Coraline - Real Monsters
With plans to meet up with Sabrina & Andrew set for 9pm tonight I head down main street hoping to find Violet at her moms house. Checking my headphones, I see they're not charged.
I want to throw them on the pavement, hurting my only crutch for my forgetful mistake, but I sigh instead, shoving them back into my bag and tossing it over my shoulder.
I barely remember Brightmane from my childhood, and I didn't live far growing up. I've enjoyed my time visiting over the last few years. It seems like a quaint small town, then you actually meet the people, experience the kindness and warmth. That's when you realize it's better than any other small town. Mayor Fredrickson is in the town square every Saturday during the market, conversing with whoever is interested.
Sabrina, Andrew & Violet have made my trips here some of the best times in my young life. Violet grew up here but the rest of them moved here around a year ago, and I make the trip to visit as often as I can. I was planning to move here.
I exchange smiles with townsfolk and try to come up with anything to say to Violet if I get to see her. Half a block away, I start to walk slower.
I'm at her street, Bobbies old crown vic is in the driveway, she's home. I've built this up in my head but as I gazed upon her house, it all just fell away, and so I turned around and started walking, the rapid heartbeat of a coward pumping so hard I could hear it.
*****
The warm country air smells like home. Even through my crappy tent, with five beers weighing my body down on my sleeping bag and forcing a whirlwind of emotions in my mind, this air soothes me.
Pressure builds in my abdomen, my eyes shoot open.
I gotta pee.
I'm barely awake, squatting against a tree & wishing I had any amount of courage today, when the noises start. First a sharp scream, or maybe a yelp would be more accurate, then deep but quiet groaning.
My eyes open wide and I start seeing dimension in the darkness, it's not all black in the shadows tonight, blood red seeps its way into my consciousness. All over the trees, and the shrubs, in the dirt. I pull my panties and shorts up while standing up. Slowly surveying the trees in the moonlight for foreign objects; things that don't belong in the glow of bright night.
The groaning continues, forcing my hearing into overdrive, and as my eyes focus in the direction of our campsite I realize that sounds like Andrew. I hide behind the tree while taking an elastic band to my long multicolored hair, seeing my hands .. they're covered in blood, which means the trees I used to balance on my way here were covered in barely visible gore. Feet soaking in bodily fluids of some kind, I take a deep breath.
Walking low and slowly back to camp, hoping to find Sabina and alert the few others I know are sleeping out here tonight, I freeze when I hear a scream. I should run to her, she's a good friend, but I don't, I'm shaking mildly in the warm country air.
Shuffling, screaming and stomping. My eyes focus on a mighty red cedar right on the edge of camp.
Body parts, viscera & every mortal ingredient that makes up several humans, and a few animals adorn this cedar. Only now do I notice that not only spilled blood rests in most of the foliage surrounding me, but body parts too.
I want to scream and cry but I'm frozen in place. I see the silhouette of some kind of creature that stands like a human on two legs, with at least six arms protruding from its torso, and a head with a jaw the size of several mens'.
The jaw and the arms, witnessing a monster like this even in silhouette form made me clench my eyes shut. I count to five, thinking about the time Abigail brought me into the gym for the first time, training my mind and body, as she said. I force my eyes open and my heart calms at the departure of that multi-armed freak. Fists clench, and muscles tense as I continue towards camp, peering down the trail I see all three of our tents are destroyed. Andrew I was positive had been attacked, Sabrina I'm almost sure was the one sent running, but where are Ginny & Wendy?
"Coraline!" in a husky voice, cuts through the tension in the air. Not cruel, not angry, but curious and assertive.
Shuffling through the trees into the camp clearing, is the chief of police?
"CHIEF!" I scream as I start running to his safety. As I get closer however, I see how clean and defined his uniform is compared to his eyes, which are jet black. Wind dissipates under my sails, my cut and dirty feet coming to a tentative stop a few meters away from Chief Fredrickson.
"We have to have a little talk with you sweetheart." The Chief spews calmly, smiling as black tears drop down his full face. More pained groans grow closer to us as someone drags what sounds like Sabrina through the dirt, female grunts of effort overtake Sabrinas' last gasps of life.
It's Ginny, dragging Sabrina by the hands, her legless body leaving trails of crimson. She's battered and bloody, whimpering and shaking.
"Ginny what the fuck! What're you doing?!" I spat out at Ginny. She turned toward me and smiled sickly-sweet.
"I don't feel great about most of this, but I never liked you Coraline and that does make this easier to stomach." Ginny winks.
The terror inside me fuels my hatred for everything happening. If I'm going to die, I can kill this traitorous bitch before I go.
I feel insane, ten minutes ago I was pissing away my youth and now I have to fight for my life. Betrayed by a friend, observed by the twisted version of a man I looked up to. I realize my fists are still clenched. One step forward, on a direct path to Ginny.
"One more step and we'll lure your sister here just like we did you." Ginny warns me, stopping me before I get started. I look down to my feet, Andrews' severed head greets my gaze.
"Just die easy Cor-"
Ginny is interrupted by a silky voice coming from the woods to my right, out of which walks a woman clad in dirty skin-tight fabric, from head to toe. She's skinnier than a living person should be, she almost looks like bones in a shrunken jumpsuit.
"Don't make me crawl inside you Ginny." A tattered voice emerges from her direction. She has two people following her in handcuffs. I recognize them immediately. Martha, the old woman from the local Motel, and the Mayor?!
They look terrified, keeping their heads down while following her. I look back to Ginny and the Chief to see his bright smile and Ginny staring at the ground beneath her feet.
In his joyful manner Chief Fredrickson asks, "Why are they in hand-cuffs, Mother?"
She replies with a rasp in her voice, "Call me Dead-Girl now Teddy, just as our Master instructs."
"Okie-dokie." Teddy agrees happily.
She stops in front of me, pulling what seems to be a mask up over her nose to expose a rotting smile, putrid but oddly not as revolting as it should be. Maybe I'm starting to numb to this madness.
"Kneel with them, Coraline Abernathy." She whispers to me.
I can't take my eyes off of this impossible woman, Sabrinas' voice all but gone from the air now, no chance to save her. The Mayor and Martha get on their knees beside me, and I follow suit.
"You'll get one warning to work with us consensually. Force is easily applied if need be. In ways you three cannot imagine. Play your part, do as I say, and the next year of your lives will be rewarded with not only freedom, but prosperity. If you do not adhere to my rule of this town…"
Gurgling sounds erupt from behind Ginny & Sabrina. Ginny hops back past the Chief and stands by Dead-Girl as the silhouette monster bears down on Sabrinas' corpse.
Half cloaked in shadows of the woods and half obscured by dark red gore, hands and mouths rip and tear at Sabrina. Blood, muscle & bone shards litter the ground in front of us, then the monster in the shadows shakes upright, having grown somehow integrating Sabrina into itself. Taller, more arms, eyes, teeth and patchwork skin, the monster evolves.
I can't see the others' reaction to this, but I know we're all revolted and petrified.
"I can make you cooperate like Teddy, but I think you three can help more without direct influence. Play ball yeah?" Dead-Girl makes her point.
I threw up then and there.
I don't remember leaving the woods, cleaning the vomit off of myself, or falling asleep. Waking up in one of Martha's basic motel rooms, I know I must have.
For a second I am so relieved at the end of a horrible and miserable nightmare.
Then I see the blood under my nails.