In this chapter, our heroes will enter a spooky cemetery. Have you ever felt creeped out by a cemetery! I probably wouldn't go there at night...but maybe it's more convenient for me to go there during the day.
But considering how brave they are, I'm sure they're willing to enter it.
After all, they wouldn't have made it this far if they weren't brave.
Although, perhaps Squidward was just bored.
He always seems to have a bored expression.
I would like to think that he was a good person at heart though. He didn't approve of Mr. Krabs selling Spongebob to the Flying Dutchman, for one.
Chapter 26: Scary Cemetery
Our seven heroes entered the spooky cemetery.
For some strange reason, it always seemed to be night at the cemetery. And it was always a full moon, too.
Or maybe they had shown up late. They were feeling tired, but maybe that was because they had spent their time climbing up a mountain.
They did get some rest, which had been forced upon them by Madame Hagfish.
Spongebob checked his watch to see what time it was.
There was a reason why he never seemed to show up late for work, even though he didn't have a boat.
As it turned out, it was 7:00.
So it seemed they had arrived during the evening.
"This place gives me the creeps." remarked Patrick.
He began to shiver.
"Yeah, me too." noted Spongebob.
It certainly wasn't inviting.
In fact, it felt like the dead were haunting the cemetery.
But if they wanted to rescue Mr. Krabs, they would need to step foot into the graveyard.
No doubt Plankton's minions would be waiting for them.
They always have.
Besides, maybe if Spongebob was lucky, he would get to meet some of his ancestors.
They would be ghosts, of course, but he could live with that.
They could hear hooting.
It was coming from an owl clam.
Luckily, she didn't seem bothered by the darkness.
"I wonder why Plankton's minions want the cemetery..." noted the sponge.
"Perhaps they happen to be grave robbers?" asked Wendy.
"Now that's plain despicable." remarked Squidward.
That sure was one way to dishonor the dead.
He figured Mr. Krabs had tried that once or twice, and had ended up paying the price for it.
They decided to examine some of the tombstones.
One of them read "Jimmy Neutron".
Another read "Fairly Oddparents".
Yet another read "Danny Phantom".
"Are all these tombstones cancelled Nickelodeon shows?" questioned Sandy.
"I don't know, but seeing them makes me feel like we're a long runner." remarked Spongebob.
"How much longer do I have to put up with Spongebob's antics?" asked Squidward.
Maybe once Spongebob was cancelled, he finally wouldn't have to put up with his antics.
But who knew when that day would arrive?
They also saw a tombstone for "Stephen Hillenberg."
The S-Men decided to have a moment of silence for him.
What a pity he had died at 57.
At least his show would live on.
Suddenly, they heard a familiar voice.
And a scary one.
"So, you decided to go to the scary cemetery, huh?" asked Flying Dutchman.
"Aah! It's the Flying Dutchman!" exclaimed Spongebob.
Or rather, a projection of him.
It didn't seem to be the real Flying Dutchman. Chances are he wouldn't try to take on our heroes this early.
"If you want to face me, you'll have to summon my ship first!" exclaimed the ghost.
"Now how would we do that?" asked Patrick.
"You'll need a spellbook, for one!" exclaimed Flying Dutchman.
Fortunately, Madame Hagfish had dropped one after her defeat.
It was pretty convenient, yet not too surprising considering that she was a sorceress.
Perhaps there was a spell for summoning the Flying Dutchman's ship. It would be worth it to flip through the pages.
However, none of them were experienced with magic. Though since some of the party members were smarter than others, chances they would have an easier time with it.
Though perhaps it would be better if they held off summoning him until after they rescued Mr. Krabs.
No doubt being trapped in such a spooky cemetery gave him a real fright.
Besides he just so happened to be Pearl's father.
There was no point in leaving her fatherless.
Sandy began to flip through the pages.
There certainly were a lot of spells in the book.
"It says in the spellbook that we need three ingredients..." noted Sandy.
Unsurprisingly, the book didn't recommend they summon the Flying Dutchman...but it provided instructions to those that insisted on summoning him.
"I'm starting to notice a pattern here..." remarked Spongebob.
Earlier they needed to defeat three guardians in order to take on Manray.
"Yeah...it does seem familiar." noted Patrick.
The first ingredient was located in a dark and spooky forest.
Perhaps the trees there would come to life.
It certainly didn't seem like an ideal place to go lumberjacking.
The second was located in a pyramid.
Chances are it would be filled with mummies.
Though chances are it would also be filled with treasure.
Considering how greedy Mr. Krab was, he would probably love to visit the pyramid.
If he acted out of impulse, he would most likely fall victim to a booby-trap, however. Perhaps there were boulders like in that movie.
And the last was located in a haunted mansion.
Who knows what was haunting it?
Well, ghosts obviously. but probably something else.
When they had all three ingredients, they would be able to summon the Flying Dutchman's ship.
Or as it was also known as...the Phantom Dreadnought.
It didn't sound inviting.
But if our heroes wanted a shot at fighting Plankton, they would probably need to defeat the Dutchman.
For now, they decided they should focus on rescuing Mr. Krabs.
They knew he was in the cemetery somewhere.
"Help!" screamed a familiar voice.
"That sounds like my father!" noted Pearl.
She couldn't help but feel worried about him.
The whale could sense the panic in her voice.
"We better rescue him, pronto!" exclaimed Spongebob.
Besides, he was the one paying him money.
Unfortunately, they were ambushed by Plankton's cousins.
"It seems our ancestors had a habit of getting eaten by whales." remarked one of the cousins as he examined one of the tiniest gravestones.
If only they had some sort of defense against them.
"Shouldn't we be looking at those when we aren't in the middle of a fight?" questioned another cousin.
After defeating the cousins, our heroes moved on.
They followed the sound of a certain red crustacean's voice.
Sure enough, Mr. Krabs was locked in a cage.
"Mr. Krabs!" shouted Spongebob.
"Ye got to let me out of here!" exclaimed the crab.
He felt like he was in a horror movie.
Especially since Plankton had taken over Bikini Bottom.
Chances are his face would be everywhere.
Well, maybe not everywhere. Our heroes had liberated most of Bikini Bottom from him.
This seemed to be the one area they hadn't saved.
"We'll get you out!" exclaimed Pearl.
"Good! I want to get out of this cemetery as soon as possible! And then go back to being in charge of the Krusty Krab!" shouted Mr. Krabs.
He seemed happy to see his daughter again.
Pearl began to blow tissues.
"I hope if we let him out he won't use me as a magnet again..." noted Gary. That had been brutal. He was starting to see why Squidward didn't like working for him.
"I wonder what it would be like to have power over magnetism." spoke Wendy.
Of course, in order to get Mr. Krabs out from his prison they needed to find the key.
It turned out Spot had the key.
"Him again?" asked Spongebob.
"This seems very familiar..." noted Sandy.
This was the third time that they had come across him.
In addition, they had already caught him twice before.
Well, it looked as if they would be catching him a third time.
"Maybe I could use my webbing to slow him down." suggested Silkworm.
"That would be a good idea. " nodded Squidward. It would be embarrassing if he tripped and fell into the mud...and given his rotten luck, it wouldn't be too surprising.
Well, they might as well start chasing him.
"Arf arf!" exclaimed Spot.
Unfortunately, as our heroes chased him, zombies emerged from the ground.
It seemed they had disturbed them from their rest.
Zombie fish, that is.
"Zombies!" bellowed Patrick.
Perhaps they ate more than he did, which was really saying something.
He doubted that they would ever eat vegetables, though.
Pearl's eyes widened in terror.
"Don't turn me into a zombie!" exclaimed the whale.
She wanted to keep her good looks.
Pearl struggled not to panic.
Sweat came down her face.
Though when you were up against a horde of zombies, it WAS tempting to panic. Not that it would help.
Wendy gagged.
The zombies happened to smell awful.
Which wasn't a surprise, considering that zombies had a tendency to be rotten.
Of course, if these zombies had a personality, they would probably have a rotten one.
"It's times like this when I'm glad I wear a suit." noted Sandy.
Hopefully it would protect her from being bitten.
Though if she were unlucky, these zombies were capable of biting through metal.
"Chasing Spot keeps on becoming more and more difficult..." noted Spongebob.
Squidward nodded.
Though it was nice to get some exercise every now and then. Whenever he went for a jog, he got to spend time away from Spongebob.
The Invisible Ink was actually tolerating Spongebob's company as of late though. Perhaps he admired his bravery.
"Brains..." murmured one of the fish.
"Aah!" exclaimed Spongebob.
"If they want brains, they shouldn't go after Patrick." remarked Squidward.
Sandy was basically a dream come true for them though.
Unfortunately, these zombies didn't feel pain, so they were more resilient than a lot of other foes that they had faced.
One of them bit Patrick.
"Oww!" exclaimed the starfish.
"Tastes like Krabby Patty..." remarked the zombie that had bitten him.
Patrick clutched his hand.
Fortunately, it seemed the zombies couldn't infect others with a zombie virus.
Otherwise, Patrick would be feeling ill right about now.
Sandy could devise a cure, but that might take some time. Her tree dome would probably make for a good defense against the zombies, but she was a good distance away from home.
And they got the feeling that they needed time to defeat Plankton.
But being bitten by one still hurt.
Zombies had a tendency to have sharp teeth.
Which made eating meat all the easier.
And these fish also happened to have sharp claws.
Which was unusual considering that they were fish.
"Oww!" exclaimed Squidward as he was clawed by one of the zombies. He now had scratch marks on his face.
It reminded him of the times Gary had gotten mad at him.
Oh wait. He didn't have claws. In fact, he didn't have hands.
Silkworm wondered if zombie worms existed. It wouldn't be too surprising, considering normal worms already liked bones.
Sometimes, animals could turn into zombies too.
She sure hoped that it didn't happen to her friends.
That would be really scary.
While it was confusing that the zombies had claws, they could question that when they weren't being attacked by the undead.
Fortunately, the undead didn't seem to be particularly bright.
This meant that they didn't have to be accurate with aiming, as the idea of dodging their fire didn't occur to the fish.
Sandy shot fireballs at the zombies.
"Ohhh..." complained one of the undead as he fell victim to the flames.
The zombies decided to go back to the earth they came from.
Perhaps they didn't want fast food.
Well, whatever floated their boat.
Assuming that they knew how to drive a boat. Perhaps they were even worse than Spongebob had been back in his first year of boating school.
Our heroes continued to chase after Spot.
Wendy tried shooting silk at him (as she had suggested earlier), and succeeded in wrapping him in a cocoon.
For a moment, it seemed she had succeeded.
"Well, that was a short run." remarked Squidward.
But Spot then grew in size and broke out from it.
"So much for that idea." remarked Silkworm.
He then shrank back to his normal size and ran.
Our heroes chased after the amoeba once more.
However, Squidward noticed a cauldron.
"I have a feeling who we're going to fight next..." noted the octopus.
More witches appeared.
One of them let put a wicked cackle.
"Why do witches always laugh like that?" asked Gary.
Our heroes remembered them from Mt. Bikini.
Now it seemed that they were fighting them at a cemetery.
It seemed rather appropriate.
One of the witches cast a spell and Patrick was shrunk.
"Oh no!" exclaimed Pearl.
He looked around, wondering what was going on.
"How did everything get so big?" asked the starfish. Everything around him looked as big as Spongebob's pineapple.
"You look like my cousin Blackjack back when I met him at my parents' house..." remarked Spongebob.
He would have to be careful not to step on him.
Afterwards, one of the witches attempted to sweep Patrick away with her broomstick.
"Help!" screamed the starfish.
Fortunately, Sandy incinerated her broomstick before that could happen.
Her opponent was unsurprisingly unhappy.
"How am I going to fly now?" asked the witch.
Maybe she needed to improvise somehow.
Was there a such thing as broom insurance?
Ghost anchovies also appeared.
"Oooohh!" exclaimed one of the ghosts.
"I was expecting meep..." spoke Gary. He was feeling kind of confused.
"To be honest, we kind of got tired of saying that." answered the spirit.
It seemed needlessly repetitive.
Unfortunately, there was no way our heroes could punch or kick a ghost. So karate was useless against them.
Which was a shame, since Sandy was a master of karate. Spongebob was no slouch either.
They were going to have to try something different.
Ghosts could definitely be blown away by wind though.
Spongebob decided to try that.
"Aah!" exclaimed the ghosts.
It was times like this when they wished they weren't so light.
One of the ghosts breathed ice on Sandy.
"Brrr...that's cold." remarked the squirrel. Even in her suit, she could feel some of it.
However, she retaliated by using flames.
"Owww!" exclaimed the ghosts. That was spicy.
Unfortunately, being a spirit didn't make you invulnerable.
Still, being a ghost had its perks.
You could fly for instance.
This made it harder for our heroes to hit them.
In addition, they could possess our hero's bodies.
One of them decided to possess Patrick.
He began to fly around like a hummingbird.
"Oh no! Patrick's been possessed!" exclaimed Spongebob, his big eyes widening in fear.
"Ooooooo." spoke the possessed starfish.
He began to fly towards our heroes.
They had to be careful not to get hit.
"Does anyone know how to exorcise a ghost?" asked Spongebob.
"Not me." answered Squidward.
Fortunately, it seemed that the poltergeists couldn't possess Patrick for too long.
Or maybe they didn't want to. He was kind of chubby.
"Thank goodness..." noted Spongebob. He didn't know what to do if his best friend still had a ghost in his body.
The ghosts decided to go back to the graves...much like the zombies before them.
There were also sea urchins.
"Aah!" bellowed Spongebob.
Fortunately, they weren't as dangerous as they were scary.
But it wasn't a good idea to touch them. It would be best if our heroes were careful not to step on one, as they were rather small.
There were spiky.
"Man, one of them caused a lot of trouble at the Krusty Krab..." noted Spongebob.
"Sure did." nodded Squidward. Mr. Krabs should consider including a panic room in his restaurant.
It would be useful if Plankton stole the Krabby Patty formula.
Oh wait, he already did.
Anyways, perhaps they should listen to what the health inspector had to say about their establishment.
It might prevent more sea urchins from entering the Krusty Krab in the future.
Fire seemed to scare them away though.
They could also be blown away by wind. They were light. In fact, they seemed to be weightless.
However, they were fast enough to dodge Pearl's bombs.
"These urchins are giving me the creeps! Too bad they can dodge my explosives..." remarked the whale.
It seemed that she needed to try a different tactic.
Fortunately, it occurred to her that maybe she could fire water from her spout.
It worked well.
However, her water spout seemed more efficient for dealing for larger enemies, whereas Spongebob's bubbles were more suited for dealing with smaller ones.
Finally, there were Frankenfish...starfish that had been brought back to life with science.
These were real though.
Our heroes weren't fighting them in their dreams.
If they were, perhaps things would be easier.
But like they could in their dreams, they could shoot lightning.
Green lightning.
"Oww!" exclaimed Spongebob.
Those Frankenfish had stronger electrical attacks than a jellyfish did.
And they were also rather strong, much like Patrick himself.
Patrick had his work cut out for him wrestling one.
Not that he should try wrestling them, however. They had a habit of radiating electricity, so trying to punch or kick them wasn't a good idea.
And they didn't feel much pain, anyway. Seemed being reanimated from the brink of the death caused you to feel a lot less pain.
Sandy lassoed one and he fell to the ground.
Pearl then tossed a bomb at him.
"Yeow!" bellowed the unfortunate Frankenfish.
He fell over like a domino.
Another Frankenfish ground pounded the ground.
"Whoa!" exclaimed Spongebob.
Squidward used his flute to summon firejellies to attack the experiments gone wrong.
After fighting off the horrors that lurked at the cemetery, Pearl caught Spot.
"I got him!" exclaimed the whale.
"Took us long enough." remarked Squidward.
"Man, that trek through the cemetery was scary!" exclaimed Patrick.
Maybe now they wouldn't have to defend themselves from the undead.
"Ruff ruff!" shouted Spot.
As he did twice before, he gave them the key.
She had to admit, he was rather cute.
No wonder Plankton wanted him as a pet.
Though oddly enough he seemed bigger than he was.
She took the key from his mouth.
As usual, the amoeba took his leave.
"I'm starting to think that maybe we should do something about him..." noted Squidward.
He was causing them a lot of problems.
This time he had lured them towards the walking dead.
He sure as Davy Jones' locker didn't want to encounter them again.
It made him feel like he was in a horror movie.
Pearl seemed to enjoy horror movies though.
She would watch them with her friends.
Unsurprisingly, Pearl was happy to have the key.
In fact, she seemed to be rather excited.
She leapt up and down, which created a miniature earthquake.
Luckily, none of our heroes fell.
Though Gary did retreat into his shell.
He found it to be kind of scary.
Good thing whales didn't eat snails.
Maybe he found it scary because he was one of the smallest members of the wparty.
"Finally! Now I can rescue my father!" exclaimed the whale.
The idea was pretty exciting.
"Chasing him was awfully scary." noted Spongebob.
Hopefully he wouldn't have to run around a haunted cemetery ever again.
That wasn't his idea of fun.
Of course, his idea of fun involved chasing jellyfish that could potentially sting him. But he had made friends with a blue one.
For a moment he wondered if he would pass out from fright.
But at least now they could rescue Mr. Krabs.
After that, they would have saved everyone.
Well, not necessarily. They still had Bikini Bottom to save.
But at least they had rescued all their friends.
Unsurprisingly, Eugene was happy to be free from the cage.
"I'm so happy to be free!" shouted Mr. Krabs.
He raised his claws into the air.
Now he could finally leave that scary cemetery.
Though it probably wouldn't be hard to get zombies to come to the Krusty Krab to buy some Krabby Patties. Their appetite was insatiable.
Not that he would want them to bite his customers.
"I bet you are." nodded Spongebob.
Now that Mr. Krabs was free from the cage, he could go back to his business. No doubt his custmers would be happy to have Krabby Patties again.
Of course, so would Spongebob if he managed to save Bikini Bottom from Plankton.
However, the Invisible Ink didn't so happy to have saved Mr. Krabs.
Though he had still participated in the chase to get the key to his cage in the first place.
Perhaps he felt sorry for the poor crustacean, even if he was a greedy cheapskate.
"Great, now I have to go back to working for him..." noted Squidward.
"I was thinking of giving you a raise since you saved me." explained Mr. Krabs.
"You were? On second thought, working for the Krusty Krab doesn't seem so bad anymore." remarked the octopus.
Personally, the crustacean hoped that it would discourage the octopus from slacking off at work, like he had done many times before.
Slacking off while on the job could have serious consequences.
Unfortunately, when they got back to the Patty Wagon, they discovered that someone had taken the pedal.
"Not the pedal!" shouted the sponge.
"I'm starting to think we should keep a better eye on the wagon." noted Squidward.
But on the other hand, they couldn't fight evil and watch their car at the same time.
Now they were stuck in the dark cemetery.
They could hear the Flying Dutchman's evil laughter in the distance.
It gave them a chill down their spines.
"I don't like it when he laughs like that..." noted Spongebob.
It made him think that he was up to something.
"None of us do." agreed Squidward. And yes, he was agreeing with Spongebob for a change. He never thought he would live to see the day, but it looked like that day had arrived.
The manager of the Krusty Krab was not happy about this turn of events.
He was very upset, in fact.
"Noooo! I want to go back home!" exclaimed Mr. Krabs.
While he was in that cage, he had a nightmare where for some strange reason he was robbing what appeared to be his own restaurant.
And for another strange reason, he was naked.
"If Plankton wins, he'll probably demolish your house, anyway..." noted Sandy.
Last time she checked, his cousins had bulldozers.
"Noooo! Not my house!" shouted the crab, pressing his claws against the side of his head.
"Where will I live?" questioned Pearl.
She could try living with Patrick, but she got the feeling that it would be dark inside the house.
Well, they needed to defeat the Flying Dutchman anyway.
Otherwise things would get too scary for everyone's tastes.
"You think we can take on the Flying Dutchman?" asked Spongebob.
His parents had told him more than one spooky bedtime story about him.
Perhaps he came after bad children.
Or maybe not. He had never come after Blackjack, even though he had a very naughty child.
Maybe it depended on his mood.
It would be a lot easier if they had ghost hunting equipment.
But that would probably be expensive.
And Mr. Krabs didn't like spending his money anyway. He would rather hoard it all somewhere.
Which was a shame, because Squidward would really like to have some of that money.
Also, where would they get ghost hunting equipment?
To their knowledge. there wasn't a shop that sold some.
"I want out of this spooky cemetery..." complained Mr. Krabs.
"We could go to the haunted forest...but I'm not sure that would be preferable." noted Sandy.
You never know what would happen in a spooky forest.
"Well, I would like a change of scenery..." remarked the crab. All these tombstones were making him feel rather depressed.
"We could give you a serum if it made you feel any better..." spoke Pearl.
"A serum you say? Reminds me of the secret formula to the Krabby Patty..." noted Mr. Krabs.
"You mean the one you stole once?" asked Squidward. Personally he wondered why the crab had gone to so much trouble to steal something that was so inexpensive.
It seemed like a waste of time to him.
"Yeah...it's an old shame." admitted the crab.
After being forced to watch Spongebob give away Krabby Patties for free, it was doubtful that he would do that again.
The fry cook himself didn't mind making so many Krabby Patties, however.
Mr. Krabs decided to help himself to the serum.
It made him feel stronger.
"I could make money making these!" exclaimed the crab.
"Those serums can be dangerous if they fall into the wrong hands, Eugene." warned Sandy.
"Yeah! Imagine if Plankton got his hands on them!" exclaimed Spongebob.
Chances are he could create an army of supervillains.
And he already had assembled a team of them.
Mr. Krabs chuckled nervously.
"Yeah...that would be bad..." noted the crab.
Our heroes waited for a few moments to see what the serum would do.
As it turned out, the serum made Mr. Krabs fast.
Super fast.
"You better not use that serum to steal things..." remarked Squidward. He'd be out of a job if Mr. Krabs were to get arrested.
Alternatively, he might be forced to give Krabby Patties away again.
Mr. Krabs chuckled nervously.
"I...won't do that." answered the crab.
"You'd better not. You'd set a very bad example for your daughter." noted Sandy.
"True..." nodded the crustacean. He would feel bad if his daughter became a shoplifter.
Perhaps he should be a better person for her sake.
And Mr. Krabs is the last party member. Yippee! You were probably hoping for him to be rescued sooner or later.
I can assure you the Flying Dutchman is going to be a formidable opponent. Not to mention a scary one.
And of course, there's the matter of summoning him in the first place.
Perhaps our heroes can pull it off.
But can they handle the terrors that await them?
As a side note, I've turned 26. Hooray!
I wonder what the future holds.