Chapter 12: Hide and go Shriek - Part 3
Coraline peeked her head around the corner, making sure the coast was clear. The other Blithe Hollow was dark and grim; the street lights flickered, the howls of the winds were eerie, and the strange feeling that you're being stalked was around every corner. The trio- Coraline, Aggie, and Cat- were currently in the other Blithe Hollow Mall parking lot. Just as Coraline had predicted- deserted. The entire area was deserted; besides the empty cars, of course. The whole setting looked like a horror movie or a bad dream. Hell, it was already to a bad dream to begin with.
Slowly, Coraline makes her move and heads to the doors of the mall; Aggie and Cat follow. Coraline attempts to pull onto the doors. Locked.
"Aggie," Coraline huffed out angrily. "Could you please-"
"Sure," Aggie oblige, knowing what she was going to ask.
The ghost girl flew through the glass doors and opens them. Soon the trio was inside. They start out in an opened area, where clothing stores are everywhere. Coraline's footsteps echoed through the abandoned mall, due to her boots. She then takes out a flashlight from her back after stopping and proceeds to walk. Cat and Aggie stayed close. Coraline had shined her light in many stores as they pass them, but known of them seemed to have a trace of Norman.
"This place is just creepy..." Aggie whispered.
Cat whipped around the corner and narrowed his eyes, darting at the darkness of the west side of the mall. "What is it, Cat?" Coraline asks.
"I thought I sensed something..." Cat hissed bewilderedly.
Coraline scanned the area some more with her flashlight, walking in the direction where Cat was observing. "Well, perhaps Courtney is this way?"
The trio soon reaches the food court on the second level of the mall, where a life-sized ornament of a witch on her broom hung on the ceiling in the center of the room. Coraline's light went pass the witch ornament. Once her light went pass the ornament again while searching the ceiling...the ornament was gone!
Coraline furrowed her eyebrows, keeping her light at the empty area. "What the heck?"
There was soon a loud crackle. A witch's crackle. Everyone jumped in surprise and turns around. Coraline's light soon fixes itself upon the now alive witch ornament. The witch was green-skinned, wore a long, black dress, and a black cape. Her pointy witch hat matched her nails and outfit, and her long, black hair reached to her mid-back. She points her long, green, black-nailed finer out towards the trio.
"I've been waiting for you, Coraline, dear~!" She sung in such an eerie voice.
Coraline glares at her. "Where's Courtney, bitch?!" She hisses.
"In here, my dear..." The witch says in a hushed voice, using her left hand to motion to herself. Her left side of her lips form a smirk, her dark eyes still fixed on the blue haired girl. "In here..."
Coraline and the others gasps. "No..." Coraline whispered. It couldn't be. "Courtney?!"
The witch crackled into a fit of laughter once more.
"All part of the game, Coraline. All part of the game." She conjures a large ball of fire in her left hand and crackles once more. "Play ball!" She crackles, sending the ball of fire out towards the trio.
Coraline screams and gets out of the way, with Cat following her. Aggie shrieks by the sudden burst of fire in the area, and quickly goes into hiding. Coraline and Cat rushes to the emergency doors, but they suddenly got locked by magic. Coraline attempts to open the door, but it won't budge. The witch's crackle is heard once again, and Coraline and Cat turns around to see the witch- or rather Courtney- slowly gliding towards them on her broom. She conjures another ball of fire and throws it at them. Coraline and Cat ducks and runs away again. Only this time, they sprint away from the food court.
The witch crackles as she crashes them on her broom. Flying high above them, the witch fires strains of green electricity out towards them, zapping the ground, having it crumble below their feet. The witch laughs at their screams in attempt to escape her. She looks up to see the platform which was the third level of the mall, and zaps it. The ceiling begins to crumble and fall. Coraline and Cat gasp and stop. Quickly, they turn left, trying to find a safe place to go. The falling ceiling gets hot on their trail, and Coraline quickly picks up Cat into her arms.
Finally, Coraline spots a safe place. With Cat in her arms still, Coraline makes a hard left turn and jumps into the nearest store that she could get to- JC Witches. The falling ceiling outside the store collapse, blocking the entrance with a large pile of rubble. Coraline pants out of tiredness and Cat just lays there, trying to catch his breath as well. It was so quiet that no one said a word. Suddenly, the rubble explodes and Coraline quickly holds onto Cat. She quickly runs to the check-out aisle in the center of the large store and hides behind the register, inside the large box-shaped area. Coraline slowly peaks her head up to see the witch fly in and land on the ground. She gets up with her broom at hand. Her dress allowed her lower front area to be exposed, showing off her black high-healed boots and tight leather pants attaching to her shirt underneath.
The witch sniffs the air, trying to sense them. She growls and proceeds to walk through the store; her high-healed boots echoing in the process. Coraline slowly creeps towards the exit of the box-shaped check-out station and observes the witch's movements. Her hooked nose was lifted up into the air as she looked around at the ceiling.
"I know you're in here, Coraline." She hisses, though it nearly sounded more like a motherly statement. She then jumps, which was powerful enough to lift her to the second level of the store, instead of using the escalator or her broom.
Coraline took about a minute to get the feeling that she was safe, and so, she and Cat runs out of the check-out aisle and gets a move on towards another way out. However, the witch catches them in the act as she was observing the lower level from the second level, and uses her broom to fly down there. The witch knocks Coraline and Cat off their balance as she flies over them and lands on the ground, glaring at them. Coraline and Cat slowly walk backwards, hitting into a dead-end.
The witch flicks her tongue. "There you are..." She hisses, conjuring another ball of fire from her free hand.
As Coraline and Cat felt like this may be their end, a slurping sound came from behind the witch. Confused, the witch turns around and sees Aggie floating above the trio, slurping on a soft drink from the food court. The puritan ghost girl opens her eyes and gives them all confused looks.
"What?" She asks. Looking over at the witch, she grins and takes her drink lid off. "Want some of my soda?" She grins, then splashes it all over the witch's face. The witch screams with agony, Coraline and Cat just stand there with shock while watching the scene in front of them.
Slowly, the witch melts. Well, her green skin melts. Everyone watches as the green skin, black clothes and nails, dark eyes, and black hair fades away from getting wet. Eventually, there was nothing but a large puddle of green and black goo surrounding an unconscious Courtney Babcock.
Courtney coughs several times before getting up. She was back into her regular pink track suit clothing. Except for her hair, which wasn't in a point tail anymore. Courtney digs through her pocket, finding a pink hair tie. She groans as she puts her hair back up into a pony tail. Coraline, Cat, and Aggie stand by her side.
"What happened?" Courtney asked as she got done putting her pony tail back up.
"You ate the food that the Beldam left out, got knocked out, kidnapped, and turned into a witch to kill me, Cat, and Aggie." Coraline stated, helping her out of the mall. By now, the four were walking away from the mall's parking lot.
Courtney found her balance again and politely shook Coraline off of her, proving that she can walk by herself. "I didn't hurt you guys, did I?" She questions.
Coraline shakes her head. "Nah, but you attempted to."
Courtney gives Coraline and the others worried glances. Coraline places a hand on her shoulder, giving her a reassuring smile. "Hey, it's okay. I promise. But now is not the time for talking, but for action. Courtney, we need your help."
"What kind of help?" Courtney questions. She observes the group. "And were is Neil and Salma?"
"They too have been taken by the Beldam as prisoners." Cat explains, taking the position as leader; having them follow him through the other Blithe Hollow. "We have the find them before midnight and get to your other house."
"And with a key of some sorts!" Aggie finished with worry.
Courtney nods and looks around the other Blithe Hollow as they continue to walk. "Okay, so...where would Neil be?"
"We've found you at the mall- a place where you enjoy." Coraline states. "So if that's the case, then the Beldam has hidden you guys at the areas in Blithe Hollow that you enjoy the most. So if you were at the mall, then Neil should be..."
There was a sudden scream of fear coming from the street. They all run to the corner of the sidewalk to see Neil running from a bunch of monstrous candies.
"This is gonna be easy!" Aggie exclaims gleefully. "CANDY!" She zooms towards the action, getting in front of Neil, who looked relieved to see her. The candy monsters roars at Aggie and Neil. Aggie begins to get shaken.
Cat pounces on top of a chocolate bar monster and slices its eyes with his claws, resulting into a painful roar. Coraline runs towards a gummy bear monster and attempts to do a volley kick, but the monster grabs her by the legs and swings her, having her hitting a bricked building and falling onto the ground. As the monsters approach Neil, Cat attacks once more, only this time, a candy cane monster grabs him and throws him at a dumpster, which he falls into.
As Neil begins to think that this is the end for him, the sound of a chainsaw comes from behind the large group. The candy monsters turns around to see Courtney with a chainsaw. She glares at them as the chainsaw's engine begins to run. "I don't eat candy." She hisses before going after them.
Neil and Aggie get to the steps of Blithe Hollow Hall, watching as Courtney uses her cheerleading skills and chainsaw to kill all of the candy monsters. Once she was done, there was nothing left of the candy beast but tiny bite-sized pieces everywhere. Courtney pants and smiles at Neil. "You alright?" She asks.
"Yeah," Neil smiles. "Thanks!"
Neil's smile soon fades away once he notices the tiny pieces hover up above Courtney, forming some sort of cloud with their bite-sized dust. Courtney looks up and screams as the bite-sized pieces transforms themselves into a cloud of delicious evil. As the cloud attempts to get to Courtney, Neil, and Aggie, Coraline gets in front of them with a leaf blower and puts it on "suck". She sucks the cloud into the blower and throws it to the ground.
Cat meows as he races towards them.
"Is everyone alright?" Cat asks.
"Yeah," Neil said. "But what happened to us?"
Coraline turns to him. "We were separated. I told you guys to not eat the Beldam's food, but it knocked you guys out."
"I still can't believe that she turned me into a witch!" Courtney huffs bitterly, crossing her arms, followed by forming a duck face.
"I can't believe that I was chased by candy!" Neil exclaimed with horror.
Cat begins to walk away from the town hall, followed by the others. "We mustn't delay," Cat remarks. "We must find Salma and this key before midnight."
"A key to what?" Neil asked.
"A key to Norman's bedroom," Coraline explains. "The Beldam told me that he's in there...I hope."
Courtney stops dead at her tracks and calls everyone back towards her. Once they all went back to Courtney, she pointed in front of her. "Would you guess that Salma is in the library or the school?"
Everyone looks at the library. Yeah, Salma just had to be in there, and they were going to find out. Hopefully, she was there, otherwise...it was going to be a long night of searching for one person.
TO BE CONTINUED...
About two-to-three chapters left, folks! Stay tuned for more coming soon! XD
So, I wish you all a very happy Memorial Day weekend! This is my last week of school, so as of next week, I'll officially be on summer break! That means I can update my things a little more. But you'll have to bare with me, okay? :)
Anyway, stay tuned for next chapter, because after that, it'll be the final climax!
See ya soon,
~Nixter97~