Chapter 102: S#17. Gingerdead Girl (4)
by fnovelpia
She stepped outside with the chainsaw in hand.
The night sky was covered in thick, dark clouds. A gloomy rain began to fall.
Nancy got soaked along with the chainsaw.
Someone was standing in the front yard. It was the grandmother who had been chasing the gingerbread girl.
Drenched by the rain, the old woman approached Nancy.
“Young lady, have you found my granddaughter?”
“No. I’m on my way to look for her now.”
Seeing Nancy covered in sticky strawberry jam and ginger cookie crumbs, the grandmother understood the situation.
“Looks like my granddaughter got to you…. It’s all my fault. I killed her and baked her in the oven. But I didn’t finish the job properly.”
“Why would you do such a thing…?”
The old woman hung her head in anguish.
“My granddaughter was a murderer. She killed people for fun. I couldn’t stand by and watch her kill her own parents, so I took matters into my own hands.
I baked her in the oven to purify her tainted soul.”
“……”
“That child is replicating herself. I know it sounds preposterous, but…”
“No. I believe you, grandmother.”
Nancy took the old woman’s wrinkled hand.
“I’ve experienced far more preposterous situations than this.”
“Young lady……”
“I promise I’ll get rid of your granddaughter for good.”
The voodoo grandmother nodded with moist eyes.
Nancy set off towards the Hyper sisters’ house, wielding the red-hot chainsaw.
Her objectives were clear.
Save Summer, Mom, and Zelda Hyper, and reluctantly, her love rival (Hilda Hyper) too.
Then, devour that cheeky gingerbread b*tch who’d smacked her on the back of the head with a baseball bat.
Nancy stood at the front door of the Hyper sisters’ house.
She decided to sneak in discreetly. Without knocking, she grabbed the doorknob and turned it.
But the door was firmly locked.
What to do? What would Summer do in this situation?
As she pondered this, her hand moved on its own.
She raised the chainsaw. With its steel blade, she ground through and smashed the door.
She stepped inside.
“Ugh… the smell of ginger…”
A pungent ginger odor permeated the house. It felt like her brain was going numb.
Cautiously, she entered the house. One step at a time, chainsaw at the ready…
Wet footprints marked her path on the floor behind her.
She headed for the kitchen, the source of the ginger smell.
In the dark space, she saw an oven glowing like a lone star and a woman’s back.
As the woman turned around, her lustrous blonde hair swayed.
“You’ve come, Nancy.”
It was another Nancy.
Seeing the gingerbread girl who had copied her appearance, Nancy’s blood began to boil.
“You were whining for help earlier, and now you dare pull this sh*t…?”
“Don’t get too angry. I’ll give you a gift.”
A large lump stood in a corner of the kitchen.
The gingerbread girl with Nancy’s form took cookies from the oven and went to the lump.
Then she began smearing the cookies onto the lump.
The cookies melted mushily on the warm surface. The lump swelled and took shape.
It was an outline resembling Summer.
As she added more cookies to the lump, it gradually took on Summer’s form amidst rising ginger smoke.
Nancy frowned. So this was how they made these disgusting fakes.
The fake Summer was about 70% complete. The gingerbread girl licked the fake Summer’s lips with her tongue.
Nancy was taken aback.
“Wh-what are you doing…!”
“Hehe. So this is what Summer tastes like.”
Nancy’s face flushed hot at the lewd scene unfolding before her eyes.
The gingerbread girl sneered.
Her sticky hands caressed the fake Summer’s chest, then moved lower.
It was humiliating just to watch. But at the same time, Nancy felt an indescribable stimulus.
“Grr… I’ll kill you…!”
“Why is your face so red…?”
Nancy charged forward with the chainsaw.
Just as she was about to swing the blade, someone blocked her path.
It was Hilda and Zelda. Not the real ones, but fakes made of ginger cookies.
The gingerbread girl shouted:
“Can you really kill your neighbors without hesitation?!”
“Yep.”
They’re fake anyway.
Even if they look human, they’re just cookies stamped out of an oven, filled with the gingerbread girl’s evil soul.
Nancy swung the violently rotating chain blade. The twins’ heads were cleanly sliced off.
Two severed heads rolled on the ground.
“It’s still incomplete, but no matter. Summer, attack!”
The fake Summer moved at the gingerbread girl’s command.
Even if it was a knockoff made of ginger cookies, having to fight Summer…
It felt gross, but there was no choice.
With a battle cry, Nancy swung the chainsaw in a wide arc. But the fake Summer dodged the blade.
In that split second of realization, a massive fist slammed into her side.
Wham-
A gut-wrenching pain. The powerful impact sent Nancy flying.
She crashed into the wall and sprawled on the floor. But she didn’t let go of the chainsaw.
“Urghh…”
Gritting her teeth, she struggled to her feet. It wasn’t tears but rage welling up inside her.
The fake Summer threw another punch.
Nancy gripped the chainsaw low and spun her body. The incoming fist was sliced off.
The fake Summer faltered. Not missing the opportunity, Nancy rushed in quickly.
She shoved the blade into its mouth. Then dragged the chainsaw down to the groin, splitting the body in half.
The fake Summer was cut in two. Ginger juice spurted out instead of blood.
Nancy wiped the ginger juice off her face and glared at the gingerbread girl.
“It’s your turn now.”
“Oh ho.”
The gingerbread girl opened the oven.
Something was lurking inside the steaming oven.
“I prepared an army just in case.”
With a clap of her hands, gingerbread men sprang out of the oven.
They were ginger cookies smaller than a palm, but they moved with life.
There were well over 100 of them.
Wriggle wriggle wriggle-
They swarmed like a horde of cockroaches.
“This world is cruel. It’s survival of the fittest – eat or be eaten.”
The gingerbread girl laughed smugly.
Terrified by the ginger cookie army pouring out of the oven, Nancy turned and ran.
It was too many to kill one by one with the chainsaw.
“You have to eat before you get eaten. The gingerbread man in the fairy tale couldn’t eat the fox, so he got eaten by the fox.”
The gingerbread girl led her army in pursuit of Nancy.
Nancy ran up the stairs to the second floor. The chainsaw was hindering her escape.
But she couldn’t let go of it.
“You know, I killed the boy next door seven years ago. That was my first murder. He was the gingerbread man, and I was the fox.”
The gingerbread girl climbed the stairs.
One of the ginger cookies caught up to Nancy.
Nancy let out a short scream and crushed the cookie under her foot.
Another cookie crawled up her calf like an insect. She swatted it off with her hand.
“After that, I ate many more people. Eventually my grandmother couldn’t stand it anymore and killed me by trapping me in the oven. Do you know what I thought as I burned to death?”
“Stay away…!”
“If it weren’t for that old hag, I could’ve killed so many more~ What a shame.”
Nancy fled into a room at the end of the hallway. There was nowhere left to run.
The gingerbread girl arrived, leading her army. The blood-hungry ginger cookies swarmed in en masse.
She was cornered.
“But I’m going to use this as an opportunity. I can live as someone else now. I can make faces, bodies, whatever I want, and I can even make multiple copies of myself.”
The gingerbread girl said.
Nancy turned and threw herself out the window.
Crash-
The glass shattered. Nancy landed in the yard, rolling across the neatly trimmed lawn Summer had maintained.
The ginger cookies poured out through the window.
Nancy hoped the rain would neutralize them. But that hope was quickly dashed.
The rain only slightly eroded their surface; they were unfazed.
“It’s useless to struggle, Nancy.”
The gingerbread girl also dropped into the yard.
Nancy was surrounded by raindrops and ginger cookies. A perfect encirclement.
Her hand holding the chainsaw trembled slightly.
What would Summer do in this situation… She didn’t know. There was no answer.
She blindly swung the chainsaw. She desperately sliced the slowly approaching ginger cookies.
The chain blade was excellent for cutting large chunks, but terrible for slicing small cookies.
To make matters worse, the chainsaw ran out of fuel.
The engine stalled.
The gingerbread girl with Nancy’s face laughed mockingly.
“Don’t be too sad, Nancy. I’ll live in your place.”
“If Summer were here… If Summer were here…”
“What?”
“If Summer were in this situation……”
A glimmer of hope beyond the curtain of rain.
Leaping over the wall of densely packed ginger cookies, she grabbed that hope.
“……he’d do this…!”
It was a lawnmower.
The perfect weapon for shredding small cookies.
She started it up.
She plowed straight ahead, mowing down the ginger cookies scattered across the yard.
Faced with the vicious rotating blades, the once-cocky ginger cookies scattered in panic.
The gingerbread girl was also taken aback.
“What are you doing…!”
“Eat this.”
Nancy lifted the lawnmower and ground it into the gingerbread girl’s face.
Her facial skin was shredded. As rainwater touched the torn flesh, the gingerbread girl began to melt.
Losing human form, she reverted to the small cookie Nancy had first encountered.
“Th-this can’t be…!”
The gingerbread girl fled.
Swiftly moving her stubby ginger limbs, she dashed across the yard towards the road.
Of course, Nancy didn’t let her escape. She gave chase, dragging the lawnmower.
“Run, run as fast as you can! You can’t catch me…!!! I’m the gingerbread girl!!!!!”
“Let’s see about that!”
The pursuit continued through the rain.
Though her breath came in ragged gasps, Nancy didn’t stop. She chased relentlessly, drifting with the inertia of the trimmer.
How long had the chase lasted? Finally, the gingerbread girl stopped.
A stream of water swollen by the rain blocked her path.
The gingerbread girl trembled.
“W-wait, stooooooop!!!”
It was too late to beg for mercy. Nancy shoved the gingerbread girl with the lawnmower.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzing-
Cookie fragments flew as they were ground by the rotating blades.
With her lower body shredded, the gingerbread girl wailed.
“S-surrender…! I surrender…!!”
She raised her hands and whimpered pitifully.
But Nancy no longer had any sympathy to spare.
She had learned that showing mercy to villains leads to getting smacked on the back of the head with a baseball bat.
She picked up the rain-soaked gingerbread girl. She popped her into her mouth.
Just as she was about to crunch down-
Nancy took the gingerbread girl out of her mouth.
“…I’ve got a better idea.”
“Summer. Are you awake?”
A familiar voice echoed faintly.
When he opened his eyes, he saw Nancy.
She was soaked from head to toe. She had wounds all over, as if she’d been in a fight.
“Where are we, Nancy?”
“The basement.”
It was the basement of the Hyper sisters’ house.
Summer was tied to a pillar along with the Hyper sisters and Ellen.
His head throbbed. He could still smell that hellish ginger scent.
Nancy untied the ropes binding his body. Then she hugged him tightly.
The warmth that seeped into his heart was real, not fake.
He carried the soundly sleeping (unconscious) Ellen on his back.
They moved Zelda and Hilda to the bed.
The twins’ room was in disarray. Broken windows, cookie fragments scattered everywhere…
Whatever happened during the night, Nancy seemed to have been through a lot.
“Summer. I think I’ll go with Cinderella after all.”
“What?”
“For the assignment. I want to do Cinderella.”
Nancy and Summer walked out the front door.
The dawn sky poured rain.
They saw an unfamiliar old woman standing in front of the yard.
She stood motionless in the dim rain without an umbrella.
Raindrops fell along her wrinkled cheeks. Or perhaps they were tears.
The old woman was chewing on something.
“My granddaughter… tastes good…”
Muttering these incomprehensible words, she vanished into the rain mist.
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