Chapter 304: An Unlucky Vacation (3)
Everly had never watched Gary vs. Claytor.
Come on—it was infamous for being a terrible movie. Who would waste their time watching something like that?
The only reason she even knew it existed was because one of those clickbait channels had included it in a “Worst Movies Ever Made” compilation.
Naturally, the video hadn’t gone into much detail about every film, so Everly’s memory of it was hazy. She only remembered that Gary and Claytor—two legendary cinematic serial killers—had hacked away at each other for the entire movie.
The outcome had been a draw. Neither killer came out on top, and both were left badly wounded. In the end, Gary sank to the bottom of a lake, entering a literal slumber, while Claytor returned to his ocarina and fell into a spiritual sleep, each waiting to be awakened once more.
The ending wasn’t surprising in the slightest. After all, both franchises had devoted fanbases. If one killer had decisively beaten the other, fans of the loser would have exploded in outrage, kicking off yet another vicious fandom war.
The strange part was the video circulating online.
In that footage, the two killers had actually fought to a conclusion.
Claytor, the pathetic loser, had run out of steam. Gary had ripped his heart out with his bare hands, leaving him crumpled on the ground, completely defeated.
Could this be another butterfly effect caused by something Everly had done?
Who knew?
Whatever. Just die already!
Leaving the deep-sea fishing area behind, Everly hurried back to the villa. Once she was sure there was no one else around, she immediately took out her phone and called Remia.
Putting everything else aside, dangerous entities like Gary and Claytor were definitely within SAI’s jurisdiction.
Sure enough, after hearing Everly’s brief account of her grudge with Gary and the video she’d found online, Remia immediately sensed the seriousness of the situation. She promised to report it to headquarters and have SAI investigators stationed near the video’s apparent location head over to investigate.
“And the guy who fought Gary,” Everly added, “I don’t think he’s an ordinary person either. His regenerative ability is way too strong. SAI should investigate him as well.”
She casually planted a little suspicion against Claytor.
“I understand. I’ll contact the Yonah State branch immediately,” the dependable investigator Remia replied without hesitation.
Not long after the call ended, Orff finished digging up some information of his own.
“The video was filmed at 65 Maple Avenue, Linhe District, Yonah City, at around 11:00 p.m. yesterday. I pulled surveillance footage from several nearby intersections. After killing the chainsaw guy, Gary left the alley and broke into a roadside newsstand, where he took some cash and a map of the United States. After leaving the newsstand, he ran into a group of young people walking home from a party. They were drunk and thought Gary was cosplaying. They kept complimenting how realistic his costume and props looked. Gary didn’t kill them. Instead, he asked them how to get to Veska City…”
As he spoke, Orff opened the young people’s social media pages and showed Everly the posts they’d made about the incident.
“What happened after that?”
“Then Gary passed by a gas station and conveniently stole a motorcycle whose owner had left the keys in the ignition. He rode it out of Yonah City. He took the state highway, and there aren’t any surveillance cameras along that route, so we don’t know where he went after that.”
Thanks to the viral slaughter video, news related to Gary had already begun circulating within Yonah City.
According to discussions on local forums, the day after the video was uploaded, a Yonah City resident recognized the location where the attack had supposedly taken place and called the police.
However, when officers arrived at the scene, they found no trace of blood whatsoever.
The only thing they recovered was an old, weathered ocarina lying on the ground.
Based on that, the police concluded that the so-called massacre video was nothing more than a special-effects production. Gary wasn’t a real serial killer after all.
As far as they knew, the only actual crime he had committed in Yonah City was stealing a motorcycle.
Unfortunately, compared to a stolen motorcycle, Yonah City had a far more serious case demanding the police’s attention: the string of mysterious university student deaths that had erupted over the past two weeks.
The investigators were already overwhelmed trying to solve those cases and simply didn’t have the manpower to chase after a motorcycle thief with something clearly wrong in his head.
As a result, even the police had no idea where Gary was now.
Losing track of Gary inevitably left Everly anxious. Still, she knew just how difficult it was to trace someone’s movements on highways with sparse surveillance coverage.
Especially since nearly a full day had already passed.
In that much time, no one could say which route Gary had taken or how far he had traveled. Orff was only one person—having him search city after city simply wasn’t realistic.
Hopefully SAI has some special means of tracking him down…
After getting a general picture of the situation, Everly sent everyone else off to bed while she stayed up through the night reinforcing the villa.
She had no intention of returning to the gas station.
Old John’s underground bunker was undeniably secure—a perfect place to shelter.
Unfortunately, Everly was currently spending her vacation at a seaside resort hundreds of kilometers away.
There were no direct flights from Gilosha to Micano. Flying meant first taking a plane to Sunken City, then driving over the mountains yourself.
Gary was intelligent and learned frighteningly fast. If he happened to figure out how to travel by plane and also ended up at Sunken City’s airport, where the two groups crossed paths…
Everly didn’t even want to imagine the disaster that would follow.
If they skipped flying altogether, the drive would take nearly two full days. The route wasn’t all flat terrain either; mountain ranges separated the two regions, and the roads were in terrible condition.
Spending that much time on the road would only multiply the chances of running into danger.
Rather than take that risk, it was far safer to stay put in the villa at Gilosha.
Gary was, after all, a “caveman” who knew next to nothing about modern technology.
The first two times he had encountered Everly had both been at the campground in Veska City. Because of that, he probably assumed she lived there and had simply made Veska his destination, completely unaware that the wealthy Everly had gone off on a seaside vacation.
In fact, only four people knew she was on holiday: Everly herself, Old John, Misha, and Orff.
No one else had any idea.
Looking on the bright side, maybe SAI would capture Gary and send him to meet his Maker before she ever had to lay eyes on him again.
Optimism aside, Everly had no intention of cutting corners on her preparations.
Thanks to the cautious habits she had cultivated over the years, the moment she purchased the villa she had hired a renovation company to upgrade it to the highest security standards. The renovations included, but were not limited to, anti-climb perimeter fencing, laser intrusion detection systems, blast-resistant walls, bulletproof windows, and a concealed panic room.
Then Old John moved in, and the villa’s security was raised to an even higher level.
The reason was simple: Old John suffered from a chronic case of insufficient firepower. During the three days before officially moving in, he had driven out every day to buy guns and ammunition, secretly stashing a sizable arsenal throughout the villa.
As a result, Everly’s remaining tasks were relatively straightforward: activate every security system, seal the doors and windows of unused rooms, move any furniture that might block her line of sight or hinder movement, and hide weapons and useful tools in every room, just in case.
She worked through the entire night.
By the early hours of the morning, a light rain had begun to fall outside. Everly yawned, looked around one last time, and, finding nothing she’d overlooked, climbed into bed.
When she woke up, it was already past noon.
The rain was still falling. Fat raindrops battered the windows with a steady patter-patter-patter, leaving broad sheets of water streaming down the glass.
Heading downstairs, Everly found the other three sitting together on the living room carpet.
Under Old John’s guidance, they were making punji stake traps.
The projector TV beside them was on, broadcasting the state news. Before Everly even reached the living room, she could hear the anchor’s clear, professional voice:
“…At 2:13 a.m. yesterday, a magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck Chaohu City in our state, with a focal depth of 10 kilometers. At 4:42 a.m., another earthquake measuring 4.2 occurred in the same area, with a focal depth of 9 kilometers…”
The information drifted naturally into her ears, and within moments her brain instinctively pieced it together.
Chaohu City is in the northwestern part of Yanifly State. It’s built around the vast inland lake known as Chaohu, surrounded by relatively flat terrain. It’s a small city supported mainly by fishing and tourism. The quakes weren’t particularly strong, and Chaohu is about two hundred kilometers from Gilosha. The earthquakes shouldn’t have any noticeable effect here…
“Hey, Everly, you’re up.” Hearing her footsteps, Misha looked up with a cheerful smile. “Lunch is on the table. We baked a seafood pizza. Orff made it using his grandmother’s secret recipe.”
Her train of thought interrupted, Everly acknowledged her with a hum and walked over to the dining table.
Sure enough, several slices of fragrant, piping-hot seafood pizza were waiting for her.
She carried her lunch into the living room and ate while watching the other three work on their traps.
Orff was all thumbs. Even something as simple as making spiked stakes gave him trouble.
Misha, on the other hand, handled the work with practiced ease.
She looked like someone born to do questionable things.
The television continued with the next report:
“Next, another news update. At 11:00 p.m. yesterday, Category 5 Hurricane Melly unexpectedly changed course and made landfall along the northwestern coast of our state. As a result, most areas of the state are expected to experience severe storms and heavy rainfall over the next three days, with serious flooding already reported in some regions…”
Another news report caught Everly’s attention.
Frowning, she walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Sure enough, the relentless downpour had already turned the hillside outside into a network of flowing streams, and pools of standing water had begun forming even across the beach.
Horror Movie Survival Rule #1: pay attention to the hints.
Chaohu City—the place hit by the earthquake—was located in the northwestern part of Yanifly State. The hurricane that had suddenly changed course had also made landfall there.
The two locations overlapped perfectly.
Could another horror movie scenario be unfolding?
But what kind of horror movie combined an earthquake with a hurricane?
That sounded more like a disaster film.
Or perhaps the disasters were simply there to trap the unlucky protagonists, making survival even more difficult…
After pondering it for a while, Everly came to a conclusion.
This summer is shaping up to be anything but peaceful.
Fortunately, Chaohu City was still some distance from Gilosha. Even if a horror movie scenario really did break out there, it shouldn’t affect this area.
The torrential rain was another matter.
Thankfully, the villa sat atop a small hill. Its elevated position meant that neither the rising tide nor the heavy rainfall was likely to flood it anytime soon.
Finishing the last few bites of her pizza, Everly figured there was nothing better to do. After watching the rain for a while, she returned to the living room, sat cross-legged on the carpet, and joined the others in making punji stake traps.
At around two in the afternoon, her phone rang.
It was Remia calling back.
She began with some good news.
“Thanks to your warning, the SAI branch in Yonah State took notice of that strange video.
“The investigators performed a forensic analysis and concluded that the footage was very likely genuine. They then coordinated with the local police and successfully obtained the ocarina that had been left behind at the scene.”
“The investigators examined it and discovered that a terrifying monster was residing inside the instrument. It had been gravely injured during its fight with Gary and had no choice but to retreat into the ocarina to recover.”
“We also looked into the ocarina’s origins and found that it was connected to a whole series of homicide cases in Yonah State…”
Like a storyteller spinning a tale, Remia proceeded to give Everly a detailed account of the ocarina’s history.
About ten days earlier, a group of university students in Yonah City had agreed to visit an abandoned house in the mountains to test their courage by investigating the supernatural.
During the outing, a girl named Dana accidentally discovered a hidden compartment carved with strange, unfamiliar symbols.
Inside it was the ocarina.
Out of curiosity, one of the students put it to their lips and blew into it.
A cold gust of wind swept through the house.
Their nightmare began that very moment.
After returning home, the students who had participated in the ghost-hunting excursion started dying one after another.
Every victim was found with their eyes wide open and an expression of utter terror, as though they had witnessed something unimaginably horrifying.
As of today, only the girl named Dana remained alive.
Even so, she could hardly be called fortunate.
After an accident, she had fallen into a deep coma.
The Yonah City police had nearly worked themselves bald trying to solve the string of mysterious deaths.
Not a single one of them had imagined that the culprit behind the murders was an ocarina possessed by a monster.
“The branch investigators have already sealed the ocarina away,” Remia said. “It’s far too dangerous to leave unsecured. Later, SAI headquarters will send a specialist to retrieve it and place it in proper containment.”
“Everly, thank you so much for giving us that lead. If you hadn’t warned us, who knows how much longer it would have taken those slow-witted branch investigators to realize something was wrong?” she added gratefully.