Chapter 100: S#17. Gingerdead Girl (2)
by fnovelpia
The restaurant Hilda took me to was quite renowned.
It was a place I’d visited a few times with the Strode mother and daughter. Even someone with poor taste like me could tell the food was excellent.
After ordering, we engaged in casual conversation.
“Summer, how was your vacation?”
“Terrible.”
The vacation bestowed by the benevolent goddess (Hilda)…
Far from enjoying a sweet rest, I was dragged off by the FBI and suffered miserably.
I didn’t want to recall what happened in Area 51.
Even if my mouth was torn apart, I couldn’t tell Hilda about entering an alien uterus as big as the Hoover Dam for a mysterious exploration, and bursting and killing a fetus that had risen into the air.
Anyway, thanks to what happened that day, the Hyper sisters were cleared of illegal drug manufacturing charges.
I didn’t bother to take credit. I didn’t want to appear petty.
The topic shifted to the Hyper Pharmacy.
Hilda’s expression, which had been beaming like a flower, suddenly darkened.
Something must have happened at the pharmacy while I was away.
“Did something happen?”
“A strange old lady came to the pharmacy,” Hilda said.
The old woman was bizarrely dressed, wearing clothes like a voodoo priestess with a monkey skull necklace.
“She seemed really urgent, saying her granddaughter was hiding in the pharmacy.”
But the old woman was the first customer. No granddaughter had come.
The old woman apparently caused a ruckus, demanding we hand over her granddaughter.
She must have been a senile elderly woman. If I had been there, I could have easily thrown her out, but it must have been a bit troublesome with only the Hyper sisters present.
Hilda said the image of the old woman shouting to hand over her granddaughter kept coming to mind.
In truth, respecting the elderly is essential in horror movies. If you watch <Drag Me to Hell>, you’ll understand why.
You should pay attention to the words of children, the mentally ill, and the elderly.
But there was no need to heed the words of a crazy old woman looking for her granddaughter in a pharmacy.
While eating dessert, I suddenly thought of the gingerbread man.
I decided to ask Hilda for the recipe.
“The ginger cookies I ate earlier were delicious. Could you tell me the recipe?”
“I’ll ask my sister.”
“What?”
“Those cookies, my sister baked them.”
Something felt off.
Zelda had clearly said Hilda baked them.
Why did she lie?
“Nancy, I’m being chased by a wicked grandmother,” sobbed the Gingerbread Girl.
It was a surreal situation where a cookie was moving and speaking human language.
Nancy, just in case, didn’t open the wrapper. The Gingerbread Girl desperately pounded on the packaging.
“If I stay trapped here, I’ll be eaten. You must help me, Nancy!”
“…Why should I?”
“I told you! If the grandmother catches me, I’ll be eaten!?”
“So what? You’re a cookie… You’re food made to be eaten by someone.”
It was a harsh reality.
The Gingerbread Girl wailed like a baby.
Nancy’s heart moved a little at the pitiful sight.
“Calm down, Gingerbread Girl.”
“Waaahhhh…”
“Tell me in detail how you’re able to move and what happened to you. Then I might help.”
“Sniff… Really, Nancy…?”
Nancy nodded. She planned to smash it with a baseball bat if the story sounded strange.
“It might be hard to believe, Nancy, but I was once a pretty human girl like you.”
“…”
“I was murdered. Grandmother put my body in an oven used for voodoo rituals and baked me alive.”
“Why would she do such a thing…?”
“She must have gone senile. Or maybe she was possessed by a voodoo spirit.”
The Gingerbread Girl shuddered.
“One day, grandmother baked cookies in that oven, and my wandering soul in the oven possessed the cookie.”
It was the moment a sentient ginger cookie was born.
The grandmother then took out the Gingerbread Girl and chewed her up, killing her granddaughter twice.
“Wait. Then shouldn’t you be in grandmother’s stomach by now? How are you here?”
“My soul is like a cookie cutter, so I can be stamped out multiple times. So I stamped out another version of myself. I slipped out of grandmother’s house and ran away.”
“……”
“After escaping to the pharmacy, I went to the twins’ house. But I couldn’t stay long because grandmother was still chasing me. I had no choice but to switch places with the cookie in the package.”
The Gingerbread Girl wailed as if unable to bear the sorrow.
Nancy narrowed her eyes.
“So you’re saying that grandmother might come here looking for you?”
“Yes…!!”
At that moment, the doorbell rang.
The Gingerbread Girl curled up like a frightened hedgehog and trembled.
“G-grandmother is here!”
Nancy calmly went downstairs.
She stood in front of the front door but didn’t open it.
“Who is it…?”
In response, the old woman outside replied in a hoarse voice.
“Miss. Is the house next door empty?”
“No, it’s not empty.”
“It seemed like no one was there.”
“Then they must be out. But why are you here?”
The old woman beyond the door was silent for a while.
It was a chilling silence.
“…Haven’t you seen my granddaughter?”
“Wh-what do you mean……”
It was clearly the grandmother who had burned and chewed up the Gingerbread Girl. As she had heard, the grandmother was chasing the Gingerbread Girl.
The old woman stood in front of the door for a long time before leaving.
Nancy went back upstairs.
“Gingerbread…”
The package on the desk was torn open.
The Gingerbread Girl, who should have been inside, was nowhere to be seen.
Her heart sank.
“Gingerbread Girl, where are you?!”
“I’m here.”
She turned around.
A baseball bat struck her hard on the back of the head. She lost balance and fell.
The Gingerbread Girl, who had torn out of the package, stood there holding the baseball bat.
That scene was the last thing she saw before her eyes closed.
Her consciousness faded away.
I returned with Hilda.
Fortunately, our paths overlapped.
Hilda gently placed her soft hand on my arm.
After glancing around furtively, she wrote as if making an excuse.
‘Sorry. I’m drunk.’
We’d only had a few sips of wine.
Maybe she was the type like Nancy who couldn’t handle alcohol.
Hilda’s face was certainly red. But judging by her gait, she didn’t seem drunk…
‘Can you whistle?’
Hilda asked. I nodded.
But why whistling? The sound wouldn’t reach Hilda’s ears.
While I was puzzled, Hilda signed.
‘Can you do it for me?’
Then she gently placed her hand on my chest.
We stopped walking.
‘If I put my hand here, I can feel the melody. Sometimes I listen to my sister’s whistling this way.’
I whistled for the first time in a very long while. The sound echoed through the dark but not lonely street.
‘What song is it?’
‘The main theme from “Halloween” composed by John Carpenter.’
It’s a fast-paced song. But I managed it effortlessly with my incredibly capable lungs.
Suddenly, our eyes met. Her doll-like features with a sorrowful expression caught my gaze. Hilda also stared into my eyes.
A brief moment of less than 3 seconds felt unusually long.
Feeling a bit awkward, I cleared my throat. Hilda’s face reddened again.
She didn’t let go of my arm, holding it tightly.
‘Summer. I’m sorry for lying.’
‘About what?’
‘I’m actually not drunk.’
We had already reached home. I could see Zelda standing beyond the window.
Time to say goodbye. Hilda hesitated as if reluctant, then went inside after saying ‘See you tomorrow’.
I also returned home.
“……”
But thinking it over, something felt odd.
Zelda…
Why was she standing by the window when she couldn’t see?
Ellen Strode’s fingers, which had been furiously pounding the typewriter, paused briefly.
A sweet scent tickled her nose.
She went out of the study. The smell was coming from the kitchen.
Nancy, wearing an apron, was humming a song.
“Run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me~ I’m the Gingerbread Girl~♪”
“Nancy. What are you making?”
“Oh, Mother. I’m baking ginger cookies.”
Nancy said with a bright smile. Ellen was shocked.
“Mother? Nancy… Did you eat something wrong?”
“What do you mean, Mother?”
She reached out to touch her daughter’s forehead.
“Strange… No fever.”
Nancy smiled as if nothing was wrong and took a pan out of the oven.
Appetizingly baked cookies came out.
“You like Gingerbread Men, right? I prepared this especially for you, Mother.”
A Gingerbread Man that not only smelled delicious but looked pretty too.
Ellen was moved.
“To think the day would come when my daughter bakes cookies for me… I’m not one to cry easily, but this brings tears to my eyes…”
Nancy put a cookie in her mouth.
The taste was fantastic.
“How is it, Mother? I wanted to make more, but I couldn’t find the rolling pin, so I only made a few.”
“You should have asked me to find it for you…!”
Ellen took out a rolling pin from the shelf.
“Oh, there it was.”
Nancy took the rolling pin. A slightly heavy cylindrical wooden stick.
She swung it and struck Ellen’s head.
With a clear ringing sound of impact, Ellen lost consciousness.
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