Discount Dan

Prizes in hand and exhausted to the bone, the four of us slowly navigated our way out of the colossal Loot Arcade.

Thankfully, leaving ended up being significantly easier than getting in. One enormous slide, completely free of traps, tripwires, and monsters, deposited us back near the very front of the Arcade. There weren’t even Ball Pit Barrys waiting for us with vicious insults at the bottom. Croc was like a little kid on Christmas morning, over the moon by the sheer thrill of the ride.

Temperance was understandably eager to get back to Howlers Hold, but I wasn’t quite ready to jump in with both feet. Not just yet. I’d leveled up twice, thanks to Frank and his merry band of psychos, and had Personal Enhancement Points to burn. I wasn’t just going to sit on those points, especially since we were stepping into unknown territory. Jakob and Temperance had both saved my ass more than once, and though I trusted them, that trust wasn’t ironclad.

Like Croc said time and again, assume that everything, everywhere, all the time is both lying to you and trying to kill you.

Temp was fun but clearly unstable, and I got the sense that Jakob was still keeping things from me—though what exactly, I wasn’t sure. True, both were friends and, sure, both said the Howlers could be trusted and were generally welcoming to outsiders, but with so many enemies gunning for me, it paid to be cautious. Maybe the Howlers would welcome me with open arms, or maybe they’d been infiltrated by the Skinless Court and were just waiting for a chance to turn me into meat paste.

Maybe I was being a little paranoid. But was it actually paranoia if someone really was out to get me? Or was it just being smart?

I wasn’t sure, but either way, playing things close to the vest had kept me alive so far, and I figured the age-old axiom “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” probably applied to this situation.

Besides, it would be better to meet the Howlers on my own turf, assuming I could swing it.

At level twenty-two, I had access to a grand total of eleven doorway anchors—not counting my personal VIP doorway—and I’d only planted nine so far. Three in the Lobby, one on the first floor, two on the third, and one more apiece on the fourth, fifth, and seventh floors. I hadn’t planted one on six, because it wasn’t technically a level at all, and I’d also purposely avoided putting one on the second floor, The Devil’s Asshole, because fuck that whole, inhospitable level on general principle.

No one willingly visited the second floor and anyone unlucky enough to wind up there was probably already dead. Planting a door there would be like adding extra deckchairs to the Titanic: Pointless.

But with three additional anchors at my disposal, I could afford to plant one here. It was both close to the Loot Arcade and in the same sector as Howlers Hold, which meant that even if the floor shifted, we’d still be able to make it to the Hold without much trouble, and vice versa. Long term, I wanted to place one smack-dab inside the Hold itself, but this would work for now.

And now was all that mattered. All that other shit—the Howlers, the Monarch, the Syndicate—were worries for tomorrow.

I took a deep breath and felt a palpable weight lift off my shoulders as we stepped through the freshly planted door and into the heart of my own personal paradise.

I spotted Baby Hands mopping up a spill in the condiment aisle and heard an earsplitting goat-like squeal, which could only belong to Princess Ponypuff. Instead of being annoyed, I found myself grinning from ear to ear like a doofus. Seeing this place again felt like coming home, which was a genuinely surreal experience. A little more than a month ago, I’d woken up with the worst hangover of my life, certain I was going to get disemboweled by an Eldritch horror from the deepest reaches of hell.

I’d never wanted to go home more. Now I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to leave.

Were the Backrooms a living nightmare. Yeah, obviously. Could they kill you in a heartbeat? Without a doubt. But as I looked at my friends and at the strange kingdom I’d painstakingly carved out for myself, I realized I was happier than I’d been in a long time. Maybe happier than I’d ever been. I had purpose. Comradery. Adventure. All the free beer I could ask for.

What more could a guy want?

Plus, I was building something here. Something important. Something worth fighting for. Maybe even something worth dying for. There was no doubt this was a truly fucked-up place, but we were doing our part to unfuck it and helping a lot of people in the process. We’d already saved dozens of lives, maybe more, and by the time we were through it could be hundreds or even thousands. If things went according to plan, we might even have a chance to kill that cockwomble who lived on the 999th floor.

That had to be worth something.

But again, those were worries for tomorrow. For Future me.

All Present me wanted to do was celebrate with friends, and we had every reason to.

Against all odds, we’d not only killed Frank and his crew, we’d made out like bandits and did it all without losing anyone. If that wasn’t a good enough reason to get blackout drunk and badly sing karaoke, there’d never be one.

I made my way to the front of the store and clambered onto the checkout counter.

“Attention, shoppers!” I called out, cupping one hand around my mouth. “This is your friendly neighborhood shopkeeper, Discount Dan.”

The store fell quiet, and an unsettling pressure seeped into the air like an angry storm cloud taking shape. It was fear. I could see it in their faces and read it in their eyes. Fear of the unknown. Fear of starvation. Of death. Of me. Every inch of the Backrooms was stained with fear, but this place could be different. This was a place built on hope.

“I know we’re all far from home,” I continued, scanning each of the faces staring up at me. “Scared out of our minds, wondering if we’ll ever see our friends or our families again. Wondering whether we’ll live to see another day at all. I wish I had answers for you, but I don’t. Truth is, we might all die—ripped apart, bludgeoned to death, or skinned alive. But not tonight. Not right now.

“Right now, we’re alive, we’re safe, and we’re together. We all come from different places and backgrounds. Some of us don’t even speak the same language, and some of us dress up in animal costumes for reasons I’ll probably never understand.” I glanced pointedly at Temperance in her skintight bunny suit. “But none of that matters. What matters is that we’re a community and tonight we’re gonna celebrate like one.”

I reached through space time and pulled out a frosty beer. I cracked the top with one nimble finger then hoisted the can into the air.

“Tonight, we drink. Tonight, we celebrate. Tonight, beer and pizza are on me!”

THE END OF DISCOUNT DAN – BOOK 1