Christabella Explains It All
DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Silent Hill movie or Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail or Michael Moore or George Bush.
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"… we will purify the world of this filth! We will destroy the demon!" Christabella preached as she marched back and forth in front of the ladder which Sharon had been strapped onto. "Now watch this drive."
Christabella was about to swing her golf club as the cultists cheered her on, when suddenly she froze at the sound of a familiar and very angry voice.
"THAT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN!"
"Gwabah?" Christabella said dramatically, spinning around to face the mysterious figure in the gateway to the church. The golf club fell from her hands and clattered loudly on the floor in the suspenseful silence.
Rose started walking through the crowd of cultists, her steps quick and purposeful. "You burn anything you can't control you blackened the heart of an innocent you're already damned blah blah you rule these people with fear blah blah there was no apocalypse this is a fictitious apocalypse we are against this war Mr. Bush shame on you blah blah and your hair looks stupid."
"You dare question the coolness of my hair?" Christabella looked to her cultists for help. "Heresy! Burn her! BURN HER!"
"YOUR HAIR BRINGS DEATH!" Rose yelled. An abrupt silence filled the church.
"Now that I've got your attention," Rose went on, "would you kindly not burn my daughter?"
Christabella was still shocked by Rose's attack on her hair. Her lip quivered for a moment, her eyes flicking from the cultists to Rose to Sharon to the golf ball on the floor. "But … but … she's a witch …"
"How do you know she is a witch?" Rose asked, letting out an impatient sigh.
"There are ways of telling whether she is a witch," Christabella said, growing more confident. She clasped her hands and started to walk calmly back and forth at the altar.
Rose raised an eyebrow. "Are there?"
"Tell me … What do you do with witches?"
There was a roar from the mob of cultists: "BURN THEM! BUUUURN THEM!"
Christabella smiled serenely, then continued: "And what do you burn apart from witches?"
"… wood?" Rose said.
"So, why do witches burn?" Christabella asked.
The church was submerged in contemplative silence for a moment. Some of the cultists opened their mouths as if they thought they had the answer, but then hesitated and closed their mouths again to resume pondering. Finally, Rose came to the only logical conclusion.
"Cause they're made of wood?"
"Good!" Christabella said with an approving smile. "Does wood sink in water?"
"No!" Rose said enthusiastically. "It floats!"
"What also floats in water?" Christabella asked.
There were scattered answers from the cultists: "Bread!" "Apples!" "Very small rocks!"
Finally, Rose said with calm confidence: "A duck!"
"Exactly! So, logically …"
Rose continued Christabella's sentence: "If she … weighs the same as a duck ... she's made of wood!"
"And therefore …"
"A witch!" Rose exclaimed. The cultists bellowed in agreement: "A WITCH! A WITCH! BUUURN HER!"
Dahlia suddenly came running in, holding a big duck in her arms.
"We shall use my largest scales!" Christabella said, leading the way to her scales which were conveniently placed right behind the church altar. Sharon was taken down from the ladder and placed on one scale, while Dahlia placed the duck on the other. Seeing that Sharon weighed almost the same as the duck, the cultists cheered with renewed vigor and started tying Sharon to the ladder again.
"That's a fair call," Sharon said, resigned.
"Well, I must say I'm shocked to learn that my daughter is, in fact, a witch, but … meh. Shit happens." Rose grabbed a torch and brought the flame to the heap of wood below the ladder.
"Wait …" Dahlia muttered. "You can burn other things than wood … and there are other things that float in water … uh, Christabella, I think that, uh, maybe you should ---"
Suddenly, the floor melted away, and Alessa's burned self on the hospital bed came rising into the church on her pedestal of twirling barbed wire.
And then everyone was killed except Dahlia because she had cool hair.
