Chapter 101: S#17. Gingerdead Girl (3)
by fnovelpia
I returned home.
All the lights were off, as if there had been a power outage.
Even Ellen Strode’s studio, usually brightly lit until late at night, was strangely dark today.
But the most peculiar thing was something else.
The scent of ginger permeating the house-
I headed to the kitchen.
I saw Nancy’s back, standing motionless in front of the oven.
The oven’s flame was the only light in the house. Nancy, lost in thought, looked somewhat unfamiliar.
“Nancy… what are you doing…?”
“Oh. Summer’s back.”
Nancy turned her head and smiled brightly.
Her eyes seemed slightly different. Had she been overstressed from her assignments?
“Are you sick?”
“I’m perfectly fine, Summer. I’ve rarely felt this good.”
“…Where’s Ellen?”
“Mother’s upstairs.”
Her answer was a bit dazed.
Now I noticed Nancy was holding a plate. It was piled high with cookies.
“It’s gingerbread men. Try one, Summer. I baked them myself.”
I took one and ate it. It was delicious.
It rivaled the gingerbread men I’d eaten at the Hyper sisters’ house. Since when was Nancy this good at cooking…?
Savoring the ginger flavor of the gingerbread man, I went towards the stairs. I climbed to the second floor.
“Ellen. Where are you?”
The second floor was as dark as the deep sea.
Nancy’s humming from the kitchen downstairs echoed through the house.
“Run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me. I’m the gingerbread girl♪”
It was a strange song.
I headed to the end of the hallway, searching for Ellen. It felt like an ominous game of hide-and-seek.
Nancy’s room door was slightly ajar. I peeked inside. A white paper on the desk caught my eye.
It was a college assignment.
She was supposed to write about world fairy tales. Had she written about the gingerbread man story?
Curious, I read a few lines.
As expected, Nancy’s version of the gingerbread man tale was written there.
But the ending was different.
The gingerbread man escapes the grandmother and farm animals, crossing the river on a fox’s back.
As the gingerbread man moves to the tip of its nose, the fox opens its jaws wide, ready to strike.
However, the gingerbread man doesn’t go down easily.
Instead, it drowns the fox and slits its throat.
It then drowns the pursuing grandmother and farm animals too.
It strips the flesh from their bones, cuts them with cookie cutters, and bakes them in the oven.
“…Run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me. I’m the gingerbread girl♪”
A chilling voice rang out. I turned around, startled.
Nancy was standing at the door.
“Oh, sorry Nancy. The door was open, and I couldn’t help myself.”
“It’s okay.”
Nancy approached. Her smooth face, shadowed, was expressionless.
“Nancy. But this fairy tale, the ending seems a bit different…”
“It hasn’t changed.”
“……”
“That’s the original story.”
Nancy held out the plate.
It contained freshly baked, golden-brown cookies – gingerbread men.
“Here, try one Summer. I just baked these cookies.”
“Nancy… where did Ellen go?”
“She’s right here, Summer.”
Nancy said.
“This cookie is Mother.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I stripped Mother’s flesh, cut it with cookie cutters. Then I shoved it in the oven and baked it. That’s how I made this cookie.”
……This isn’t Nancy.
I should have noticed something was off when she suddenly started baking cookies.
I reached out to subdue her. The fake Nancy quickly left the room.
“Run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me. I’m the gingerbread girl♪”
She sprinted down the second-floor hallway. Her speed going down the stairs was alarming.
In times like these, you need to take a shortcut. I jumped over the railing and landed on the floor below.
Thud- I blocked the stairs.
The impostor resembling Nancy tilted her head awkwardly. It was a movement beyond the normal range of neck joint motion.
“Look behind you, Summer.”
The Hyper sisters were standing behind me.
Zelda and Hilda.
They were fake too.
A potent aroma suddenly burst forth from somewhere. It smelled like a ton of ginger concentrate.
The intense smell pierced through my nostrils into my brain. My vision distorted, and my legs gave way.
I collapsed face-first onto the floor. The laughter of the impostors brushed past my ears.
I lost consciousness.
Nancy regained consciousness.
It was dark all around. In a cramped space without a speck of light, she felt only the soft touch of fabric.
This was inside a closet. Her hands and feet were tightly bound with tape.
“Mmph… mmph…!”
Even her mouth was sealed with tape.
It must have been the gingerbread girl’s doing. The back of her head still throbbed from the baseball bat hit.
That f*cking b*tch… Her tearful pleas for help were crocodile tears after all.
Though uncertain of the impostor’s intentions, Nancy couldn’t just sit idly by.
She tore off the tape binding her wrists. She’d grown her nails long for situations like this.
She also ripped off the tape sealing her mouth and ankles.
She hurriedly left the closet. Mom and Summer were in danger.
The house was shrouded in darkness. There was no sign of Mom or Summer.
She headed downstairs. An overpowering ginger scent permeated the house, making her dizzy.
Halfway down the stairs, an urgent voice came from upstairs.
“Nancy, don’t go down! There’s a monster downstairs…!!”
It was Mom’s voice.
Rather than feeling relieved that Mom was alive, Nancy was confused. A monster downstairs?
Just as she was about to go back up the stairs, another voice rang out from below.
“Nancy, don’t go upstairs! That’s not me!”
Her body froze like a statue.
Mom from downstairs and Mom from upstairs shouted simultaneously.
“Don’t listen to her! She’s a fake!”
“Nancy, listen to Mommy! Summer went up there and got hurt…! The same will happen to you!!”
“Lies…! Those are lies!! That monster hurt Summer, Nancy! You must believe Mommy!!”
Nancy, stuck in the middle of the staircase, was bewildered.
Unable to move either way.
The voices were identical, making it impossible to distinguish. But one of them was clearly fake. Which one is the real Mom…?
She decided to go upstairs first.
“Nancy… Mommy’s here…!”
Mom’s voice was coming from the upstairs bathroom.
The door was slightly open. Before entering, Nancy took out a hand mirror.
She carefully pushed the mirror through the door gap to see inside the bathroom.
The mirror’s surface reflected the image of Mom sitting on the toilet.
But it wasn’t a normal appearance. Instead of legs, a giant ginger cookie was attached to her lower body.
Her face was also unnatural, as if plastic surgery had gone wrong.
It was a fake.
What would have happened if she had gone straight into the bathroom…… It was chilling.
She closed the door and ran down the stairs.
Mom was crying in the kitchen downstairs.
Seeing Nancy, she hugged her tightly.
“Sob… Nancy, it’s terrible… Mr. Summer…!!”
Nancy, calming her racing heart, acted calmly.
“Mom, are you hurt anywhere?”
“No… I’m not hurt, sweetie.”
“Then let me give you some wounds.”
She thrust out the kitchen knife she had secretly grabbed.
The blade pierced Mom’s belly.
Red liquid spurted from her mouth. Mom collapsed at Nancy’s feet.
“Urgh, why…… Why, Nancy…?”
“Mom.”
Nancy grabbed her mother’s slender chin.
She stuck out her tongue and licked the red liquid on her face.
“This taste… it’s the taste of lies.”
It wasn’t blood. It was sweet and sour strawberry jam.
Nancy instantly realized this wasn’t Mom either. Mom would never use the term “Mr. Summer” to refer to Summer.
The face of the impostor imitating Ellen twisted hideously. Its true nature was revealed.
Nancy swung the kitchen knife and slit its throat.
Both Moms upstairs and downstairs were fakes.
The decapitated corpse smelled of ginger.
The cross-section revealed by the severed neck was made of gingerbread, not muscle and bone.
It was the same as the monster in the upstairs bathroom. Ginger cookies… undoubtedly the gingerbread girl’s doing.
Silence hung over the house. Where had Summer and Mom gone?
She recalled the story the gingerbread girl had spouted.
-…One day, grandmother baked cookies in that oven, and my wandering soul in the oven possessed the cookie.
-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 twins’ house.”
The gingerbread girl must have taken Summer and Mom to the Hyper sisters’ house.
Nancy recalled Summer’s heroic appearances, arriving like a comet to save her whenever she was in danger.
She also remembered Ellen’s mature responses to every predicament.
But now it was the opposite.
It was Nancy’s turn to save them.
She ran to the garage.
She reunited with an old temperamental friend after quite some time.
The chainsaw.
She skillfully pulled the cord to start it up.
Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr──────
The chain blade rotated fiercely.
“Summer, Mom. I’m coming to save you now. Please wait just a little longer…!”
It was chainsaw time.
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