The fifth story of Gravity Falls Rule 63.
Silvia tells the employees of the Surprise Hut that they should clean the bathroom while she's out. (Salls: "Yes miss!" William: "Absolutely not."). William decides to show Dana and Marcus the ladder that goes to the top of the roof. The two hold a pine-cone throwing contest. William gets a bullseye, and Dana hits a car, causing William to hi-five a smitten Dana. However, William's friends come over, so he heads out. Marcus suspects Dana of having a crush on him. Dana is defensive, stating that she does not lie awake thinking about him.
But, it turns out that she actually IS thinking about William at night. "Uh oh."
The next day, Dana asks William if she and Marcus can tag along with him on his hangout with his friends. To do this, she lies about her age (stating that she is thirteen). His friends come over, and Dana meets this eccentric cast of teens. They take off in the busted down minivan, for an abandoned convenience store.
Meanwhile, Silvia becomes hooked into a TV marathon on her favorite sitcom 30 Rock: the Unaired Episodes.
After arriving at said convenience store (Dusk 2 Dawn), Dana decides to slip over the fence, to prove that she is not afraid to William. Dana then decides to slip in the locked convenience store that one of the teens could not unlock, and is rewarded with praise from the teens. Said teens wind up having, eating expired food, putting mints in soda to see it explode, and having fights with bags of sugar. Marcus decides to eat some "Smile Dip", which was banned in America. Marcus packet after packet, and undergoes strange hallucinations involving a "plain-faced" man. Dana is told to go get ice for two of the teens... and winds up seeing a message written in blood. She distracts the teens with "Dancey Pants Revolution". Dana then winds up finding the outlines of two bodies on the floor. When one teen is about to lay in them, Dana stops her, making all of the teens call her a buzzkil, including William. Dana reconsiders.... only for the outlines to disappear.
Soon, the store goes insane. One teen is trapped in the security camera, another is put on a cereal box IN THE CEREAL, another is forced INTO "Dancey Pants Revolution", another is turned into a hot dog, and another is trapped inside a theremin. The store is turned upside down, and William and Dana have to hide out in a squishee machine. However, Dana realizes that this was because the ghost may be irritated by "what teens do", and decides to out herself as 12 years old.
The ghosts are revealed to be two seniors who, in the 1990s, were irritated by teens, and had fatal heart attacks because of "rap music". Dana has to dance her way out.... with a lamb dance that she performed during her younger years. The teens are freed, Marcus is still scared of the visions he had, and William thanks Dana, and tells her that they should hang out more often.
Tropes present in this story:
- Acid Reflux Nightmare: Marcus gets one after eating too much Smile Dip. By the end of the story, he's still terrified.
- Air-Vent Passageway: How Dana breaks into the store.
- Affably Evil: The convenience store ghosts. They're such a sweet, old couple that for you could easily forget that they're also vengeful and sadistic spirits who inflict horrible punishments on the teenagers who broke into their haunting grounds.
- Cool Big Bro: William acts as this to Marcus and Dana.
- Haunted House: Or in this case a haunted convenience store.
- Missing Episode: In-universe. Slivia's favorite sitcom consists of "unaired" episodes of 30 Rock.
- Ragnarök Proofing: The old convenience store still has electricity, all the food is unspoiled, and the ice in the freezers is still frozen, despite the power being turned off until William turns it back on. Justified since it is haunted and possibly frozen in time.
- Reality Warper: Inside of the old abandoned convenience store, the ghosts of the store owners are basically omnipotent and can do whatever they want - Including magically trapping you inside TV sets, video games, cereal box images, or musical instruments, or turning you into a hotdog.
- Teens Are Monsters: The store owners think so.
- The Cameo: Two of them. Slenderman appears in Marcus' visions to warn him about Silvia's true motives, while Dana indirectly saves Spencer Wright from being trapped in the store.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: The convenience store ghosts would hurt teenagers, but if you're under thirteen...
