With each step the new friends took Nell started to doubt the memory of her flight through the corridors. She even started to relax as she and Chiyo wandered the corridor, in search of Jimmy, they saw various creatures walking the wooden path. Although no one appeared intimidating, none seemed friendly either.
There was an overgrown baby doll toddling down the hall in front of them, a pacifier clenched between its lips, sucking as if it's very life depended on it. It waddled along lost and alone, it's eyes devoid of any life. A small toy car whizzed by, its driver tooting the horn angrily as it swerved to avoid the baby, his face reddened with rage as it hurtled out of sight. Both were too caught up in their own little worlds to talk to Nell. Others walked the halls too, but their reactions were the same, barely noticing the new inhabitants and passing on by whenever she tried to introduce herself.
One, two, three doors........Jimmy had said five doors along, didn’t he? Did he mean five along from her room, or fifth door along including hers? Nell thought absently, as she caught her foot on something and almost stumbled. A small yell came from the ground and she jumped back realising she had been paying more attention to the doors than where she was going.
“Oh yeah, great! Just great! You big bumbling idiot! You know, those eyes are in your head for a reason! Watch where you're putting your massive feet, eh? Jeez! A guy could get killed around here with you on the loose!” A tiny little bean doll with a purple body and a plastic face shouted. He was only about ten centimetres high, cursing and trying unsuccessfully to hold in beans falling from a newly burst hole in his seam.
“Oh, great! Just perfect! Now I need to go see Tom and get fixed! Do you even realise how much trouble I am going to be in? Did it not even register in that pea you call a brain? Of course it didn't! You don’t have a clue, not one. The new bumbling idiot, I presume? As if things aren't bad enough round here, they go and let newbies stomp around, stepping on the little folk. Man! Are you even listening to me?” The small doll screamed, it's face going through a multitude of colour changes before settling into a purple hue that matched its body perfectly.
“I...I am so sorry! I never saw you!” Stammered Nell by way of an apology. Too shocked to offer anything else.
“Of course you didn’t! It never occurred to you that there would be folk smaller than you. You...you....ninkompoop!”
Nell watched as the little guy wandered off, holding his seam shut while still muttering curses, a small trail of beans trickling onto the dirty wooden floor in his wake. Chiyo couldn't quite contain the chuckle that escaped her, finding the little doll highly amusing.
“Oh, laugh it up hairy! Oh yeah, you think you are bigger than me? Perched up there on that idiots shoulder? Come down and laugh at me, eh? Come on hairy!” He screamed.
Still chuckling Chiyo turned to her friend, wanting to share the mirth she felt. The laughter died on her lips though when she noticed the fresh tear falling from Nell’s button eye and merriment was replaced by anger.
“Oh no Nell, don’t you dare cry for him. How dare you talk to someone like that! Who do you think you are?” Chiyo shouted after the doll as she jumped down from Nell’s shoulder to land on the wooden floor. She scuttled after the purple doll, gathering a few of his fallen beans as she went, with the express intention of using them in defence of her friend.
“Don’t you ever stop to think, perhaps, that you should also be looking where you're going, you silly purple thing?” She said, lifting a long leg and hurling a bean along with the insult. A second and third followed in quick succession, but only one found its mark.
The doll clutched at the site of the impact with both hands, his split seam forgotten as soon as the bean made contact with his belly. The two friends braced themselves for an explosion but instead of a barrage of angry curses, a massive sob escaped the purple doll and he fell to his knees. Beans pooling around his hunched form, spreading at an alarming rate across the wooden boards. Chiyo was taken aback. She did not think that the doll would back down let alone cry.
“I’m sorry, I was rude, I know I was.” He sobbed. “It’s just....Suzy will kill me!”
“Now, now, I am sure Suzy will understand.” Chiyo said, looking back towards Nell with a sheepish look.
“No, you don’t understand. Suzy will kill me! Like really, harvest my parts, use my beans as spares and throw what's left in the pit, kill me! When...when a worker gets damaged, that's what she does and then gets a new one to take their place!” He cried.
Nell lowered herself to the floor, crossed her legs, and looked the little doll in the eye. “What's your name?” She asked, pushing her hair out of her face.
“William.” He offered between sobs.
“Well William. I'm Nell and this is Chiyo, and I am sure that we can help you.” Nell said soothingly.
William looked up, wide eyes showing more emotion than his plastic face could ever portray. Fear, shock and even hope emanated from them in equal proportions.
“You...you think you can fix me? Like, I wouldn’t need to tell Suzy?” He asked in a whisper, not sure if he wanted to hear the answer yet needing to.
By way of an answer Nell bent forward and picked William up, placing him in her hip pocket before gathering as many of his fallen beads as she could. Instead of taking up her normal perch, Chiyo decided to join William in the pocket instead. Before the spider had even settled into a comfortable position, Nell was on her feet and heading back to their room. Knowing, without a doubt, that if they tried to fix William in the hallway word would get back to Suzy, somehow, and she didn't want to contemplate what fate the three would share.
Once the door was closed she sat on the bed. Taking William from her pocket she placed him next to her, and smiled at Chiyo as she too emerged from the pocket. The spider took up her spot on the pillow, offering silent support to both dolls.
“Gee, your room is still nice.” William said with awe.
“What do you mean still nice?” Nell asked as she put the beans onto the bed.
“Well, after a while, the room becomes like the hallways, a little more scary like. I know the candles are lit to keep us safe, but this house likes to play with your mind. You know? It can still scare the crap out of you, even though it can’t get in your room.”
Nell looked at Chiyo who stared grimly back. So much for the safe room theory, she thought.
“Well, lets see if we can fix you.” Nell said, a little shaken but determined not to show any more signs of weakness, especially in her own room.
William stood up and leaned to his left, showing the big hole in his side. The stitch had obviously popped and the thread had unwound in both directions.
“I don’t know how you're going to fix it.” He said as he stared miserably at the size of the hole. “Once a thread pops like that the ends never meet up again. I'm done for.”
“Well, good job I'm here.” said Chiyo. “I am rather good at stitching, and weaving, and...well just about anything involving threads.”
Nell carefully tried to poke the beans she had managed to save back into Williams side, which was harder than it sounded. Mittened hands, small beans and little holes weren't a good combination. Chiyo could see Nell working herself into a state with each bean that she couldn't get back inside. Quietly she went to the pile of beans and started to help put them back where they belonged.
When the friends had finished, William pinched the hole shut between his two stubby arms as tight as he could. Chiyo then used her webbing to stitch the hole shut. She stitched the seam three times, just to be safe. It wasn't neat and it certainly wasn't perfect, but that didn't matter to William. He let out a whoop of joy and bounced off the bed.
“Wow! I can’t believe it! You guys...you guys are the best! And I was so rude.” He said, palming his face with his stubby hand as he realised just how he had reacted earlier. “So rude and yet you helped. Man, this place needs more like you here. I'm sorry and thank you so, so, so much!”
“Hey! Calm down or you will burst another seam!” Chiyo called out, smiling at the doll's enthusiasm.
“I...I need to go! I'm late. Suzy will notice I'm not where I'm supposed to be. But I promise, I will come by before Candles on, I swear!” He said, racing to the door.
“Wait! Can you tell us where Jimmy is?” Nell said, getting to her feet to open the door for William. This stopped the tiny doll dead in his tracks before he spun round to look up at Nell. His expression one of pure amazement and a dash of horror.
“Why would you want to see Jimmy? Jimmy is nothing but trouble. More so than all the other monkeys here put together.”
“He...well...I don’t know. Suzy hit him and we wanted to make sure he was alright, and he mentioned Bango...”
“Bango? He told you about Bango?” William asked, more sharply than he intended.
“Well, he mentioned Bango, said it was like a legend or a fairy tale. We just wanted to know more.”
“Bango is no fairytale Nell, Bango is as real as the beans in my body. I know, I met him, only once. But I search for him every moment I can.” Before anyone could assimilate that piece of information the silence was shattered by a gigantic boom that shook the door within it's frame and sent the dust on the floor soaring into the air.
“Oh no! No, no, no, no, no!” cried William, running in circles, his small stubby hands on his head. “This can’t be happening! Of all days! I’m dead, I am so dead!”
As another boom rattled the door William dived towards the bed looking for salvation beneath its wooden frame. He reappeared as soon as he had hidden himself, smacking the side of his head with his stubby hand. “Idiot! She will know where you hide!” His eyes still darting around, hoping beyond hope that there was an escape route.
“Who will know?” Nell whispered, her anxiety hitting a whole new level.
“Sa...Sa....Samantha!” William squeaked.
Seconds ticked by and all within the room held their breath, waiting for the next boom. When it finally came it sounded further away, and William took the opportunity to fly out the door and slam it behind him. Nell and Chiyo stared at the door for a long time, listening to the booming as it faded into the distance, becoming nothing more than a dull thud as the threat named Samantha got further away.
“Wow, he is more scared of Samantha than he was of Suzy.” Nell said.
“Perhaps she is bigger than Suzy.” Chiyo offered. “If they were her footsteps...”
“Yeah.” Nell answered automatically, her mind not on the conversation.
“Look Nell, I know this place seems to be getting scarier by the minute, but we have a day, or at least what's left of it, of freedom before we are given who knows what sort of job. I don't intend to waste this time cowering in here. We still need answers. So what do you say? Do you still want to find Jimmy?” The answering nod was all Chiyo needed, and before Nell could blink, the spider was on her perch, waiting for Nell to get the door.
“I wonder if Jimmy was lying to us, or if he really didn't know that Bango was real.”
“Maybe William's the one who's lying.” Chiyo replied as Nell reached for the doorknob.
As her hand pulled on the door it was pushed violently from the other side, flying open and knocking Nell to the floor, sending Chiyo into the far wall with a sickening thud. Looking first to the spider to make sure she was alright and seeing the expression on her face, Nell turned back to the door to find out what else had come to invade her room. She cringed in horror, her face a mirror image of Chiyo's.
A porcelain doll loomed in the doorway, almost filling the entire frame. Half of her face had obviously been shattered years ago but it appeared to have been pieced together again by a deranged madman, one who had failed to use the original parts. Whilst one eye was the picture of sky blue innocence, the other was a sickly orange surrounded by mottled blue scales. The twisted grin painted beneath just added to the visage, and not in a nice way.
By little_nell at 2009-03-18
“And so I find the new comers.” She said in a voice dripping with sarcastic venom. “Lucky me.”
“Hello,” the ragdoll said shakily as she got back to her feet. Chiyo scrambled for her shoulder not wanting Nell to face this new threat alone. “You must be Samantha.”
“Ha! You know my name! I wonder who told you that?” She said, looking around the room. “Someone else in here?” Her glass eye stayed in position as the reptilian eye scoured the room. Nell couldn't repress the shudder at the thought of how much that eye could possibly see.
“I...I just heard your name being mentioned as we.....” Her voice dropped to a whisper as Samantha squeezed herself into the room and stood towering over Nell.
“I highly doubt that anyone would mention my name in the hallways.” Samantha said. “who was in here?” She demanded.
“No...no one.” Stammered Nell.
“That’s okay. I will find out eventually.” Samantha smirked. “Be sure to report to Suzy in the morning as soon as the candle has regenerated.” She said. “Or...I will come looking for you.” She added in a sickly sweet voice.
Samantha squeezed back out of the room, looking up and down the corridor, sniffing the air as if she could catch the scent of her next victim.
“Oh and by the way.” She said, turning to face Nell once more. “Next time, make sure you get all the beans back inside a doll.”
With that, Samantha boomed her way back along the corridor, leaving Nell and Chiyo fearful for William.
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