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madscientistjournal · 5 years

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Fiction: Excerpts From the Audio Notes

An essay by Jim Dennath, P. (Eldritch) E., as provided by Jonathan Ficke Art by Leigh Legler

Day 1

Finally, a place where my desire to dream beyond the bounds of what a rational engineer may dream, to build that which ought never be built, to be the mad engineer that breaks down barriers, and possibly ends the world–Fimbulvetr Industries. I confess that I saw their job posting and sent my résumé to them on a lark–who would have thought that the premiere apocalyptic science and engineering conglomerate would want me? But they did, so here I am walking the austere gunmetal hallways, seeing the laboratories where the cutting edge of apocalyptic science is conducted. And everything is so clean! It’s the platonic form of Nordic design. I couldn’t imagine a better place to undergo hours of trite human resources onboarding nonsense.

At least they have a slogan: Building a Better End of Days, Today.

It’s perfect.

Fimbulvetr is not screwing around. I’ve been here a day and have access to the development lab of my dreams. Good devils below, there’s an entire team of assistants at my beck and call. The job is simple–as simple as engineering a possibly world-ending device is concerned that is–build a device to create a stable planar gateway to the nether realm to allow the creatures of the dark beyond access to the mortal plane of existence.

Should be fun!

Turns out the ancient Assyrians were super into the nether realm. The Fimbulvetr archives have hundreds of original clay tablets recovered (read: stolen or plundered) from archaeological sites across the Levant. As it so happens, however, I cannot read cuneiform.

Good news, though! Ivan, a twitchy Russian ex-pat with an eyepatch, has been the most useful in that regard. He tells me he studied and taught ancient languages at a university in Kiev, stumbled on something he’s only muttered about as “the impossible realities,” and they fired him for gibbering too much during lectures. Their loss is my gain.

There’s also a linguist to help interpret the texts, Bernice, an Alabaman with absolutely the sweetest accent and the keenest eye for the dark logic employed by the forces of darkness. Who would have imagined that demons employed passive aggressive language? When I expressed my disbelief, Bernice said “bless your heart,” and told me it makes her feel right at home. What a lovely person.

With Ivan and Bernice’s help, the task came into focus. We have a great deal of work ahead of us.

There’s also Jeffrey. He doesn’t talk much, and near as I can tell, he’s mainly here to pick up heavy things at my direction. He does so at a languid pace. He must be hourly.

Day 3

This was prototyping day. Based on Ivan’s translations, and Bernice’s helpful interpretation of archaic Assyrian linguistics, we needed both a lot of eldritch energy and a focusing medium to stretch the planar gate across.

First thing first, we measure eldritch energy in crowleys, like proper modern folk who are concerned with repeatable design. Ancient Assyrians? No such luck. They simply killed an absolutely mind-boggling number of people until they got what they wanted. I’m honestly a little impressed by their can-do attitude. It worked for them, so what grounds do I have to criticize? I can, however, complain that it makes their cuneiform tablets as hard to use as blueprints in a modern workshop.

Anyway, since we don’t know exactly how many crowleys we need, I’m ball parking the sum at: a lot of crowleys.

Also, we need something to channel the crowleys into a cascading web of interconnecting focus points–essentially a matrix of dark energy that can fray the boundary between our world and the eldritch void we seek to contact. The ancient Assyrians came up with an answer for this too. That answer is femurs. We need a lot of femurs.

If we need a lot of femurs, then we’re going to need a lot of volunteers. After all, each one can only contribute two femurs, and we’re going to need twenty-three femurs. That means approximately twelve volunteers, assuming our pool of volunteers does not include too many above-the-knee amputees or people with low bone density. This might be tricky.

Day 4

Not that tricky! You know what was tricky? Getting Jeffrey to gather all of the human thighs and separate the meat from the bones. It was a simple request, Jeffrey!

But, I digress. Did you know there’s a group of people on the internet who call themselves “thigh enthusiasts?” Naturally, I gravitated toward this group of people, as I figured that anyone so enthusiastic about thighs would likely have high quality femurs.

This was not, in fact, the case. The yield of quality femurs from a single thigh enthusiast, which one could reasonably assume be close to, if not precisely, two femurs, is actually much closer to 1.1 per enthusiast. Most are men in their thirties; how is their bone structure and density so bad? What comprises their diet that they have the bone density of an elderly person with a severe calcium deficiency? This is, of course, not the question I’ve been hired to solve. It must remain a mystery for another day.

What we lacked in quality, we were able to make up for in quantity. Thigh enthusiasts are an easily baited group. Promise an internet message board an abundance of thighs, and like ten grand each, and boom, even with the comically low femur yield, I’ve got all the femurs an engineer could possibly desire. Really, it’s almost a problem. I’ve practically got too many femurs. Jeffrey certainly thinks we have too many femurs, but that is a Jeffrey problem.

So, with a massive stockpile of femurs at our disposal, it’s time to begin constructing a web of twenty-three femurs arranged in a circle with a radius precisely calibrated to focus crowleys!

Day 6

Well, I’ve summoned a demon. More on this later. At least I won’t have to worry about Jeffrey slacking anymore. More on this later as well.

I rate this experience as a qualified success.

Day 7

Good news! We’ve sealed the demon in my original development lab. Fimbulvetr has given me a new workshop. It’s buried farther underground.

The boys upstairs have also given me a squad of armed guards at all times. Hans Jürgen leads the team of barrel-chested men with assault rifles and bandoliers of grenades. Seems a touch of overkill, but it wouldn’t do to have a demon ruthlessly dismember a useful member of the team.

(Oh … right, Jeffrey was–literally–pulled limb from limb by a seven-armed reptilian beast with eleven mouths and three wings. As it happens, and this would be a subject better suited for a mad evolutionary biologist, demons have very strange anatomy.)

In any case, we have a very solid prototype planar gateway generator in existence. No idea how to control it. No way to manage what passes through. No clue what’s on the other side, and the boys upstairs tell me it’s not nearly big enough.

On account of me not being dead, I am willing to increase my assessment of this situation from qualified success to moderate success.

Add in Jeffrey’s demise and we might be flirting with major success territory.

Day 5

Yes, out of chronological order, but I was far too busy fleeing a rampaging hell beast to take proper notes on the actual Day 5. So let’s all be aware that it was recorded on Day 7, but ought to slot in at Day 5. Deal? Deal.

So, get this, turns out virgins, not super effective conduits of eldritch power. I know, really came out of left field to me too. It’s all you ever read about: virgin sacrifice this, the world’s running out of eligible virgins that. Guess what, virgins, you’re not that special!

Turns out, the sanguineous humors of debauched people–now that’s the blood you want to charge a planar gate. So we threw an orgy. Well, we advertised an orgy, lit some candles, provided massage oils and a room full of impractically sized pillows, and once we had a room full of good old-fashioned debauchery underway, that’s when we threw a massacre. It was all very efficient.

I was able to capture thirteen crowleys of spiritual energy in the blood agony harvester (which we constructed mostly from tibias and fibulas, the ancient Assyrians–a very efficient people when it came to human sacrifice–were big on using every part of the sacrificial victim, particularly leg bones). Granted, we’re still getting a handle on precisely how many crowleys of energy will be necessary to sustain a transplanar crossing, but I figured what we had was a good first effort.

Naturally, excited as I was from that success, I couldn’t help but turn to my assembled femur matrix and plug in all that sweet human suffering. It worked, and after experiencing the fabric of realty shred before my eyes, and hearing the distilled shriek of millions of disembodied souls, a demon ripped through the planar gate and started absolutely taking Jeffrey to town.

I ran, sealed the door, and changed my drawers.

Day 14

Good thing I had all those femurs, because the boys upstairs want a lot of transplanar gates constructed. Without Jeffrey (typical Jeffrey, even in death he’s slacking off), it took more than a week to build a whole bunch of gates in reinforced containment cells. That way, when the demons rip through, we’ve got ’em right where we want ’em. Locked up nice and tight until we can figure out how best to unleash them on an unsuspecting world.

So here we are, two weeks into the job (they’re paying me in arrears, which means I don’t get paid until the second pay period is complete, truly barbaric; hopefully my benefits are already accruing. I don’t want to miss out on any compound interest.), and I have twenty-three individually contained planar gates made from five-hundred-twenty-nine femurs. I wonder if I hunted thigh enthusiasts onto the endangered species list? Each planar gate sits in a specially constructed holding cell built of concrete and steel.

The holding cells themselves are all on a central corridor buried deep underground. At the end of the corridor is the control room, where I work. From there, I have the ability to route crowleys into the planar gates, as well as control each individual cell door.

Behind the control room, a twenty-three-foot diameter vault door that is twenty-three-feet-thick seals the whole operation off from the access shaft that leads to the rest of Fimbulvetr headquarters.

We are so ready to summon some demons.

Or, we would be ready to summon some demons, if we had enough crowleys. This is going to take a lot of massage oil.

Day 20

It’s been a tiring but productive six days. I like to think we’ve done the ancient Assyrians proud. Good thing we got a bulk rate on massage oil.

The blood agony harvesters are practically humming with energy, and the boys upstairs have quintupled my detail of armed guards.

A few keep very close eyes on me, and with the exception of Hans Jürgen, they communicate exclusively by way of hand signals, and are frequently checking their weapons and ammunition. It’s as if they assume that at any moment a demon might leap into this world. I asked Hans Jürgen about the increase in guards, and he says that they’re here to prevent anyone from being Jeffried.

Jeffried. His laziness has been immortalized by becoming a verb in the Fimbulvetr lexicon. Where’s the justice in that?

But let’s not let Jeffrey’s perpetual incompetence interfere with our objective. In the morning, we get to channel distilled human suffering into a series of arrays constructed from human long bones. What could possibly go wrong?

Day 21

A lot can go wrong.

Holy shit, a lot can go wrong.

I threw the switch and opened the crowley reservoir. The hair on the back of my arms stood on end as the cables that ran from reservoir to the holding cells and attached to the transplanar gates inside writhed like live serpents with the energy.

As had been the case with the first rift, reality shifted in front of my eyes, and an otherworldly howl threatened to burst my eardrums. The screams faded, but then a series of sounds like the piercing chime of twenty-three bells rang through the corridor, and I heard it even in the control room. A tiny red light blinked on the control panel indicating lock failure on each door.

Hans Jürgen flashed hand signs to his men and everyone spread out, rifles at their shoulders, covering the cell doors. It didn’t matter. Moments later, the cell doors ripped open and twenty-three demons tore out of confinement into the corridor.

Ivan and Bernice had volunteered to check each containment cell, so they were in the hallway and were the first to die.

The snare drum report of automatic weapon fire filled the air, grenades provided a tympanic percussion beneath the gunfire, but none of it mattered.

Everyone got Jeffried.

Everyone but me. I’m sitting in the control room behind a pane of glass staring into the nearly countless eyes of twenty-three demons and hoping they don’t realize that the control room door doesn’t actually have a lock on it.

Oh, shit.

[Inarticulate screaming]

Jim Denath, P. (Eldritch) E., holds the distinction of being the only youth scout to be dismissed from the national organization for designing an autonomous drone that hunted down and cooked ants with a magnifying glass. He parlayed that (minor) infamy into a scholarship to attend the Polytechnic Institute of Apocalyptic Studies, and subsequently a position at Fimbulvtr Industries, where he is now the only person with a professional engineering license currently being used as the torture plaything of twenty-three demonic fellbeasts.

Jonathan Ficke lives outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with his beautiful wife. He graduated from Marquette University with a degree in public relations, which (in a manner of speaking) is another form of speculative storytelling, His work appears in Mad Scientist Journal Spring 2018, Writers of the Future: Vol. 34, and Tales of Ruma. He muses online at jonficke.com and on twitter @jonficke.

Leigh’s professional title is “illustrator,” but that’s just a nice word for “monster-maker,” in this case. More information about them can be found at http://leighlegler.carbonmade.com/.

Fiction: Excerpts From the Audio Notes was originally published on Mad Scientist Journal

#Demonology #Jonathan Ficke #Leigh Legler #Science Fiction #Xenobiology

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smilesthroughfandoms · 7 years

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It Runs in the Family AU (Bendy and the Ink Machine fanfiction).

So I’ve been working on a prolouge for a fanfiction I came up with. I’m about halfway through the majority but I want to see if it’s something people are interested in. It’s apart of an AU entitled “It Runs in the Family” and while I haven’t got all the details hammered out, if you have questions’s just message me.

Henry Irwin Ross was born an only child to a school teacher and a journalist in Queens, New York in good old USA. Though times were tough and his parents couldn’t afford much, they tried to give little Henry all they could. His mother gave him her old wooden arc she used to play with, and his dad sweet-talked some of his co-workers into giving him their children’s old toys, ones they never played with anymore.

Henry’s mother made all his clothing from scratch, which was especially trying since he often ended up soiling them—as an infant often does.

Henry’s father worked as many hours as he could so he could provide for his family. When the food budget started to get tight, he went into their backyard and planted a big garden to grow most of their food. The neighbors even gave them some of the chickens they raised (Mr. and Mrs. Ross were grateful for the gesture, but seeing how the chickens they received were the ones Henry often chased around the yard, it was a bit of a hollow gesture).

When Henry turned five, Mr. Ross brought home a pad of paper and a few pencils. “Kid needs somethin’ else to draw on besides the walls and ya apron.” He told his wife.

The next day Henry proudly showed his parents what he had used the pad of paper for. Flipped through individually, the drawings weren’t to special. However, if one flipped through quickly, it looked as though the pictures were moving.

The next week, Mrs. Ross brought home a book entitled The History of Animation and Henry couldn’t get enough of it. He asked his parents to read it to him every night and his mother caught him doodling more “moving pictures” when he was supposed to be practicing his spelling.

The Ross’s were just happy that their son was happy (the fact they didn’t have to wash the doodles off the walls twice a week was just icing on the cake).

Henry wasn’t that old when his father lost his job. A lot of people lost their job. Henry noticed though that, despite a lot of people being out of work, no one seemed to be getting a new one. He assumed they were trying because he knew his dad was trying. No one seemed to get a new job though.

The radio seemed to spout the word’s “bad economy” and “depression” on an hourly basis. He always asked his mother to change the station to Junior G-Men but she would always shush him. Henry didn’t know what “depression” meant, but he assumed it was something bad by the way his mother always wrung her hands whenever she listened to the radio.

When he wasn’t in school or helping around the house, Henry would always go to the park and play with the other neighborhood boys. They would go down by the ponds in search of treasure, they’d play kick the can or baseball with a worn ball and a long wooden pole, or they’d bike to Coney Island to see the freak-show (the latter often got them in trouble).

Henry was about ten when a new kid came to town. His name was Joey Drew and his mom was the new cleaning lady for the Van Burin family. He was tall and lanky and his eyes reminded Henry of the grass in the park. He often walked with crutches due to his bad foot, which seemed to twist all the way around. The older kids teased him about it, but Joey Drew would just punch them in the nose so they stopped doing that.

Joey Drew seemed the type to keep to himself. He never talked to anyone or sat with any kid at lunch. Henry would see him in the halls every day with a pad of paper and a small pencil, he’d be scribbling something and then look up at Henry. The two boys would stare at each other for one second and then go about their business.

Until one day, Henry got in trouble for getting into a fist fight with Charlie Harmon’s. He was forced to stay after school for one hour while Charlie got sent home early with a broken nose. Henry knew he shouldn’t feel proud, but Charlie deserved it for calling him dilweed.

To his surprise, Joey Drew was forced to stay after too. Henry didn’t ask why, but knew a good portion of the older boys feared him, so thought better to ask.

Fifteen minutes in, and Mr. Jacobson (Joey and Henry’ teacher) said he was going to go inform Henry’s mother of what had happened. Henry groaned and slammed his head onto the desk as the teacher left.

“Your ma works here?”

Henry glanced up to see Joey Drew glancing at him, brow raised.

“Yeah… she teaches the older kids.”

“How much older?”

“Um, I think the next grade up.”

“Oh.” There was a very stiff silence until Joey asked, “What’s it like having a parent for a teacher?”

Henry shrugged “Ok, I guess. But she’s always breathing down the back of my neck to finish my math homework.”

Joey smiled a bit. “I know the feeling. My ma is always sayin’ that I need to ‘buckle down and be serious’.” The boys laughed at Joey’s high-pitched voice, an obvious attempt to impersonate his mother’s shrill voice.

“I’m Henry Ross,” He finally introduced himself.

“Joey Drew,” The boys shook hands.

“Where ya from, Joey?”

“Detroit.”

“Where’s that?”

“Michigan.”

“Where’s that?’ Joey rolled his eyes but laughed. The boy got out of his seat and gestured for Henry to follow him to the front of the room where Mr. Jacobson kept a globe on his desk. After spinning it a bit, Joey pointed to a state shaped like a mitten and said “There.”

Henry stared in awe for a second before asking, “What’s it like there, in Michigan?”

Joey shrugged. “Ok I guess. There are a lot of lakes there, so ya can go swimmin’ a lot during the summer, and the leaves change color during the fall. The winters can be bad though. Like when I was seven, the snow was up to here on me,” Joey held a hand up to his nose before continuing, “and nobody could leave their house for three whole days!”

Henry was no stranger to snow, but the city often made sure to keep most of it off the road, so he found it hard to imagine such an amount accumulating all at once.

The rest of detention, the boys sat next to each other silently conversing on where they grew up, movies they had seen, and games they had played. After detention, despite her anger, Henry’s mother agreed to give Joey a ride home.

The two had been friends ever since.

It was the following summer that Henry first saw Bendy.

Joey was spending the weekend at Henry’s. The two had spent most of the day doing chores and chasing chickens with Joey’s crutches. Before dinner, the two had started doodling and that’s when Henry noticed his friend’s drawing.

“What’s that?”

Joey glanced at his drawing, then Henry, then glanced away bashfully. “It’s just um…” The rest was mumbled quietly so Henry couldn’t hear.

“It’s just what?” Henry insisted.

Joey sighed. “It’s a… cartoon I draw.” He shifted his pad of doodles over to his friend so he could get a closer look. “I call him Bendy.”

Henry glanced at a page filled with small comics of this Bendy character. A tiny black-and-white devil with a cute face and a bow-tie. Often the comics were filled with Bendy playing pranks on another character named Boris the Wolf, however there were comics of Bendy dancing around in a tutu. All of them made Henry laugh.

“These are great, Joey!” Henry told his friend earnestly. Taking a quick flip through the pad, he saw more quick-hand sketches of Bendy and Boris’s misadventures. “You really like this Bendy character, don’t ya?”

Joey smiled a bit wistfully. “’Course I do! I made him up myself.” Henry smiled and glanced between his friend’s art. Joey reached over and glanced at the few doodles Henry had done and sighed again. “Have you ever wanted something really bad, Henry? Like, really bad?”

Henry, a bit startled by the seriousness of the question, shook his head. “I… can’t say I have buddy.”

Joey glanced at his Bendy drawings. “I have this absurd idea… that maybe, just maybe somehow I could… Bring Bendy and Boris to life.”

Henry let his friend’s words sink in, still glancing at the Bendy comics when an idea came to him. “Like animation!”

Joey glanced at his friend, puzzled. “Huh?”

Scrambling to his feet, Henry rushed over to his bookshelf and pulled The History of Animation off the shelf and handed it to Joey. “This book taught me that animation is bringing your imagination to life! I’ve been making these moving pictures in pads my whole life, but I never had any idea well enough to make a full fledge animation out of… But Bendy, he could be real popular someday!”

“Animation?” Joey muttered to himself, glancing down in what almost seemed like disappointment. After a tense silence, Joey glanced at Henry with a small smile on his face. “So… animation?”

Henry smiled eagerly and launched into an explanation of animation.

That night, a pact between friends was made; Bring Bendy to life so all could see. A pact that two friends promised they would stick together for.

“Until the end of the line?” Joey asked

“Until the very end!” Henry assured.

It took a year of work for the two friends to finally earn enough money to buy an animation studio, and even then, the Van Burin family gave Joey a hefty loan to make it happen. Nonetheless, the two friends were ecstatic.

The Ross’s and Joey’s Mom were not happy the boys didn’t go off to college, none more so than the mothers, but they had made an agreement. If the first cartoon wasn’t a success, they’d got off to college. The mere idea of giving up on their dream made the two friends work twice as hard to make Bendy a success.

The studio officially opened for business when Henry was eighteen and Joey was nineteen. Of course, to make a successful cartoon, you need more than two people. So, the two friends put together a crew.

At the head was Joey. After all, it was his original cartoon and the studio itself was in his name. Director, Producer, and (official) Head Animator. He ran the whole show. True, he worked mostly by what censors dictated was appropriate for a children’s cartoons, but he called the shots.

Henry was second in command and Joey’s right hand man. The (unofficial) Head Animator. Joey did a good portion of the animations himself. Whether it be synchronizing with audio, movement, backgrounds, or even model sheets, Henry did it. Joey helped whenever he could, but director was a heavy title to bear, so Henry ended up doing most of his work with the other animation crew.

The music department was headed by Samuel “Sammy” Lawrence. A man who could play just about any instrument you put into his hands. He was average height with hair the color of the dandelion’s Henry’s mother made him pull out of the garden. He was gruff and a bit cold at times, but he could take a simple tune and turn it into a musical masterpiece. Henry greatly respected this ability, and by extension respected Sammy.

The Conductor for the band is Norman Polk; a dark skinned man with a big grin. Where Sammy is cold and distant, Norman is warm and welcoming. He treats you as if you were his oldest friend and listens to whatever you have to say, even if he doesn’t particularly care for the subject. That and the fact that he can put up with Sammy makes him ok in Henry’s book.

And since it’s hard to keep a studio clean (and Henry forced Joey to hire him), Wallace “Wally” Franks is hired as a custodian. Henry doesn’t see him that much, except when he spills a thing of ink all over everything—which happens more often than Henry would like to admit. Wally is a stand-up guy and offers Henry a cigar every time he sees him. He politely declines every time.

With this ragtag band of misfits, they call a team, they make the first ever Bendy cartoon entitled Little Devil Darling within a year of opening the studio. To their immense gratification (and Joey and Henry’s relief), it is a hit with critics and audiences alike. One critic even said that Bendy had the makings to be bigger than any mouse or rabbit or dog other studios were putting out at the time.

To celebrate, Sammy had taken everyone out to drinks. Everyone but Joey. He said he had other work to do. Henry wasn’t happy about leaving his best buddy behind, but Joey insisted that it was fine.

Henry still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was troubling Joey. Maybe it was the apathetic look in his eyes as the rest of the crew left?

“We need more voices, Henry.” Joey tells him one day over lunch.

“Uh-huh,” Henry replies.

“Female voices, to be exact.”

“Uh-huh…”

There is silence between the two friends as Henry chews his sandwich and Joey stirs his pasta idly.

“So…?”

Henry raises a brow, “So… what?”

“Know any dames looking to be in animation?” Joey asked.

Henry rolls his eyes. “I know just as many dames as you, Drew. Probably less,”

“That’s pathetic, Ross. Just sayin’.” Joey teases.

“Just put out an ad, Joey.” Henry tells him.

“But then I’d have to pay them… And we only have two cartoons out at the moment.” Joey glances at his friend nervously. While their budget is still a bit tight, Henry knows they can afford to bring in one more person.

“Yes, that’s usually how this type of thing works.” Seeing how he is getting no help from his friend, Joey turns to Sammy, who is munching on an apple at the table behind his.

“Hey Sammy, know any dames with good voices for cartoons?”

Sammy glares at the boss. “Hire someone new, ya cheapskate.”

While Joey is less than pleased, Henry gets one hell of a laugh out of Sammy’s response.

A knock on the wall behind his desk startles Henry enough to drop his pen. Sighing in annoyance, Henry reaches down to pick up the pen. “Wally, for the last time, I don’t know who would win in a fight between Godzilla and—”

A very pretty redhead woman with dark skin and a teal dress waves shyly at him. “Am I interuptin’ anythin’, hon?”

Now, Henry has been on his fair share of dates in his twenty-years of life. There was time in high school when he and Joey had dated the very blonde, very much cheerleaders, Smith Sisters. However, it has been awhile since a pretty dame has caught him off guard like this.

Feeling his ears warm up, Henry frantically shakes his head. “N-Nope! Not interrupting one bit. Nope, nothing to interrupt here.”

“That’s good,” The woman smiles, either not noticing Henry’s sudden anxiousness or deciding not to address it.

“I’m Henry, by the way,” Henry offers her his hand, “Henry Ross.”

The woman shakes his hand. “Susie. Susie Campbell.”

“So, what brings you here, Miss Campbell?”

“Um, Mr. Drew put out an ad for female voices…”

Henry smiles in realization. “Oh! You’re responding to Joey’s ad,”

“You know, Mr. Drew?”

“Sure, do. Grew up together. C’mon, I’ll show you where there holding auditions.” Henry stood from his desk and led Susie to the back of the studio, where stairs to the recording studio were. “So, you into voice acting, I take it?”

Susie giggled and Henry found it adorable. “I’ve been told I can do a lot of funny voices, I just never tried before today.”

Approaching the door, Henry reached over and held it open for her. “Joey and Sammy should be down there, holding auditions.”

“Well, thank you kindly, Henry. I hope to see you around.”

Henry bid her best of luck and softly closed the door behind her. Humming a happy tune, Henry walked back to his desk with a slight bounce in his step. Wally had caught him on his way back and smirked, even if a bit surprised by the animator’s behavior.

“You’re in a good mood ain’t ya?” The custodian commented.

Henry shrugged, a wide grin on his face. “You bet I am, Wally!”

As luck would have it, Susie had the exact voice Joey was looking for. She was hired on spot for multiple voice roles. Henry had a suspicion that it was partly so Joey could save money, but it meant Susie was around more often so he wasn’t complaining. The two often ate lunch together in the studio mess hall… Granted, Norman or Wally often joined the two, but it made for pleasant conversation.

Susie was from Portland, Oregon and had a knack for doing impressions. She explained she often did impressions and funny voices to cheer up her grandmother, who was sick quite often. When her grandmother died, Susie did the voices to cheer herself up. Her father would’ve preferred if she had gone to college, but Susie felt a calling and had decided to follow it.

Henry could relate.

It wasn’t until Henry caught Wally and Norman teasing him about his “crush on Susie” for the fifth time in one week did he realize that it might be true.

Unfortunately, it seemed he wasn’t the only one.

Six months after Susie was hired, Henry and a few other animators had decided to go out to eat for lunch. They were ahead of schedule and it was a gorgeous day out, so why not have some fun for a change?

Henry had gone looking for Joey, Sammy, and just about anyone else who might want to join them for lunch. His looking had taken him down to the recording booth. Stepping inside, he stopped short when he saw Susie in the recording booth, singing her heart out while Norman conducted the band.

“Once in a while, will you try to give one little thought to me, though someone else may be nearer your heart? Once in a while, will you dream of the moments I shared with you, moments before we two drifted apart?

“In love’s smoldering ember, one spark may remain. If love still can remember, that spark may burn again. I know that I’ll be contented with yesterday’s memory, knowing you think of me once in a while.”

Henry smiled in awe, unaware that Susie had such a heavenly voice. He glanced up to Joey and Sammy and his smile fell. Joey glanced at her with a light shining in his eyes that Henry recognized from when they were dating the Smith Sisters. As for Sammy, Henry could count on one hand the number of times he’s seen the music director smile. The one he was sending Susie’s way was softer than the other smiles.

Joey and Sammy stood, applauding for the redhead when she stepped out of the booth. She smiled, blushing bashfully. “I take it I did well?”

“Miss Campbell, I think you might be just the voice we’ve been looking for!” Joey smiled.

“For what?’ Henry asked, making his presence.

“Henry, just the man I need to see! You doing anything right now?” Joey asked.

“Some animators and I are gonna go out to lunch and I was wondering if any of you wanted to join me? But it seems like you’re busy so I’ll just—”

“Oh, that sounds like a wonderful idea, Henry!” Susie smiled.

Sammy shrugged. “I could eat…”

While Joey didn’t look to pleased that everyone was making plans without his consent, he shook his head. “Alright, but when you get back, you my friend are going to start sketching model sheets for our newest character: Alice Angel!”

Henry’s eyes widened. “Alice Angel?”

“Voiced by none other than our very own, Susie Campbell.” Joey laid an arm on her shoulders, smiling proudly.

“Aw shucks, Joey.” Susie blushed, though she seemed proud.

Before Henry could get in a word, Joey had somehow waltzed over to his side, smiling. “So, here are some ideas for Alice’s character I’d like you to remember,” The Director had steered his friend towards the staircase up and was now rambling on about how this new character, leaving Sammy and Susie no choice but to follow them.

Halfway up, Joey had made a comment about running these out-of-work-lunches by him next time, but Henry was hardly paying attention. Behind him, he heard Susie ask Sammy “So this Alice Angel character… do ya think people will like her?”

Sammy smiled reassuringly. “Doll, I bet she’ll be just as popular as Bendy someday!”

“Ya really think so?”

“I know so.”

Susie smiled and laid a hand on Sammy’s shoulder. “You’re a peach, Sammy.”

Henry frowned, heart sinking just a bit.

If Henry could describe Susie in one word, it was colorful. She often wore brightly colored dresses or skirts with hats that—on any other girl, would look silly—complimented her loud and vibrant personality. Since Henry was surrounded by black, white, and grey cartoons, her presence was often refreshing.

Lately, however, her role as Alice Angel had kept her in the recording booth often. Sometimes, Henry would run down to get a feel for a certain piece of music’s tempo; to see how slow or quick a scene had to go. He would find the musical director smiling (actually smiling!) at the pretty redhead.

Then, at lunch, we would finally drag himself away from his desk, he would spot Joey and Susie laughing at some joke Joey had told and playfully swiping small morsels from the other’s lunch. Henry tried to avoid sitting there.

However, Henry and Susie lived on the same block and would often walk each other home or to work. Those fifteen minutes to and from were some of the highlights of Henry’s day.

It was December when Henry decided to throw caution to the wind and ask Susie to dinner, just the two of them that Saturday. Susie had seemed surprised, but she had said no. “No thank ya, Henry dear. It’s not that I wouldn’t love to! It’s just… Joey already asked me. Ya understand, don’t ya, hon?”

Henry nodded, heart feeling heavy at the moment, but said he understood. Which he did. He respected Susie and as long as she was willing to keep him as a friend, he could learn to be happy. It still stung though.

That night, Norman and he went out for beers. The following Monday morning, he saw Susie and Joey smiling and talking quietly to each other. His heart feeling like a lead weight in his chest. The only comfort was that Sammy was seen glaring daggers at the boss as well.

#bendy and the ink machine #batim #batim henry #batim joey #batim sammy #batim susie #batim norman #it runs in the family au #after ultron #incomplete prolouge

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