaned back against the couch, waiting for him to begin.
"Back in the day, I hated the fact that my dad was a Serpent. I wanted nothing to do with his way of life, Southside, nothing. So, I told everyone I lived on Elm Street, was a Bulldog. Some of the guys were trying to get me to streak. I didn't want to, tried using the cast on my arm as an excuse. But Fred Andrews convinced me."
That surprised me. "Wait, Fred Andrews convinced you to streak in front of the school? I'd have thought it would be the other way around, you convincing me Mr Andrews to do it."
FP nodded, smiling. "Not only that, but he'd done it the year before, he did it again with me. Of course, that landed the two of us in Saturday detention, along with Alice, Sierra, Hermione, and Penelope. I didn't find out until later they'd had a catfight in the girl's restroom. After a while we connected in the way people do when locked up together, and at some point someone started a game of Secrets and Sins. I knew Alice's secret, that I'd gotten her pregnant. She didn't want anyone to know, so I told her to share something else. I don't know what was going through her head, maybe she was pissed at me, but she told everyone my secrets. Told me I'd end up just like my dad. Hell, she wasn't half wrong. But I meant what I said back then, that I'd never hit my kid like he did. I'd wanted to be the first Jones to go to college, but my old man didn't like that idea."
"That's why it's so important to you that Jughead goes to college," I said softly. "You want him to do what you couldn't."
"I tried to do it, joining the Army after high school, but I ended up right back in Sunnyside Trailer Park, downing six packs. But uh, we ended up getting another few weeks of Saturday detention added on. One week, Hermione broke into Mrs Krabappel's desk where she kept all the things she confiscated, and that's where we found it. Gryphons and Gargoyles. I'd thought it was just an urban legend, about some kid that died of a heart attack playing the game over in Seaside. We ended up playing there on the classroom floor. Penelope was the Game Master, and we all picked characters. It didn't take long for us to be hooked, and when Penelope suggested taking the game off-board, we were in. She'd read about some quest in the manual and had already prepared for it. She'd hidden a stone somewhere in the school and we had to find it. I got paired with Hermione, and Alice with Fred. We didn't have much to go in the way of clues, just 'Let your love guide you.' We searched for a while, finally found it inside a vending machine of all places."
I continued listening to FP's tale as I got us both a glass of water from the kitchen. He wasn't lying, this was a long story, but I wasn't about to stop him.
"Even after we served our detention, we kept playing, sneaking into the school at night, raiding the costume department of the theater, acting out our quests and adventures in the real world, playing characters. One night, we ran into another group. Turned out Darryl Doiley had found a copy of the manual in the library. He'd started playing the game with Marty Mantle, Tom Keller, and Hiram Lodge. We joined forces, playing a bigger game. One day, we all had letters in our lockers, inviting us to an Ascension Party with a new challenge."
FP nodded, confirming it was the same ascension Ben Button and Ethel Muggs had referred to when talking to Jughead.
"Our challenge was to find the chalices somewhere in the school and flip a coin to determine which one we'd drink. Anyone who was successful would be level 3. It was too easy. Hiram had this new drug, Fizzle Rocks. We all took some, wanting to make the quest more exciting. I don't remember much of the night after that. I know I was hallucinating for a while, at least I think I was. At some point Marty found those damned chalices, said they were just sitting on a desk, completely empty. Later on, Alice said Principal Featherhead showed up at the school and she snuck out. A week later, the janitor found Featherhead's body in the closet under the stairs. We met up one last time, when Alice tried to accuse one of us of killing him. At some point, we even turned it around, accusing her. In the end, we decided to destroy the manuals, hide the pieces, and never speak of it again."
We sat in silence while I processed everything FP had just told me. "I should get going," I said a few minutes later.
"Are you going back to Centerville tonight?" FP asked, standing as well.
I shook my head. "No, when I left the boys were putting the finishing touches on our camp. Hunter found us a place just outside of town. Don't worry, we already scouted the area, no Ghoulies around." I left the trailer, starting to walk back the way I'd come in.
"You don't want to go that way," Fangs said, stepping in front of me. I looked up, seeing Sweet Pea just behind him.
"Why not?"
"Cheryl and Toni are that way, so unless you really want to see them again..." Fangs trailed off.
"I'm good, the other night was enough," I said. "So does that mean I should pick another direction and just start walking until I'm out of here?"
"We can show you another way, Fangs said. "Or you can stay and hang out with us for a while."
"Tempting, but I should get back," I replied. "I'll be around more though, we've moved closer for now."
Fangs and Sweet Pea took their places on either side of me, leading me between tents. "You're not staying where you used to, are you?" Sweet Pea asked, not quite meeting my eye.
"No, we have a camp set up," I replied. "Close enough to be here, but also just out of Minetta's reach. Not much different from what you have going on here."
"You're coming back, right?" Fangs asked as we reached the end of the Serpent camp. "You said you'd answer my questions."
"You've already asked tons of questions and I said I'd answer some of them. Not all of them," I said before turning to Sweet Pea. "We'll talk soon," I told him. He gave a small nod in return, his expression unreadable in the shadows.
Hunter and Dakota were sitting by the small fire when I got back. "You were gone a long time," Hunter said. "Does that mean you talked to him?"
"FP played the game when he was in high school. He told me about how he and some of the others found it, became obsessed with playing. And the last night they played was the night that guy died," I answered. "I think this G&G game is going to be a bigger problem than we thought. I just need some time to think. I'll see you guys in the morning."
"Abi, wait," Dakota called, following me to my tent. "You know that's not what we were asking."
I sighed. "I know. I talked to Fangs and Sweet Pea for a few minutes, and I told him we'd talk for real sometime soon."
"The truth," Dakota said. "You may have spent all summer trying to convince yourself that it's over between the two of you, but you're still in love with him. Why else would you still be wearing that necklace he gave you?"