Overdue Book Part IV

## Official Summary

Hailee is given desperate instructions by Vivien's spirit to "repair" what Jeremy has done to the Long Legged Larry children's book, but the Braddock house is under siege, just as it was all those years ago. Meanwhile, Jeremy seems to want some kind of final confrontation with Mitch, but the thing on the roof seems less picky about its prey.

A shocking reach for power, a rekindling of faith, and an awakening of intertwined fates propel each of these young heroes toward a destiny greater than they can know. The battle for the town's soul is fought with prayer, magick, and baseball bat as the circle closes.

## Detailed Recap

Hearing the steps on the roof, the mental patients cower and scurry down the stairs. Jeremy follows them, his expression awed and fearful. Vivien instructs Hailee to replace the false pages with the real ones.

Downstairs, they find 5 mental patients kneeling around the hearth. Jeremy holds another one, a young boy, hostage at gunpoint. Mitch calls his bluff and charges at him, and Jeremy flees out the back of the house. Mitch chases him. Jeremy throws a chair back at Mitch, and when Mitch deflects it with his bat, Mina shatters. They reach the backyard and stare each other down across a murky, clogged reflecting pool. Jeremy challenges Mitch to a hand-to-hand fight, throwing the gun away. The circle the pool, and Mitch notices celtic knots and letters carved into the rocks that border it.

Hailee and Samson find that the confused patients ignore them as they approach the fireplace. Samson rips down the fake page and puts up the real one, but he does it in the wrong order. A chitinous black leg darts out of the fireplace and attacks Samson's leg, grabbing and pulling him up toward the chimney as the patients laugh uproariously. Walter and Hailee wrest Samson free. With their help, Samson corrects his mistake and puts the page, bat, and spike up in the right order. The patients begin crying and screaming, running around as if in pain.

Hailee grabs an elderly patient. She takes down the animal and page from the other room, holds up the correct page, presses the patient's hand against the wall, and stabs through both with her ritual knife. This impromptu bit of black magic becomes a human sacrifice as fire engulfs the man's head and body. The symbols on the floor rearrange themselves violently. Hailee is overwhelmed by a rush of knowledge about the book, and Henry Colfax, and whoever brought the book to Chester. She falls unconscious.

Hailee feels herself floating in cold darkness, apparently underwater. She sees Vivien wearing the brooch, looking sad. Vivien says Hailee has freed her to do something, and touches her, and Hailee sinks while Vivien rises.

Hailee's body stops breathing. Samson hears Vivien's voice suggesting that in the past, the group that fought at the Braddock House lacked a teammate with passionate religious faith, but now his faith can save his friends. He feels powerful, and intones Ephesians 12-17. Hailee starts breathing again, and Walter treats her for shock.

Mitch has a vision of the glassy surface of a lake, and sees himself in the water -- older, muscled, and scarred. Vivien rises out of the water holding a great, old sword, which she says she has been "holding in trust." She hands it to him. Mitch opens his eyes in the backyard, holding not the sword but Les Pinkham's bat. Jeremy charges Mitch with a knife, but in a surge of magical power, Mitch uses the bat to crush Jeremy's shoulder and throw him aside with impossible force.

Samson joins Mitch outside, and they see the clown coming down from the roof. But it seems the clown is a facade created by the book's magic, and whatever is underneath is slowly being revealed. Samson runs at the thing, sure that he is sacrificing himself to draw its attention and give Mitch the opportunity to attack it. The divine might of his challenge dispels the clown disguise entirely, revealing a spider-like creature with countless eyes full of its victims' memories. Mitch charges, and his bat tears through the creature's body and spirit, dissipating it from our world.

Weakened by the fight, Mitch and Samson don't notice that Jeremy rises and runs at Mitch with his knife. Hailee sees through the window and calls out for Walter to intervene. Walter thinks he's too far, and reaches out fruitlessly -- but fire jets out from the left side of his body, crashes through a window, and smashes Jeremy down. Walter is shocked by this sudden ability, and Hailee calls it a gift.

They bring Samson into the kitchen and do their best to tend to his wounds while they wait for the ambulance. Hailee asks Vivien to teach her, and she agrees.

In the aftermath, they learn that there was a mass breakout at the mental hospital, and in fact, a few patients escaped a few days before, and "everyone just kept forgetting to mention it." William Campbell seems more alert than he has in a long time. Hailee starts going to the Braddock House for lessons from VIvien. Mitch and Walter go back to attending baseball practice like usual, and Walter plays with his deceased father's lighter, making flames dance along his fingers. They agree that they're destined to help people.

In 2016, Mitch awakens in his room.

## Quotes

* "Don't FUCK with my town." - Hailee Pennington
* "We ask too much of the young ... I'm sorry for what happens now." - Vivien Braddock

## Music Credits

* Three Chain Links - Into Darkness
* Three Chain Links - Magic Hour
* Kevin MacLeod - Measured Paces
* Myuu - Now or Never
* Free Dramatic Scores - Horror Music - Feel the Knife
* Kai Engel - Melted Wings
* Kai Engel - Oneiri
* Kai Engel - Written in Ink
* Sergey Cheremisinov - Northern City's Secret
* Three Chain Links - He Walks
* ROZKOL - Faces to the Sky
* Kai Engel - The Price of Valour
* Sergey Cheremisinov - Train
* Opening and Closing Themes by Nathan Kross and Rob Stith