Danny stumbled outside and found Allison waiting for him. Now that they were outside, he was really taken aback by her outfit- I promise we’ll get to it later, there’s plot development going on. She looked at him. He looked at her. One of them was going to have to talk, and Allison seemed increasingly likely to not be the one to do so. Danny eventually lost his cool. “What’s going on?” Allison looked at him and smiled. “Let’s get out of here.” Danny began sputtering words again. “Sorry, I’ll reiterate for the hard of hearing, what’s going on? Is this, like a drug thing? Are you selling me…substances? What the hell?” Allison laughed. “Nah, dude. It’s chill. I just…can’t explain here. That said, let’s get going.” She pointed two finger guns at the gravelly road that lead to the street outside the school. “Look, I’m going. By the way, Josh Nevcled is in the bathroom right now waiting to kick your ass. He should be realizing that you’re not in there right about now, and…” “WELL, HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS?” Allison shrugged. “I’d be happy to explain, if you’d get off your ass and follow me.” Danny blubbered incoherently, but before he knew it Allison had disappeared around the bend. Danny counted his losses and followed her.
“So,” Allison said, “we- the two of us- are not staying at school. And if you go back there is a good chance you’ll die.” Danny was looking at the back of her head, and the narrow gravelly path was too small for him to move around to her side. “So what’s going to kill me, huh? The Grim Reaper? An asteroid? Sociopolitical capitalism?” He threw in the last one to sound mature. It might scare her off, he hoped fruitlessly.
“Nothing so simple,” Allison replied. “There’s a robot after you. Six foot five. Made of metal. It’ll beat the crap out of you until you’re dead. And, believe me, I’m sure about this. I’ve relived this day…god, you don’t even know.” Danny kept muttering under his breath. “So, just to be clear, you are on drugs.” Allison turned around for the first time in their conversation, and actually, briefly looked upset. “No. I’m not. See, I’ll prove it to you. There’s a reason I took you down this path.” She pointed at a small, orange-brick house across the street from them. “A fat dude is gonna get kicked out of there in a few seconds. He’s going to say…” She paused, and waited until a morbidly obese man in a Charlie Brown shirt fell out of the doorway- “…You bastard! PIECE OF SHIT! I’ll kill you,” she said, completely synchronized with the ranting and raving man.
Danny tried and failed to hide his awe as the man ran down the sidewalk, screaming threats and profanities. “Okay…that’s not enough. I need more proof,” he said, trying to hide his amazement. That was a pretty crazy thing to predict though, he thought in spite of himself. “It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve said that,” Allison said, smirking. “Case in point, a chihuahua is about to hump your foot.”
Danny spinned around, and, in slow, vague horror, realized a small dog was approaching him rapidly, being walked by a slim, ratty woman with dangerously sharp cheekbones. He slowly tried to walk away, but the chihuahua was upon him, and soon his leg was being vigorously attacked by a small dog, who thrusted up and down upon his pant leg. The dog’s owner seemingly let the twisted affair happen for about two seconds, before pausing and shouting “Juan! Leave that poor young man’s leg alone!” Danny turned around to look at Allison in shock. He watched in awe as she mouthed “she’s about to give you twenty-three bucks,” and surely enough she did. “Hopefully this will serve as proper compensation for Juan’s…violation.” Danny’s jaw gaped as the woman walked away. “That…she…you…that’s just something chihuahuas do!”
Allison smirked. “Explain the twenty-three bucks then. If I had said twenty-five I suppose you would have had reason to be suspicious, that’s a more general number or whatever, but twenty-three…it’s so weirdly specific.” Danny sulked in embarrassment. “I get it. This is all a big undercover prank. That woman was your aunt or something, and the fat dude…I don’t know…you know something about his schedule, or…do you really expect me to believe you’re in a time loop, like that one Marlon Wayans movie?”
Allison paused. “Yes. For example, I know you’ve seen the Marlon Wayans film Naked– in which Marlon Wayans is trapped in a time loop that begins with him waking up in the nude in an elevator- around five times. You know how I know this? You told me. Sixty-two loops ago, to be exact. You’re weirdly obsessed with Marlon Wayans’ ass, man.” Danny was screaming internally. He had seen the Marlon Wayans feature film Naked five times, five times exactly. It was way better than most Netflix comedies. He found it genuinely inspiring, seeing as it was Wayan’s first film that wasn’t a direct collaboration with his brother Shawn- he was getting off track. Maybe Allison wasn’t shitting him…
“So…going back to that robot, now that you really can’t prove me wrong. Let’s chat about it, shall we? Let’s walk and talk.” Danny was getting really pissed off with all this robot business, but it occurred to him that he didn’t really have another option aside from following this crazy girl. “The robot…you know, the one that’s all hopped up on the idea of killing you- it shows up at 3:00 exactly. We…are going to purchase guns.” She pointed a finger gun at her head and mimed pulling a trigger, before falling limp on the floor. It was super realistic, and Danny was kind of jealous, but he comforted himself with the knowledge that she probably practiced it. “Guns…to kill the robot?” Allison nodded aggressively. “But really, the guns are just a plan B. Plan A is this guy.” Danny watched in abject horror as Allison took off her backpack and produced a grenade. It looked one hundred percent real.
“Holy shit,” he said, the words escaping his mouth quickly. “Where did you…get that?” Allison shrugged, and placed the grenade back into her backpack. “It’s pretty complicated, overall. There’s a set of trees in Joyce Forest…there’s sigils and arrows carved into a few of them…follow the arrows and you get to a manhole, and underneath the manhole is this huge maze of tunnels…” Danny blinked, completely perplexed. “You go through a few doors and creepy hallways…it’s all very Backrooms-y…and then there’s a room with a box inside. Here’s the catch- the contents of the box change between loops. Usually it’s really nerdy stuff- swords, laser guns…sometimes the swords are kinda effective, but this robot…completely bulletproof. But in this loop, the box had a grenade inside. This might be our chance to kill the son of a bitch. Not to gender it or anything. Daughter of a bastard. Whatever.”
Danny processed the information slowly and frightenedly. “Okay…so what’s your plan, exactly?” Allison flipped her hair dramatically. “We…are going to blow up a grocery store. Plant the grenade near the principal post of the building and just run. Shoot at it to slow it down, escape, watch our little friend get crushed by debris and whatnot, and we’re home free.” Danny slowly came to the uncomfortable realization that Allison was asking him to commit arson.
“You are asking me to commit arson,” he said matter-of-factly. Allison gave him a thumbs up, nodding. Danny genuinely wanted to run into the street. “And, I don’t mean to sound like an asshole or anything, but how do you know killing this thing will help you escape the loop?” Allison’s face scrunched up in…embarrassment? Laughter? What was it? “Quite simply, I don’t,” Allison stated. “But the thing is, there’s not a single loop where I’ve survived against this thing. Killing it to escape is probably our best bet.” Danny suddenly began to add up the factors of Allison’s plan in his head. “But…you’re…are we going to evacuate the store beforehand? Surely there’s, like a warehouse somewhere, or…” Allison paused. “Yeah, that’s the thing. The robot explodes when it gets near the old Downey building. You know the one.” Danny blinked. “It explodes?” Allison shrugged. “Yeppers. Just blows up. You know…as usual. Besides, there’s no path to the principal post in that warehouse.” Danny began sputtering once again. “But…you can’t just suggest that we kill all those people in the grocery store, right? That’s…it’s inhumane!” Allison’s face suddenly became dour.
“Look. This is the first chance I’ve got at actually escaping. Do you wanna know how long I’ve been in this loop for? Do you?” She paused, and Danny soon registered that she was crying slightly. Danny backed away. He waited a second, and then moved forwards, but Allison pushed him away.
“I don’t even remember my mother’s name, Danny. I can’t recall what sleep is like, because I haven’t lived to experience it. I can’t remember dinner. I can’t recall how it feels to get home from school. I can’t recall the names of half the people in the class! I’ve been here for thirty years, Danny! Do you know how jealous I am of you? How you don’t have to deal with the knowledge that life will never move forwards, how you’ll just be trapped in one place forever? I’m willing to sidestep some moral boundaries if it gets me out of here. Hell can’t be worse than this.”
Danny was, to put it one way, shook. He wasn’t completely convinced of the validity of Allison’s statements, but on the off chance they were true he didn’t want to anger her further. He waited, turned the plan over in his mind, and finally spoke up- “Look. This robot, it kills me first, right? And then you immediately after. So how about we just…just leave me outside the grocery store. I’ll be bait. The robot will show up…it’ll kill me…you drop the grenade, and we escape. It works, right?” Allison paused. She still looked like she’d been through it. “No, it doesn’t. First of all, I’d be really fucking guilty if you died on my watch. Second of all…I guess we have to talk about the hobo. I assume you’ve seen an old dude outside your house?”
Danny stopped dead in his tracks. The hobo…the one outside his window…was she…what? “What do you know about the hobo,” Danny growled, exasperated and completely ignoring how silly he sounded. “The hobo…he appears outside my house at the beginning of each loop, waiting for me. He asks me to protect you from the robot. He’s never brought up the loop, though. Now, Josh Nevcled, for whom you are public enemy number one, always beats him up. He beats him up before he can tell me anything. It’s really cliche. You get the gist. Now, I realized pretty fast that I needed to get information out of this guy once he got proven right the first time. I punched him myself, before Josh could arrive, and when he was down I asked him a few things. I told him about the loop, and his eyes widened like crazy. He said he couldn’t explain, but he told me about the manhole and the forest and whatnot. ‘I left you something there, something to help,’ that’s what he said.”
“Sorry, this guy knows about the hallway maze? Do you know literally anything else about him?”
“He said he couldn’t explain! It’s cliched! I told you! And I haven’t been able to get anything out of him since. And besides, the only other thing of interest about the whole hallway maze is the fact that the robot is down there. You open the box that has the weapons in it- it activates. You go further into the maze- it activates. Once that guy is finally dead, we should go down there and see what’s happening.”
Danny nodded, but was still perplexed by the sheer amount of information Allison was asking him to take in. He was brought out of his funk by Allison slapping him on the back of his head.
“Well, shall we? Let’s go buy some guns.”
***
“What time is it anyway?”
“Just after 2:00.”
Danny was scared.
Getting to Jim Joe’s Artillery and Weapons Shoppe was difficult and required several lengthy and likely dangerous bus trips, but Allison managed to quickly procure a fake ID once they arrived. Using her seventy dollars, she managed to get her and Danny the works- two pistols, and ten bullets. “We don’t want to seem suspicious,” Allison said when Danny asked her about the disappointing amount of ammo. “God,” Danny said as they approached the checkout, “this all feels so edgy.”
The man at the counter looked perfect for his job. He wore a big baseball cap that had a gun on it, and wore a plaid shirt covered up by a distasteful beige vest. “What do a bunch of kids want with all this?” Allison smiled confidently. “We’re going hunting for some particularly elusive prey.” The man rolled his eyes. “I suppose I can’t argue with that. Just don’t kill anybody.” Allison kept smirking. “I can’t make any promises…I say that jokingly, of course.” The man began chuckling. “I like your vibe, kid.” Allison did one of her extremely preprepared winks, and swept her new spoils into a crappy plastic bag.
“I went out for beers with that dude once,” she told Danny as they left the store.
“No way!”
“Can you prove me wrong?”
“Can you prove yourself right?”
“Damn, dude. You’re good.”
Danny realized that he was sort of starting to like Allison Carmicheal. He was consumed by an incomprehensible fear.
***
Danny and Allison stood outside the grocery store. Allison had placed the two guns inside her backpack, along with the grenade. Danny was getting increasingly worried about the danger of her keeping them there.
It was 2:58.
“I don’t think I’m ready,” Danny stated. He cringed when he heard the obvious terror in his voice.
“I’m not either,” Allison said, that vague smirk still on her lips.
“I just…I wanted to say something,” Danny blurted out. “My life…my life before today…I don’t want to sound insensitive, but it all felt the same too. I was able to…I could tell how things were gonna go. And…”
Allison looked at him expectantly.
“And, um…I just really hope you’re not lying, actually. Because god knows I need something to make my life more interesting.”
Allison laughed. “You’ll regret saying that soon enough. I can hardly remember anything about my life before the loop, but…I remember that everything kinda felt the same, too. How about this? After we get out of this…and we will, I promise you…let’s just go for a walk. You know Poe Park? I just want to stroll through there and know everything’s alright.”
Danny smiled. “I’ll meet you there.”
Allison’s face suddenly dropped. In the distance, Danny could hear a strange noise.
K-CHUNK. K-CHUNK. K-CHUNK.
It was exactly 3:00.