"The Return of Jack Slater" - Part Three

Part Three

            Everyone in the television studio was frozen in total fear, except for Jack, who was coherent and brave enough to take out his massive handgun and fire a few silver bullets into the werewolf. Regrettably, his shots missed their mark just as the werewolf lunged at him and proceeded to terrorize the studio, wrecking Elvira’s set and sending all of the crew fleeting in panic.

            In the confusion, Jack dropped his gun, which was left skidding across the floor. It eventually stopped at the feet of Mordecai, who retrieved it and was about to toss it back to Slater before Benson yelled, “Don’t, Mordecai! If you toss him that gun, you’re fired!”

            Benson’s trust of Jack waned ever since they met him.

            Only now it had boiled over with the cinematic action hero’s life in mortal danger, the werewolf inching dangerously close to him.

            Mordecai wanted to do the right thing. It was crazy of Benson to just let Jack die.

            Fortunately, it wasn’t Jack’s day to die.

            Someone fired a few tranquilizer darts into the werewolf, knocking it out. As it turned out, that “someone” was Shel, emerging from her TARDIS with the rifle that she used to save every soul in the studio, specifically Jack.

            Slater, on the other hand, was beyond upset with Benson. He delivered a punch across the park manager’s glass dome powerful enough to rattle the gumballs inside. “What’s the matter with you?!” he roared to Benson.

            “Whoa, whoa!” Shel stepped in between them. “What’s going on?!”

            “This fool nearly got me killed!” Slater accused Benson. “He kept his friend from giving me back my gun when that werewolf was just about to have me for dinner!”

            Shel looked on Benson with judging eyes. “Is that true, Benson?”

            “Well, I…the thing is that…I…” Benson stammered, unable to give reason to his actions, which seemed heartless now that they were exposed in front of everyone – Slater, Mordecai, Rigby, Elvira, and especially Shel.

            “Please explain to me why you thought it was smart to put Jack’s life in danger!” Shel demanded of him, her tone – usually sweet and gentle – increasingly hostile.

            Benson still wasn’t sure what to say, but the intense glare Jack gave him sparked the defiance back in him to tell Shel, “I have my reasons.” He almost couldn’t believe he told her that after the fact.

            The hurt expressed in Shel’s gorgeous face only made it worse. “Well,” she said, close to a whisper, “I see now that I can no longer have you with me in my journeys, if I can’t trust you enough to be honest with me about your actions.” She addressed him like a mother disappointed with her child. Driving this analogy further, she pointed to the TARDIS and ordered Benson, “Go back into the ship with Mordecai and Rigby.”

            “Us?!” Rigby defensively exclaimed. “What did we do?!”

            “Don’t think I’ve forgotten who sent my TARDIS careening out of control,” she told the raccoon. “As far as I’m concerned, all three of you are a hazard to our mission! And I will send you back home, once we’ve taken care of the leak!”

            Benson, Mordecai, and Rigby guiltily returned inside Shel’s TARDIS.

            In the meantime, the werewolf had reverted back into a conscious (albeit naked) human male. As captivating as it was for her to see him nude, Elvira supplied him with the appropriate clothes she could find from the costume rack.

            They discovered his name to be David Kessler.

            “What do you last remember before coming here, David?” Shel asked him.

            Kessler kept his composure as he explained, “I was in my girlfriend’s flat in London, bored out of my mind. Then I got hit with this shooting pain all over my body. Next thing I know…I’m here with you guys.” He gazed around at his new surroundings. “Where is here, by the way?”

            “Los Angeles,” Elvira said.

            David’s face ignited with surprise. “I’m back in America?!”

            “One of them, at least,” Shel specified. “I’m afraid you’ve been separated from your dimension, David. But don’t worry. I’ll have you cured of your werewolf curse and sent back home, as soon as we’ve found the other TARDIS, which I believe is the source of the leak we’ve been looking for.”

            “Leak? What leak?” Elvira inquired. “You talkin’ about a busted pipe or some dude takin’ a whiz?”

            Shel could no longer stomach Elvira’s droll attitude. “It’s no concern of yours.”

            “I beg to differ, honey,” Elvira deflected. “I think I got involved the second I was nearly ripped apart by a werewolf.” She subsequently told David, “No offense, darlin’.”

            “None taken,” Kessler remarked in a monotone.

            As much as she hated to admit it, Shel knew Elvira had a point and more than deserved a spot in the TARDIS. Kessler and his condition was something straight out of a horror movie, which Elvira had an expertise in. If they were to encounter any more horror icons leaked from their dimensions, like Frankenstein or the Creature of the Black Lagoon, the travelers would need to know how to fight them off.

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            As the team was en route to the dimension where the other Type-Z TARDIS was headed, following its random dematerialization before David’s emergence, Benson sat in the kitchen with Mordecai, Rigby, Elvira, and Kessler. The guilt of his actions back in the television studio weighed heavily on him.

            “Shel will never trust me again,” he lamented.

            “She’ll never want to see you again,” Rigby indicated. Mordecai would’ve slugged him across the arm for that remark if it weren’t so true.

            “Oh, buck up, buttercup,” Elvira told Benson while swigging on a bottle of Coke she got out of the refrigerator (she surprisingly knew her way around Shel’s TARDIS). After a quick belch, she continued, “Shel’s a forgiving kind of gal. She’ll move on from your little mishap.”

            Her surety of the situation intrigued Rigby. “How would you know that? You’ve only just met Shel.”

            Before Elvira could explain, the Cloister Bell suddenly rang.

            Mordecai, Rigby, and Benson remembered what Shel once said about it being a sign of trouble. Together with Elvira and David, they rushed back to the console room. There, to their shock, they found Jack carrying the lifeless body of Shel in his arms. In front of him was a portal generated by his magic ticket.

            “Jack!” Mordecai called out. “What’re you doing?!”

            Slater solemnly glanced back at them, not saying a word, and stepped through the portal. It closed afterwards, leaving Benson, Mordecai, Rigby, Elvira, and David standing in the console room, stunned and baffled by the actions of Jack Slater.