Chapter 16
Red jumped, dropping his lantern, as he heard two very real screams in the distance mixing with the fake and almost whispered ones playing over the library’s PA system.
Eyes widening when he recognized both screams, he took off running in the direction they were coming from, his witch hat falling off as he did.
“To this day—” Noble’s words were cut off when he heard what sounded like Ollie, and if he had to guess, Jahla, screaming.
He stared wide-eyed at the group in front of him, who seemed to not realize the screams were real, before blurting, “And to this day, on stormy nights, the sounds of scraping chains can be heard throughout the Grand Chester House. This marks the end of the Local Haunted House Ghost Tour. You can find a pamphlet about the Grand Chester House, along with a list of all the books that have been read on the tour, at the circulation desk. Have fun, bye!”
Not bothering to wait for a response, Noble took off running without another word.
“Shit!” Ollie squealed as he yanked the back of his blouse free of the zombie’s grasp, with the help of Jahla, as she grabbed his hand and tugged him forward, not letting go.
His bells jingled with each step he ran, ensuring there was no chance of hiding or escape.
Ollie found himself starting to gasp for air as he attempted to keep up with his friend’s longer stride, which helped her, but hurt him.
Running through the halls with a used-to-be-wax zombie chasing them wouldn’t be the best idea under normal circumstances, but it was much worse given how crowded the damn library was.
Thankfully, the zombie didn’t seem interested in anyone except them, and his bells, or possibly the zombie’s constant screeching, seemed to alert people to move just in time, as they turned to look at the sound.
As they maneuvered around, people—some gasping and others screaming when they spotted what was chasing them—generally got out of the way.
Nobody made any effort to help, however, as they all likely thought it was fake.
Taking a right down the stairs, Ollie rasped, “Where are we going?!”
“Away from it!?” Jahla choked out.
“We can’t go outside!”
“Office! Your office!”
“It’s locked!”
“Then run faster!” she snapped breathlessly as she sped up, which caused Ollie’s legs to burn more than they already were.
On reaching the bottom of the steps, they were spotted by a group of teens. And as they ran around the corner, by the main circulation desk, heading towards the large hall that led to the back, one yelled out, “That’s epic, Ollie! I didn’t know you had added costume actors this year!”
He didn't stop, as he couldn’t with the zombie behind them and Jahla pulling him along, so Ollie just yelled out as loud as he could. “Yeah—” Wheeze. “—thought it would liven it up a—” Wheeze. “—bit. Have fun, kids!”
“Ollie, you need to do something—!” Her words cut off on a squeal when she glanced back, and proceeded to leap forward, dragging Ollie along with her. He could only assume the zombie had lunged towards them, but as he was too busy trying not to fall on his ass, he couldn’t really check.
“Yeah, sort of—” Wheeze. “—figured—” Wheeze. “—that out! Do you happen to know what?!”
“How am I supposed to know?!” she snapped.
“And I should?!”
“JUST DO SOMETHING!”
Without giving it much thought, Ollie yanked out of her hold and turned with his hand up as he yelled, “STOP!”
Jahla paused right beside him when, beyond belief, the zombie had in fact listened. “Huh, I’m surprised—” A frightened yelp cut off the rest of what he’d planned to say, when the thing started moving towards them once more. They both took off running—again.
Ollie tried his best to keep up, going as fast as his legs could carry him.
But when his office door came into view, and there was a sudden burst in his friend’s speed, he found himself being pulled along more than ever.
Just before reaching the door, one of Ollie’s shoes caught on the floor and he went down.
Jahla dragged him up by his arm, grabbing for his keys that hung on his lanyard and proceeded to fail to open the door.
“Not that one; it's the smaller bronze one! It has a thirteen on it!” he snapped when she went to try one he knew wouldn’t work.
“Why do you have so many damn keys, Ollie?!”
“Because—” The zombie lunged, and Ollie flailed and screamed as he was dragged down, just as Jahla managed to get the door open.
Kicking out, Ollie twisted onto his back and managed to free his left leg while yelling, “GET IT OFF ME!”
Jahla started grabbing things off his desk and throwing them at it, sacrificing his stapler, tape dispenser, pen cup and more, but nothing seemed to work, as Ollie continued to kick at the thing with his left leg. His foot didn’t seem to be doing much damage either, unfortunately.
“AHH, IT’S BITING ME! IT’S BITING ME!” he squealed. But when he saw Jahla reach for the book currently sitting in the built-in book cradle on his table, Ollie cried out in horror, “NOT THE BOOK!”
“WELL, WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?!”
Noble ran down the hall with Red right beside him, having met the familiar on the second floor.
They’d tried to follow the sound of running feet, Ollie’s bells, and this odd, almost constant, screeching noise, but they seemed to be just too far behind to catch up with the pair as they ran through the maze-like library.
As they reached the back stairwell, they found they now only had an inconsistent jingle of bells and screeching to follow. “What do you think…” Noble trailed off when he picked up Ollie and Jahla’s conversation below.
“FUCK!” He heard Jahla swear.
“Don’t know if you realized, but that’s not doing anything!” Ollie snapped.
The question was…what ‘wasn’t doing anything’?
“I’m trying, okay!” Jahla snapped. “Is it even hurting you?!”
“Does that matter?!”
Noble pushed out of the stairwell onto the first floor as the woman hissed, “YES! IT DOES! It sort of determines the level of panic, and the speed of things, Ollie!”
“It’s uncomfortable! GET IT OFF ME!”
Noble slowed to a stop, Red right there beside him, as he spotted the pair.
Ollie was laying on his back before his open office door, kicking out at the head of what could only be described as a zombie, as it held on and bit his right leg.
Jahla had the zombie partly lifted up by the ankles, and appeared to be tugging as hard as she could.
Noble stood there for a moment, his jaw dropped, before managing to rasp, “Is that…”
No, it didn’t actually hurt… At most, Ollie felt an uncomfortable pinching pressure as the zombie bit down. But he was very close to freaking out—okay, that was a lie. He was freaking out! A flipping wax zombie had chased him through the library and was now biting him!
Wait, wax! It may have looked real, but there wasn’t even a smell coming off the thing, because it was still just wax! And wax was meltable, wasn’t it?!
Without thought or hesitation, Ollie placed his hands on top of the zombie’s head and demanded, “MELT!”
Jahla and him both flinched as the lightbulb above them burst, her dropping the thing’s ankles in shock.
For a second, nothing more happened, but then the bite pressure loosened, and the noise the zombie had been making the whole time cut off, as the wax head beneath his hands softened, before finally…
melting…along with the rest of the zombie.
It quickly turned into a murky grayish red-brown mucky puddle of sludge, with tattered, dull clothes and wayward clumps of hair floating in it.
“Well, that will…do it, I suppose,” Jahla tsked as she tried to shake some of the wax off her boots, before giving up and tiredly plopping down onto a spot on the floor not covered by gunk.
Ollie stared in disgust at his now wax-coated jester pants, not even wanting to think about how hard it's going to be to get out, before letting out a tired groan and flopping back fully, his bell jingling as he did. “Ughhh, so tired… Someone pick me up…can’t move. I need to changeee!”
He looked to the right when someone cleared their throat, whimpering, “Noble, help me,” on spotting the man and Red.
Noble smiled hesitantly as he approached. “You two…want to explain exactly what happened?”
“A—” Ollie cut himself off, his right eye starting to twitch as a realization came to him. “My damn grimoire set me up, AGAIN!”
“I feel…that explains a lot, yet…nothing,” the man said with a grunt, as he basically had to peel Ollie off the floor to pick him up, since the wax had already started to solidify.
“I don’t actually want to know what happened…” Red let out a heavy sigh. “But I suppose I need to. What did it do this time?”
Jahla sat there on the floor quietly, as Ollie explained what his grimoire had done, while she tried not to have an internal meltdown—no pun intended. Because she was definitely freaking out on the inside—ha…
Ohh, how fucked was she?! Like, pretty fucked, right? Jahla wasn’t sure she could brush this one off, but she also wasn’t positive she could admit it either.
Setting aside the whole being chased by a wax zombie thing, the fact was, she had DREAMED about being chased by someone in the library, and what do you know…it came true.
Okay, but it wasn’t like being chased wasn’t a common nightmare, right? Like, it could just be a coincidence! Yes…
She took a deep, calming breath. It was all just a coincidence, that’s all. Dream or not, it meant nothing. And that was what she was sticking to, until she had absolutely no alternative.
Ugh—at this point, she might as well just ask Ollie for some fucking self-gaslighting tips.