All this time Mister Drew had said nothing. Had just watched me. It was strange and unsettling. I looked back at him.
“Am I dead?” I asked. It was a foolish question, and I realized after I asked it that I knew the answer. Obviously I wasn’t. I knew where I was, I knew who I was. Unless this is what death looked like.
Mister Drew walked slowly over to me then.
“Buddy?” he said.
“Yes?” I replied.
“Is that you, Buddy?” He was standing right over me now. His skin drooped. He looked almost inhuman at this angle.
“Yes, it’s me,” I said back. Of course it was me.
He grabbed under my chin and held my head still. I tried to shake him off, but his grip was like a vise. He brought up his other hand and held me tighter. He came even closer and looked at me hard in the eyes. His scent was powerful. I’d never really noticed that before. But now for some reason I could smell him clearly. It wasn’t just cigar smoke and pomade. I could smell his dinner, the hors d’oeuvres from the party. I could smell whiskey and champagne. I could smell the city air and the heat of the day.
His sweat.
His madness.
“I can see you in there,” he whispered.
“What are you talking about? Let go of me!” I shouted it right in his face. I didn’t care anymore about impressing him or offending him. I didn’t care what he thought of me. His machine had done this to all of us. Had killed them. Had killed me.
And now … now slowly it dawned on me. Had the machine brought me back to life?
“Of course you can’t answer me,” he said, suddenly realizing something. His eyes sparkled and he bit his lip. “Of course you can’t. Oh, this is just incredible, Buddy.”
Can’t answer him? What on earth?
I reached up and pushed him away, hard. Harder than I’d ever pushed anyone before, and he fell back against the wooden stage with a loud crash. I felt strangely powerful. I also wasn’t in any pain anymore. I stood up. I marched over to him. It was my turn to stand over him.
He cowered. He actually cowered in fright. I felt really good about that.
“What did you do to me?” I asked.
“Now, Buddy,” he said, holding up a hand, “don’t be angry. Just remember I saved your life.”
“What did you do?” I took a step closer, placed my hands on my hips. I enjoyed that my shadow loomed over him like this, filling his small world with darkness.
“You’re angry, you’re frustrated. You can’t express yourself, I understand, but don’t you see that I fixed you? And now you’re, you’re—perfect!”
“What do you mean?” That word took the air out of my lungs, pulled back on my confidence.
“See, not so bad, is it?” said Mister Drew with a small smile.
“What are you talking about?” I said. I felt like I was talking to a wall now. Why couldn’t he give me a straight answer? “Tell me what you did. Tell me what is wrong with me.” I sighed with frustration, and turned to look first over at the machine and then back down at him again. “Tell me …” At that moment, I finally noticed my shadow. “Tell me …” I was suddenly distracted.
Tell me …
I stumbled backward. My shadow was long and thin as it always was. It bled over Mister Drew, now standing up, no longer cowering in fear. Watching me closely. He was curious, not afraid. He seemed to be understanding something I wasn’t. Something I was about to figure out.
I touched the top of my head. What was that in the shadow? Two tall curved points that seemed to be growing out of either side of my skull. They were soft to the touch. And when my fingers felt them I felt my fingers. These points were a part of me. As much as my arms or my legs.
I dropped my hands and looked at them.
I took another step backward.
“Behind you, Buddy,” Mister Drew said.
I turned slowly. I didn’t want to do what he said, but at the same time I knew I had to.
On the ground was a figure covered in ink. Lying sprawled. Lifeless. Dripping. I walked up to it carefully.
“Who is that?” I asked, but it came out as more of a moan. No words. Just the feeling behind the words.
I didn’t want to know the answer.
Because I already knew the answer.
I bent to look closer.
The body on the ground was mine.
I think my story’s ending. My part of it, at least. I think I’m almost done writing. I don’t think I can do this much longer. He’s enjoying the story, but he’s also hungry. I’m hungry.
Dot, if you find this, share it.
I hope you can tell them if this story is true.
I know it’s not all true.
But I think most of what I wrote is real.
* * *
My mind and his mind.
Our mind.
I wasn’t alone, Mister Drew was standing beside me. Looking down at the body. At my body. My dead body.
No one gets to see themselves dead. No one has to experience that. How would my mind possibly have a way to understand it?
I’m dead. That’s my dead body.
“You see, I saved you,” said Mister Drew.
“I don’t understand,” I replied.
“Shh, stop trying. It’s only going to frustrate you.”
“I’m already frustrated. I need to understand this. You need to explain it to me,” I said, turning on him.
“Please listen to me. Stop trying to talk, Buddy. You’re just going to hurt yourself.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not frustrated about talking …” I stopped then. I stopped and really listened. “I’m not …” A grunt. “Mister Drew.” Another grunt.
I opened my mouth. I tried to say my name: “Buddy.” A kind of barking sound almost. I froze. I couldn’t breathe. I collapsed onto my knees and grabbed at my throat. I stared up at Mister Drew, and for a moment I thought maybe he looked concerned. But he didn’t, not really. He just seemed pleased with himself.
I turned back to the body, my body. I wasn’t sure what to do anymore. I wasn’t sure what I was thinking anymore. Part of me was feeling oddly fascinated by everything, like I was seeing the world for the first time. Part of me was terrified, desperate.
I crawled, pulling myself along the floor to the body. My body.
I looked at my hands, not on my old body but on my new one.
My gloved hands.
I didn’t own gloves. I’d never owned gloves. Not even in winter. Just shoved my hands into my pockets.
I didn’t understand at all. And yet I did. I knew exactly what had happened now, but it was so unbelievable.
Just because something is unbelievable doesn’t make it not true.
Remember that, Dot. Oh, please, above all things, remember that.
I touched my face. Not the face that I was looking out of, but the cold dead one belonging to the body on the floor.
Have you ever seen a dead body before? It’s not just scary in the way ghost stories are scary. It’s scary because that’s the person right there in front of you, but you know it’s not really them.
Something is missing.
“That’s your body, Buddy. But it isn’t you,” said Mister Drew, crouching beside me. He said it as if he could read my mind.
I looked at him angrily. I knew now I couldn’t speak. I didn’t even bother trying. I pointed instead, at the body’s face, torso, legs …
“Those are just parts. The real you. The real you is here.” Mister Drew reached up and touched my chest, placing his palm firmly on my ribs. “Your soul.”
I pulled back.
No.
“Listen to me, listen to me, Buddy,” he said, placing a hand on my shoulder. I wanted to shake it off, but I couldn’t. I just didn’t have the strength. “I’ll explain it quickly. I made my machine to create real versions of my characters.” “My” and “my,” he said. But they weren’t his. The machine was Tom’s and the characters were H
enry’s. “I used my special ink. It was supposed to work. But the creature that came out, that ink demon. That was not the plan. I realized that the man I’d hired to help had led me astray. It was his fault for not understanding the machine.” A lie. “Something was missing. It almost worked. So what was it? Well, it was the thing that makes us all alive.”
The soul, I thought right away.
“Can you guess?” he asked.
I knew the answer. It wasn’t that hard.
“The soul. But how do I get a soul? Sammy lured those people down here … I thought I could use them, but the ink had infected them for days. There was no soul left in there. I needed someone real. Someone good. I never thought I’d be so lucky as to have you, Buddy. But this was meant to be. This was the plan all along. That’s why you were sent to me. When I came here, when I saw you—in the clutches of that beast—I understood your purpose.”
No. That’s not my purpose. I felt the anger rise in me, and I pushed his hand off my shoulder finally. I stayed where I was, white-hot rage now energizing me, making me almost afraid to stand up. Of what I might do.
“I saved your soul, Buddy. And you saved me. You’re going to save Bendy.”
I didn’t do that. My purpose was saving Dot and the others. That was my purpose. He couldn’t and wouldn’t take that away from me. My purpose now was and always would be to protect the world from this beast. This machine.
“This is going to be so wonderful. You’ll see, you’ll see,” said Mister Drew. “Now come with me. I’ve set up a nice little room for you. A nice place. You’ll like it. There’s food.”
He was talking to me like I was stupid. Like I was him, the happy wolf who shares my mind. I know he was excited about it then. I could feel him pulling me, wanting me to go to Mister Drew. But at this moment, back then, I was much stronger than he was. Mister Drew didn’t understand that.
That was my advantage.
I turned to him. We stood face-to-face. He smiled. “Come with me.” He extended his arm toward me and I grabbed it. I held it hard, and he cried in pain. I wasn’t going to kill him. I can’t kill. That’s not who I am. I threw him to the floor.
And I stood over him.
And breathed for a moment.
I ran then. I ran away. Into the darkness of the theater, down trapdoors and through vents. I just ran. I disappeared into the building. Into its secrets that even Joey Drew himself didn’t know. I hid.
I hid and he didn’t find me.
He couldn’t find me.
And I got to know the world underground. I got to know the theater and the studio. I watched, hidden, as they were merged together. I watched Mister Drew fire people and hire new ones, and I watched as he tried to make the machine work.
I learned that pictures came to life. Like I always feared. Like I always knew.
And so I decided to write this down.
And I think, I think I’m done.
I think I have to be done, because, Dot, I’m so tired. And he’s getting stronger. Now I’m not really Buddy anymore.
I am also Boris. Descending deeper into this world of aging, yellowing madness.
And we have to keep running because …
The Ink Monster.
Because it’s still alive.
And it’s still hungry.
Stop him. You have to …
Stop … him …
Save them.
Save …
ADRIENNE KRESS is a Toronto-born actor and writer. Her books include the award-winning and internationally published novels Alex and the Ironic Gentleman, Timothy and the Dragon’s Gate, and Hatter Madigan: Ghost in the H.A.T.B.O.X. (with bestselling author Frank Beddor), as well as Steampunk novel The Friday Society and the gothic Outcast. She is also the author of the quirky three-book series The Explorers.
Dreams Come to Life is Adrienne’s first foray into writing horror, but as an actor she has had the pleasure of being creepy in such horror films as Devil’s Mile and Wolves. And she took great pleasure in getting to haunt teenagers in SyFy’s Neverknock.
Find her at AdrienneKress.com.
Twitter/Instagram: @AdrienneKress
© 2019 Joey Drew Studios Inc. Bendy, Bendy and the Ink Machine, The Bendy characters, images and logos are trademarks of Joey Drew Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First printing 2019
Cover design by Betsy Peterschmdt
e-ISBN 978-1-338-34399-1
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
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