4
Further Mishaps of Bert and Ernie
By Tobias Glass
"Attention Wal-Mart shoppers. We will be closing shortly. Please bring your items to the checkout counter." Bert heard the voice over the PA system, but paid no attention. He had seen an employee leaving the restroom with a mop and bucket and had decided that it would be funny to scrawl graffiti on the wall for the next morning's patrons to read.
Stepping back, Bert admired his handiwork. He read over some of it and snorted. He was sure someone would find it funny. "Ernie, you gotta come and read some of these," Bert said, proudly.
"I can't believe you did that Bert," Ernie said reproachfully as he crawled under the wall from the stall next to Bert's. He read some of the things his friend had written. They were mostly ribald sexual comments that only the most perverted of souls would find funny. He forced a laugh, and said, "Can't we just get going Bert? They're going to lock us in if we don't hurry up."
"Who cares? We can steal all the nudie calendars," Bert replied as he drew a pot leaf on the door in green permanent marker. Ernie rolled his eyes and waited for his friend to finish. Bert put the finishing touches on the inked plant and they stepped out of the stall.
Quite distinctly, the two heard footsteps outside the restroom. Motioning for Ernie to follow him, Bert went back into the stall and he and Ernie stood on the toilet as the employee shut off the lights in the bathroom. Feeling vaguely nauseated, Ernie waited with Bert until the person left.
Slowly, Bert and Ernie crept out of the lavatory to find Wal-Mart completely deserted. They wandered around the checkouts for a couple of minutes, Bert snatching candy bars off the shelves here and there, and Ernie looking around, sure that they were going to get caught. One of the good things about being a Muppet™, he thought, was that their fuzzy little hands didn't leave fingerprints. "Ernie! You gotta try one of these!" exclaimed Bert, holding up a candy bar. Ernie sighed, and helped himself to a candy bar, as Bert took three.
The gentle sound of rain began, pattering lightly at first, but soon was gushing down in buckets. Ernie looked out the window, barely ably to see Bert's Subaru™ turbo through the downpour, a lone figure in the parking lot. A ragged bolt of lightning manifested itself, and the boom of thunder shook the empty store, and the two Muppets™ jumped. The security lights flickered, and went out.
"I don't like this, Ernie muttered as he looked around. He heard a giggle, and looked at Bert. "What a time to laugh, Bert!" Ernie exclaimed. Then he realized that Bert looked just scared as he felt.
"What the--?" Bert said, looking past Ernie. Ernie turned to look, and was surprised to see a small boy of about six sitting on a tricycle in the middle of the aisle.
"Hello little boy," Ernie said with a relieved smile, as he approached the child. The little boy looked at him with a blank stare, and Ernie realized that the boy was probably scared of being left in the dark. "Come on. Bert and I won't hurt you. We're gonna go find a way out of here. Wanna come with us?" he asked the child.
The little boy bared his teeth, which, to Ernie's horror, were pointed. The child let out a feral growl, and charged at them on his tricycle, just as a whole gang of children materialized from nowhere, all with a wild look in their eyes. Bert screamed, the highest sound Ernie had ever heard his friend make, and bolted. Ernie followed right behind him, his heart racing uncontrollably. What kind of place was this? He wondered. They ran to the end of the appliances department, and turned the corner into the furniture department. When the reached the bed section, they hid under the covers of the nearest bed they could find and cowered, waiting. After a couple of minutes, during which all that could be heard was the rain and their thudding hearts, Ernie chanced a peek out from under the covers. "Nothing," he whispered. They climbed off the bed and cautiously wandered around, keeping close to the bed.
"Hey," a voice whispered, and Bert and Ernie turned with a jump. Another little boy stood there, his features pale and almost transparent. "You want to get out of here alive, yes? Follow me." Without another word, the boy turned and ran to the customer service desk, leaving after-trails as he ran along the aisle. The two terrified Muppets™ knew then what these children were.
Ghosts. The souls of dead children. Ernie shuddered, and started to follow the ghost-boy, but Bert grabbed him by the arm. "What are you doing? For all we know, this kid could be trying to corner us and eat us both!"
"I don't know about you, but I want to survive this nightmare!" Ernie said, jerking his arm out of Bert's grasp. "And if that means a ghost bodyguard, then so be it!" he glared at his friend. "I'm going. If you want to stay and get eaten, fine." He started after the ghost-boy.
A few seconds later, grumbling and mumbling, Bert came along. Ernie grinned to himself, and sped up to follow the ghost. The boy had stopped on the other side of the counter, and after giving Ernie a leg up, Bert vaulted over the desk.
"Who are you?" Ernie asked hesitantly. The ghost smiled.
"You mean 'who was I?' When I was alive, they called me Joey. I've been dead since a car accident in 1987, when there was a road here instead of a store. The others died in a fire when the old store burned; they were spoiled and have grown bitter since they died. Some still don't realize that they're not alive anymore. They keep amused by scaring people, and they grow more twisted by the day. They have to be stopped, but I can't do it alone. I need a mortal's help." He looked imploringly at Bert and Ernie. "I have everything to do it with, but I need someone with a body and blood. There was a man who helped rebuild the store after the fire, and he could see all of us. He built a chamber under this desk, but the others found him, and destroyed him." Joey turned and led them over to a dark blue rectangle in the wall, kicked it, and it opened. Bert and Ernie followed him through it. He closed the door and slid a screen down over it. "A ghost has to count all the holes in it before he can pass," Joey explained. "Daylight always comes before they finish."
"But what if they know how to multiply?" Ernie whispered to no one in particular. The three then went down a short section of stairs, and entered through another door with a screen behind it. Through that door there was a small room. Joey took two candles from his pocket, and, with Bert's cigarette lighter, he lit them. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Ernie saw that there was a workbench along the far wall, with a book on top of it. "What's that?" He asked Joey.
"That's a manual on how to send the spirits on to the Next Realm," the ghost-boy replied. "The man that built this room brought it from outside to help defeat the spoiled ones, but they took him before he could use it on them." He flipped through the pages until he came to one with an incantation on it. "Read this, and tell me if you think you can do it." The two moved closer to the tome, and read the words printed on thick vellum paper.
After reading it, Ernie's face lit up. "You think we can do it?" he asked his friend.
"I don't know. But if we die, remember that I was against the whole thing in the first place."
"Okay then. Do you have everything we need?" Ernie asked Joey.
Of course. You can find anything in WalMart," the ghost said grinning. He opened up a cupboard under the workbench, revealing a cross, a silver dagger, a candle, a piece of chalk, and a small hand mirror. Ernie picked up all these things and put them in his pockets, carefully hoisting the heavy book off the bench and giving it to Bert to carry. Joey led the way up the stairs and out the secret door. Ernie looked around as they exited, certain that they would be attacked. But the demonic little shades were nowhere to be seen as Ernie checked with the mirror for them; the book had said to use a mirror to check for ghosts, for this would show them even if they were invisible.
Continuing down the aisles to the toy department, which Joey had said that the undead brats loved to haunt, they saw no more than cheap (in all senses of the word) merchandise, overpriced merchandise, and Today® Sponge displays. Before they rounded the corner to the toy section, Ernie checked one more time around the corner. With a start, he saw that the place was seething with the small forms of deceased children, gamboling about and playing. Would he be able to do this? he wondered. Ernie honestly didn't know, but he did know that it wasn't right that they be stuck here. Turning to Bert and Joey, he whispered, "They're in all the aisles except the one on the other end. We'll have to sneak in there." They went around the school supply department and Ernie gave another look to see if the spoiled ones had seen them. It was all clear, so he, Bert and Joey all stepped into the quiet aisle, which happened to be the children's bike section, and took all the rest of the items out of his pockets. With the lump of chalk, he drew a large circle on the floor, leaving about a quarter of an inch open. Taking the silver dagger, he pricked his index finger and closed the circle with the drop of blood that welled up there. "Bert, can I have the book, please?"" he asked. Bert set the book down, opened it to the right page, and stepped back thinking I've never seen Ernie like this before. Either he's afraid for his life, or it's all these ghosts. Bert figured it was probably the latter.
Ernie stepped back from the circle as a golden light flared around it, illuminating the two Muppets™, and diminishing Joey's own faint luminescence a little more. Joey sighed inwardly. Now came the fun part.
Drifting over to Ernie, Joey slipped into him, and Ernie's eyes darkened to Joey's own black, as he became a possessed creature.
Bert felt the ghosts of the other children before he saw them. Their presence felt like that of a crypt, and Bert could almost a faint odor of things long burnt. The dead children giggled, probably at the sight of a Muppet™ doing a banishing ritual. Bert took the cross and held it up. According to the book, that sort of thing only worked if you believed, which Bert fortunately did. The holy object glowed with an inner light, and the shades of the children shrank back from it.
"Spirits!" said a voice that was only half Ernie and half Joey. "Move on from this place. You are no longer here. Move on." Ernie/Joey took the candle and blew on it, which lit it. Walking around the inside of the circle, Ernie/Joey chanted, "With light I banish you from here." They held up the dagger, "With blood and silver I banish you from here" They exchanged the dagger for the cross, which Bert handed them. "With faith I banish you from here." They took up the final object, the mirror. "With spelled reflection, I banish you from here. Now GO! Go on to the Next Realm and never look back!" With a final howl, the spirits, which had been crowding around the circle, fell back, their spirit-forms melting away… but then they rose again, looking as innocent as children should.
Joey left Ernie's body, staring enraptured as the rest of the children glided upwards. He turned to Bert and Ernie and told them, "The others are at peace. My job here is done." With that last, he rose up with the other children, looking as happy as they did. Bet and Ernie stood there, looking at the rising spirits until they disappeared. They stepped out of the circle, breaking its power, and began to clean up the mess. Nobody could know that they had been there. Nobody. They finished, and found their way out through the shopping cart door. Bert and Ernie both knew that they wouldn't be returning to WalMart for a while, and left as fast as Bert's Subaru™ would carry them.