Archive of Our Own

“Say cheese!”

“Kid, what-”

Before Snatcher could even finish looking up from his book, the camera’s light flashed and the selfie was successfully taken. Hat Kid was sure she caught some sort of blurring or something considering the fact that Snatcher had exactly zero warning, but there was no way he would have let her take a picture if he knew what was happening. Plus, pictures where everyone was turned towards the camera with their eyes open and fake smiles plastered on their faces were overrated.

The camera quickly made the telltale whirring sound and spit out the undeveloped picture. Hat Kid gave Snatcher a mischievous look as she grabbed the photo and jumped off of the chair to avoid any inevitable attempts at stealing away what was no doubt going to be at least a semi-embarrassing capture.

“Did- Did you just try to take a selfie? With a ghost?” Snatcher sputtered in his usual echoey voice.

Hat kid was confused for a moment, until she looked down at the photo which had begun developing just enough for her to be able to make out the photo. It was simply her, sitting on the right arm of Snatcher’s familiar red chair and making a goofy face, completely alone.

Suffice to say, she hadn’t been expecting that.

Snatcher began to break out into his usual wheezing, “evil” laughter, no doubt gaining immense satisfaction from Hat Kid’s confusion and disappointment at this development.

“Ghosts don’t show up on film, kiddo!” He said, continuing to chuckle. “If anyone had ever been able to get photographic evidence of me, I’d’ve been out of a job years ago!”

Now that she thought about it, that did make sense. Nevertheless, she wasn’t going to let something that miniscule stop her. Snatcher’s laugh faded as he watched Hat Kid take out a marker and begin her work. Too bad his face was more or less glued in that smile constantly, otherwise he probably would’ve made more than one funny expression in the last couple minutes.

She then held up her finished work for Snatcher to see. His likeness had been (albeit rather shoddily) drawn into the picture with the marker where he would have been if not for the whole “being dead” thing.

Snatcher chuckled, and then went back to reading, clearly unwilling to let Hat Kid take up any more of his time.

“You’re not going to be able to show that to anyone as proof of the giant shadow monster living in the forest, but whatever floats your boat, kid.”

Hat Kid responded by simply sticking her tongue out and blowing the loudest raspberry she could in his direction. She looked down at her handiwork. Now, all that was left to do was find somewhere to hang it up…

The Conductor sighed, very loudly, into his claws.

This year Hat Kid wasn’t going to be participating in any of Dead Bird Studios’ movies (She still has a scar on her left ankle from one of those “Fireworks” exploding right next to her, she wasn’t going to be trusting either director to star her in their movies for a good long time.), but that certainly wasn’t going to stop her from sneaking in again to watch the new movies be filmed. It seems she chose a good time to crash the party, too, considering the Conductor’s current mood.

She didn’t even have to say anything to get the Conductor to speak about what was bothering him. “See, lassie, this is why we always stick to the same genre!” He said in his usual thick accent. At this point, Hat Kid was used to being the target of everyone’s venting. It could actually be pretty interesting to hear about everyone’s grievances. 

She cocked her head to the side, signaling him to keep talking.

“We’re having trouble shooting a scene for this” He fake gagged to further express his disgust for what he was about to say, “Cheesy horror flick we’re supposed to be shooting. We have to have all of this garbage knocked over by something the audience can’t see, but the usual tricks with strings aren’t working, and we’ve already blown our budget on set pieces, so we can’t afford to just have em’ just edit everything in afterwards.”

Ah, that made sense. Hat Kid was pretty sure the Conductor had only ever shot westerns, action movies, and the occasional mystery in his career. He’d obviously struggle with something so out of his league. Why he was doing something so out of his league was beyond her, but she’d bet that there was no way around it. If there was, the Conductor would have wormed his way back into his comfort zone at all costs.

Maybe she could help somehow? She didn’t really know anything about special effects, but neither did the Conductor in this situation considering he probably just threw pyrotechnics in anytime he ran into a problem previously, if last year’s production was anything to go by. He’d said they needed something to knock everything over…

Something invisible…

She had an idea.

The Conductor sat at the top of his chair, waiting anxiously. He had followed the lass’s instructions, the scene was all set up, now everyone just had to wait. For what, he didn’t know, but he trusted the girl. After all, she did save everyone from being thrown into lava that one time...

The Conductor was quickly snapped back into reality by a loud crashing noise coming from the front of the studio. He turned his head to see the lass, wearing one of her trademark hats and running nearly as fast as she had on the self-destructing train, signaling wildly for him to start up the cameras. He was just about to turn to bark orders to the nearest owl, when-

What the peck was that?

A giant, purple… thing shot through the studio right behind the girl, crashing into every wall, light, and staff personnel it came near. The Conductor could tell, even from afar, that the only thing keeping the girl ahead of the monster was her skill at taking advantage of her size, deftly dodging around set pieces whereas the creature’s size forced it to simply barrel through them. The Conductor was called back to the task at hand by the lass beginning to signal even more frantically, and he quickly began directing everyone to their places before the girl and that thing made it over.

The Conductor watched in awe as the hat-wearing girl (who, come to think of it, the Conductor had actually never learned the name of…) sped through the set faster than should have been possible for anyone, let alone a little girl, and then as a few seconds later the monstrous being shot through the set as well, shouting something at the lass. If not for the situation at hand, the Conductor might have shed a tear at how perfectly the whole scene played out. But alas, there was no time, as now he had to deal with the giant monster that was now in his studio. This was not something he thought he had ever thought he would have to deal with in his career, to say the least.

The Conductor watched as the girl took a sharp turn, leading the creature to ram directly into the wall where she had just been, muffled yelling coming from its direction as it tried to dislodge itself. The lass stopped in front of the director’s chair, panting slightly.

“Lassie, I appreciate the help, but would you mind telling me what the peck that THING is?!”

The girl looked back at the colossal, snake-like being and said, simply, “Oh, that’s Snatcher, my BFF. He seems really grumpy all the time, but I know they’re really just sad because- Oh! Gotta go!” The child’s explanation was cut off as “Snatcher” dislodged his head from the wall and started heading straight for her.

“GET OVER HERE YOU LITTLE BRAT!”

“Bye Conductor! Don’t worry about any editing, Snatcher’s invisible on film!”

That was all the Conductor got before the child and her “BFF” barreled out of the studio, making sure anything that wasn’t knocked over or smashed when they came in was now. Well, at least he had finally figured out what their insurance against “Cryptozoological damages” was for.

The Conductor was going to take a very, very long break after today.

The giant, purple specter, who had now shifted to be noticeably smaller, laid face down in the center of the floor of Hat Kid’s spaceship. Hat Kid didn’t even know it was possible for ghosts to get tired! She thought that was just an alive people thing. Apparently she had been wrong, though, since Snatcher was undoubtedly passed out, or at least otherwise unable to continue chasing her. She’d had to pull the prank of the century to get him mad enough to pursue her outside of his forest, but it was absolutely worth it. She didn’t think she’d ever forget the priceless look on the Conductor’s face, and she managed to help him as well! All in a day’s work.

She was pretty fortunate that Snatcher had tired out before he could corner her in any of the ship’s rooms. She had another idea, but she probably shouldn’t push her luck…

Eh, when had a bit of risk ever stopped Hat Kid? She sauntered over to where Snatcher lay and threw herself right into his soft (if slightly greasy) fur. He mumbled something like, “Get off me, kid,” but it was muffled by the ship’s carpet and had no bite to it, and the ghost made no move to throw her off. Whether that was from exhaustion or because he was maybe, just maybe, beginning to warm up to her she didn’t know, but she didn’t really care.

Hat Kid responded by not moving at all and grinning wider, knowing full well that there was absolutely nothing Snatcher could do about it. She was in his life (er… afterlife?) now, whether he liked it or not.