Overdue Book Part III

## Official Summary

As Hailee, Mitch, Samson, and Walter all prepare to go to the Braddock House, they're met with surprising and dangerous resistance, and the house itself is filled with horrors.

The riddle of the children's book Jeremy had taken to the house demands to be solved, and the spirit of Vivien Braddock reaches out to communicate. But the search for answers will not be allowed to go unimpeded...

## Detailed Recap

Hailee's parents go out to see a movie, leaving her to finish her prep. She heads downstairs, and sees that the backdoor is ajar. She closes it, but hears someone else in the house. She pulls a knife from the drawer and takes it with her to the dining room. There she sees the woman she saw in her window the night before, bedraggled in a hospital gown. She addresses Hailee like her daughter. Hailee tells her to leave, and tries to fend her off with the knife, but when she keeps advancing, Hailee stabs her in the stomach, killing her. She realizes the woman was trying to hug her, and the woman murmurs "my baby, my baby, my baby" as she dies. Panicked, Hailee leaves the house.

Mitch and Samson see tons of police cars heading for the mental hospital. Walter texts everyone to confirm that they're meeting at the house. Hailee ignores her phone.

Hailee arrives at the house first, and feels like the house is drawing her inside. She finds the front room trashed from Jeremy's "ethanol party," with bottles and food wrappers scattered everywhere. More disturbingly, she sees a rat nailed to the wall with a page of a children's book, and arcane symbols scrawled on the floor below it in blood. Shaken, she sits on the stairs crying.

Samson and Mitch meet up in the street outside the Braddock House. Walter appears out of nowhere, running at top speed, chased by a scraggly man in a hospital gown. Samson tries to throw a trash can in the man's way to slow him down, but the man catches up to him anyway. Mitch attacks the man with his lucky bat, Mina, and kills him.

The boys arrive at the house. Hailee, not knowing who the approaching people are, hides behind the door with her ritual knife in hand. Mitch opens the door, and she attacks him blindly, but he parries the attack with his bat. Once she realizes who it is, Hailee apologizes profusely. The boys see that she's covered in blood and ask what happened; she explains that she killed the woman from her window, claiming it was self-defense. Walter wonders how so many people escaped the mental hospital without the guards knowing.

Hailee leads the boys to the rat on the wall. They inspect the page, and find a clown in a pinstripe suit with a huge smile and unnaturally long legs. Samson sees that the pinstripe in the picture is a perfect match to the fabric he found on the hearth, and realizes this clown was in his house. In the next room, they find a cat nailed to the wall with another page. Samson believes the symbols on the floor are a ritual to undo a seal or restriction on something evil. Hailee consults her spell book and concludes that it's Sumerian black magic, a "jailbreak" ritual. The only way to undo it would be to restore the original binding ritual. They figure out that Vivien's message, "FNDRLNDNG," means "Find Real Ending" -- the real ending to the children's book.

Above the fireplace, a bat is nailed to the wall with another page of the story, this one showing the clown coming down the chimney. This freaks Samson out. Mitch tries to calm and bolster him, while Hailee, becoming increasingly unhinged, mocks his religion again. Walter shies away from the conflict. In the next room, they find a raccoon nailed to the wall. This time, the page shows the clown walking away from vacant-eyed children, with an insectile segmented leg emerging from his back. The paper seems newer than the first pages, making them suspect it's an alternate ending.

The four of them begin searching the house thoroughly. They find lots of hidey places and magic paraphernalia. Hailee finds a jewelry box, and inside is a sapphire and silver brooch. She puts it on, She hear's Vivien's voice talking with her telepathically, saying "the circle is closing again," and they must "finish it." Vivien confirms that the group includes someone "of the Hook family." She tells Hailee the pages are upstairs under the floorboards.

As they go upstairs, a window breaks behind them, and they can hear someone entering the house. It's Jeremy, with mental patients he calls "friends." Inside the upstairs bedroom, Mitch bars the door with a dresser while Walter tries to call 911 but fails to reach anyone. Hailee and Samson find the much more cheerful pages. Jeremy, tired of trying to negotiate his way through the door, fires a revolver through it, striking Samson in the shoulder. They all hear footsteps on the roof.

## Quotes

He looks rather odd, but he's not a bit scary.

Everyone's good friends with Long Legged Larry!

He wears a tall hat, 8 feet up from the floor,

And often it's lost when he ducks through the door.

All the kids know Larry's tricks are a hoot.

He's got magic and tricks up both sleeves of his suit.

He strides his long strides down the hill into town.

Larry's job isn't done 'til no face has a frown.

When you're down in the dumps, Larry's got a great trick.

He can come down the chimney as quick as St. Nick!

With a spring and a tumble, he'll caper for you.

Long Legged Larry will help you forget that you're blue.

Forget that you're blue. Forget that you're you.

Long Legged Larry strides off with the faces you knew.

With a smile, we all wait at the fireplace for when

Larry helps us forget, 'til it's quiet again.

## Music Credits

* Three Chain Links - Magic Hour
* Kevin MacLeod - Long Note Two
* Myuu - Trembling (Horror Soundscape)
* Remain - Breakthrough
* Fatal Injection - Untitled
* Myuu - Pop Goes the Weasel (Traditional Cover)
* Paul Sop - Horror
* Yubatake - Rollup
* Tristan Lohengrin - Le Manege des Damnes
* juliangruber - Black Progressive Groove
* Myuu - Creepy Clown Symphony
* Opening and Closing Themes by Nathan Kross and Rob Stith