Work Text:
Amity Park : A Nice Place To Live
A “Public Enemies” Fanfiction
By Avearia
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Strange things had been happening in Amity Park for quite some time now.
To the casual observer, nothing seemed particularly out of place. Amity Park truly was “a nice place to live,” as the billboards boasted—a quaint town, a low crime rate, an excellent community. If a person was skeptical enough, they could go for days and weeks living a normal life.
But for the more observant half of the population, Amity was no walk in the park. Amity had always been an odd little town, of course, but in the past year, it had become downright weird.
The oddities started as isolated incidents, but soon grew to unmanageable proportions.
A man wearing a mechanical flying suit had been spotted repeatedly at various locations, including downtown newsstands, the local library, and the zoo.
Insurance reps received a jump in baffling thefts, disappearances, and injuries. Insurance companies had to start paying out to people whose stuff just “went missing” despite being in a locked and undisturbed safe or a secure house.
Public property damage went through the roof. Vandals seemed to wreck whole streets and buildings overnight. Windows were broken. Holes appeared in the pavement. Whole warehouses of boxes just vanished.
The police were at their wits end. Some days it was normal; pulling over speeders, investigating robberies. Other days, it was about a glowing ninja who wrecked the mall, or that someone snuck into the zoo, damaged the observatory, released the gorilla, and tied up the jaguar.
The most baffling case came in the form of a fender-bender. A red Volkswagen reportedly bumped into the local weatherman’s car as it flew off during rush hour. The first cop laughed it off until the next day, when Old Man Wilkinson came by to report that a red Volkswagen was lodged in the upper reaches of his corn silo.
Several people were admitted to the hospital with odd, green burns and tales of delusions. Psychologists had their hands full with new patients. Repeated mass hallucinations—(giant meat monsters, green glowing bulldogs, a river of cotton candy, giant wasps, three-story robots)—caused the city to check and re-check the quality of its water supply.
UFO sightings were up. People all over the city spotted green lights zig-zagging across the sky.
A student at the local high school submitted a YouTube video of a tray floating across the cafeteria, unmanned, to the front of the line—right before chaos broke out.
A few photos surfaced of what appeared to be a woman in red flying around on a jet-sled through Amity. After being laughed off as photoshopped, the pictures were later confirmed by security camera footage.
An apartment owner complained about a motorcycle driving up the side of his building. He had the tire treads on the siding to prove it.
Their newspapers were starting to read like tabloids.
No one knew how to explain these mysterious oddities. Police, scientists, doctors, journalists, and many others all scrambled for answers, but no explanation was ever found. They were at their wits’ end.
Amity Park’s weirdness was beyond comprehension, and it was starting to drive them nuts.
The day of the ghost invasion, everyone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Rather than turning their world upside down, the news set the residents of Amity Park at ease.
Ghosts!
Finally, the world was starting to make sense.
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And there was one journalist named Harriet Chin, who, after getting fired from her job (thanks, Jack,) moved to Amity Park to start a new life. She wasn’t content to sit back and scratch her head at the oddities, or blow them off like a skeptic. Her inner journalist was begging to uncover the mystery; begging to understand.
So she dug deeper. Investigated every oddity as far as she could go. Even drew some of her own conclusions, though she never shared them—who would believe her anyway?
Each search turned up empty, left her without answers or evidence or proof. But there was one thing she discovered. At each scene, if she dug deep enough for answers, there was always one constant. One certainty.
Whenever it happened, wherever it was, she could always find a silver-haired boy in the thick of the chaos.
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(After the invasion, she was promoted.)