Hilda and Zelda

by Paul Kater

I have to say that I am very scared, but taking something with me won't make much of a difference, will it?"

  Hilda nodded, and appreciated the attitude of this woman who was diving into something for William and herself, something that she had no idea of. Actually, Hilda had no idea either. "Okay. Let's go then. Hang on, Gladys."

  As Gladys sat in front of William, there was not a lot she could hang on to as the brooms lifted off, but she appreciated the thought regardless. She was getting more or less used to riding shotgun on a broom, as she called it for herself. So long as she stayed away from the thought of flying on such a stick all alone.

  They sped upwards in a considerable pace. The afternoon had seen its best part already, and if all was well, the metal dome would be filling up with participants for this session of Zelda bashing.

  "I'm going up a bit more, William," said Hilda, "so I can see more of what's happening from here."

  The wizard nodded. Gladys wondered what had caused Hilda to do this and asked him about it. "Just being careful," he replied. "Zelda has played tricks on us before, and those never were the kind we could laugh over."

  As they had passed over the town, where several people were in the streets and shouting up at them, Hilda lowered her broom back to William's level again. "Nothing Zelda. I don't like that."

  William agreed. He did not trust that witch further than he could throw her either.

  Miraculously though, they reached the enormous stack of containers without a problem. After touching down, Gladys hopped off the broom, thanked William for the smooth trip and then rushed off to find her sisters and Andy.

  "William, don't look around and say nothing. Zelda's around. I am not sure where, but she is here somewhere. We'll have to tell the others, but try to be calm about it."

  Hilda shrunk the brooms, William tucked them inside his robe and nodded. Then they walked off in separate directions, talking to the assembled group.

  Vivian and all the others were there. Stephen had an impressive twenty-nine contingency with him. With so many people, the word of Zelda being near was spread quickly.

  Hilda suggested they'd all go inside and start as soon as possible. On the question of Vivian and Stephen as what to start, she said: "Improvise. Do what you normally do."

  One of the women in Stephen's group walked into the metal cathedral. Seconds later she yelled: "Hey, who brought their cats?"

  The magical couple frowned. Who in their right mind would bring pets to a venue like this, while knowing what they were planning to do. They entered the large metal structure, where Buster and Rodney were working on lighting all the candles.

  "Leave them to it, Hilda," William said, "this is their party too, and we should respect that."

  Hilda nodded. "Good thinking - oh, I have an idea. Come with me for a moment..." She grabbed one of William's sleeves and dragged him along, eradicating all forms of 'no' beforehand.

  When they returned into the light of the candles that by now all were burning, they witnessed a truly uncanny sight. In the middle of the space, Stephen and his people had painted a large black circle. Inside that, Vivian and her group had painted a white circle, with a large, be it slightly crooked pentacle in it. The wiccan witches were dressed all in white and had put up loads of white candles. Outside their white realm, the devil worshippers had clad in black and deep red clothes. Some of them were preparing something that involved a large black cauldron that was located to the side.

  The black mirrors caught the light of the candles but somehow forgot to reflect it. The whole spectacle as it was developing made William shiver and grin at the same time. "Dante would go crazy, I think."

  "Who?"

  "Dante Alleghieri. He wrote a book about Hell. I'll tell you more about that later," William said. "If there is a later, that is."

  "Negative, negative," the witch muttered. "Come, let's see what they are brewing up there." More sleeve-pulling happened.

  In the cauldron was a liquid. It was red and it looked very warm.

  Hilda frowned at the stuff. "Do you do that always?" she asked the woman who was pushing a ladle through the liquid as if she was winning a rowing contest.

  "Usually, yes. And better stand aside a bit, that stuff makes nasty stains," the woman replied. "Of course, we sometimes vary a bit. Serving tomato soup all the time gets boring. Last time we had chicken soup. Well, we made it anyways, before that bloody witch came and threw it all over us and the floor."

  William stared at the woman. "Soup."

  "Uhuh. Can get quite cold in here, and doing energy work can drain a person. So we always have soup ready for afterwards. And rolls with cheese. They're over there, behind the black curtain." She swung the ladle, leaving a trail of tomato soup drops in the air. Hilda acted immediately. The woman did not notice the result until she was rowing in the soup again. She dropped her oar.

  "What's up?" Hilda asked.

  The woman slowly pointed at the drops of soup that floated over the side of the cauldron. "That..."

  "What of them?" Hilda flipped a finger and the drops fell back into the hot soup.

  "They... hovered?"

  "Yes? So?" Hilda made the oar-ladle rise up, clean. "That's kid stuff."

  The woman fainted. William was just in time to catch her and guide her to the ground.

  Buster was near. "Wha's happening? Oh... Olga fainted."

  "Can you tell us why she did that? I did nothing." Hilda raised her hands in innocence.

  Buster looked at the still floating ladle. "Uhuh."

  Olga came to again and grabbed Buster's arm. "She's a fucking witch," she whispered. "A real one!"

  "Yeah. Stephen said, right?"

  Hilda grinned at the compliments.

  "But I thought he meant one of them!" Olga stabbed a finger at the members of the coven. "The innocent ones."

  Gladys and Jennifer heard that and glared over at the woman who was still sitting on the ground. After a word from Vivian they returned to what it was they were supposed to do.

  "Don't call them innocent until you've seen what they can do," said William.

  Buster helped Olga to her feet, while William explained a bit about what had happened a few days ago, in the forest. As he talked, the woman's eyes were drawn to some movement: the ladle moved to the side and then fell on the ground.

  "Hey, why did you do that?" Olga sounded angry as she bent and picked up the spoon.

  "Did what?" Hilda turned back to the cauldron. "I thought you had taken it again."

  There was a moment of silence among the people around the tomato soup. Before they could follow up on something, though, Stephen and Vivian called out for attention.

  William reached out and took the fallen ladle from Olga, trying to feel something about it. "Did you sense anything Zelda?" he whispered. The witch shook her head.

  "Hello everyone, we are ready, so let's begin. Let's work our magic!!" She shouted it out, and that was picked up by everyone in the metal cathedral, until the walls almost reverberated with it.

  Stephen and his band started doing what they usually did in their sacred metal dome. Vivian and her group started doing what they usually did, in their own sacred space inside the metal dome. Hilda and William stood to the side and watched the goings on for a while, not certain what they would be able to do except for Hilda keeping watch, for when Zelda was approaching.

  The shouting started, startling Vivian's group as well as the two magical people. It took them a few moments to discover that the noise came from Stephen's gang. William saw a movement in a corner.

  "What?" asked Hilda who had sensed his little jolt through their bond.

  "I thought I saw two cats..."

  "Cats," Hilda snorted. "Pets don't belong here." She shook her head. "Crappedy crap." Quickly she grabbed William's collar and dragged him to the ground as a heavy brass candleholder, including black burning candle flew over their heads. It only missed them because of Hilda's
action.

  "Zelda?" William asked as they got up again.

  "No," was the disconcerting answer from the witch, "and I have no idea who did that. There's only one witch around."

  They both looked at the group of white witches in their circle and then at the gathering of devil worshippers. "One of them?"

  As they saw the group of Stephen's people perform some dance that did not seem to be disturbed by any choreography, suddenly a small white device fell from someone's pocket. Although... it did not actually fall. It dropped a few inches, then seemed to levitate upwards, as if it had a mind of its own. There was a string attached to it.

  "What's that?" Hilda asked.

  "Looks like an iPod," said William. "A music device."

  "Dwarf's bullocks," the witch muttered, "too small for that."

  "Guys?" Hilda said as she walked over to the group, pointing at the white thing on a string. "Does that happen often here?"

  The owner of the iPod stared upwards and searched his pockets. "Fuck. That's mine."

  The iPod had risen up too high to reach it with ordinary means. As if it was mocking the group, the earbuds raised up as if they were plugged into someone's ears, and then music filled the enormous space.

  All ritual actions promptly came to a standstill. "Martin, you have Thriller on that thing?" someone asked in disbelief.

  Then the door of the container-cathedral opened and a wave of magic washed through the confines of the place. It knocked over some candles and some people. Hilda and William had their wands in hand and braced themselves.

  Zelda had arrived.

  34. Thriller

  "Party without me?" the evil witch asked. "That's not nice." She stood in the doorway, taking in the scene. She seemed very relaxed, her hand with the wand loose down her side. "And that in an ambiance that I can appreciate..."

  Slowly she walked in. Everyone but the two other magical people seemed glued to the floor as Zelda moved forward.

  "So you found a way to crash our party," Hilda remarked, stepping in Zelda's way.

  "Of course. I am good with things like that, little witch," Zelda grinned. The two witches were almost nose to nose, and none of them had the intention of yielding. "Now step aside before I make you."

  "'Cause this is thriller, thriller night, and no one's gonna save you from the beast about strike," the iPod announced.

  Zelda grinned. "Did you hear that? It knows me." She calmly raised her hand, the wand pulsating with power. There was a grin on her face. Until something swept her away, hard and sideways.

  After a moment or two, a timid cheer rose up from the witches' coven. They thought Hilda had done that.

  Hilda however was as flabbergasted about the sudden change in Zelda's situation as everyone else was."Suck an elf," she said.

  Zelda got to her feet. "You wench," she fumed, "you are going to regret this in a way that you never regretted something!" Then she stopped and stared at something.

  "'Cause this is thriller, thriller night, there ain't no second chance against the thing with forty eyes, girl," the iPod announced.

  William yelled something. The witches screamed. The devil worshippers performed various things, from yelling and screaming to diving under tables and fainting.

  Hilda turned around just in time to see a scary creature step out of one of the black mirrors. It was not your ordinary scary creature. It was huge and dark grey with black spots that seemed to travel over an awkward body. It had eight arms. And forty eyes. It also was severely unaffected by magic. Hilda's attempt to do something to the creature ended when it had a slight swing at her, making her fly several dozen feet before she landed on the ground.

  "Oh, I like that!" Zelda cried out. "Do that again, big boy!"

  The big boy did it again.

  Zelda screamed, waving her wand, as she also took to flight without a broom.

  "They're out to get you, there's demons closing in on every side. They will possess you unless you change that number on your dial," the floating iPod shared its wisdom as it started swinging to the music.

  Footsteps sounded, coming from every side. The humans in the container-room huddled together, hoping for cover from each other and trying to stay out of reach of the large strange creature that now stood still where it had lashed out at Zelda.

  Hilda was on her feet again. Through the bond with William she yelled out at him to follow her, and together they ran off into a dark corner of the hall.

  Vivian yelled after them: "Hilda! Don't leave us here!" Some of her witches started to develop the beginnings of a panic. Buster and some of his group tried to calm the women down, until Zelda appeared again. The evil witch cast spells around, to the group and to the still unimpressed creature.

  Then thuds and muffled sounds came from the dark, followed by two figures shooting up into the air. William and Hilda had stored their brooms inside, for emergencies. This situation qualified as one.

  The footsteps, meanwhile, were drawing closer and closer, as the iPod informed the people that the foulest stench was in the air, the funk of forty thousand years, and grizzly ghouls from every tomb were closing in to seal their doom...

  Several voices rang out over the sound that the tiny music-player made: "Damn you, Stephen, we told you not to build this place on an ancient burial ground! You and your ideas!"

  It was as if the video clip of Thriller unfolded: monstrous creatures and half-decayed bodies were slowly moving in. It was impossible to see where they were coming from, but the supply of them was staggering.

  Stephen uttered what supposedly was a battle-cry. He charged forward and started hitting at the ghouls and ghosts. Most of them fell apart on first contact. That was something that made most others take heart and they also attacked the morbid invaders.

  Zelda had magicked up her broom and was flying near the ceiling of the makeshift cathedral, engaged in a battle with Hilda and William. The three also were doing all they could to avoid the lashings out of the forty-eyed creature, who could just reach up to where they were flying around.

  William had already been knocked off course and into a wall a few times. Magical protection had saved him from breaking just about every bone in his body. "Hilda! Dive!" he screamed as he was approaching the creature again.

  Hilda did not ask or look; she dove down in a near death-defying slalom to avoid the grabbing hands of the grey monster.

  Where she had just been, two shapes appeared. They had leapt up from the ground, paws and claws stretch out and ready to strike. They were on a collision course with Zelda, who had enough problems of her own already with one of the hands of the monster yanking at her legs. As the evil witch fired off a lightning bolt at the arm that held her down, the two cats were about to seal her fate.

  On the floor, there was a fierce battle going on as well. A few tables and chairs had been hastily smashed up to supply the people with weaponry against the spooky army that kept coming. The coven-members were using legs of tables to defend themselves, while the devil worshippers were making efforts to reduce the numbers of the oncoming masses. Buster was having a ball with that, until a few skeletons were all over him, poking boney fingers in his ears, nose and mouth, making him stumble.

  Moving around became harder and harder, as there were bits and pieces of bodies scattered on the floor, and the layers of those were increasing.

  "Night creatures calling, the dead start to walk in their masquerade; there's no escaping the jaws of the alien this time," the iPod encouraged the fighting people, blurting out seemingly random bits of the song.

  The two cats reached their target. One hit Zelda square in the round chest, the other one clawed at the broom and wrenched it from under the witch who fell down, into two of the hands of the grey creature. It was as if it had been waiting for her.

  The witch hung upside down, held up by the creature. One of its arms hung down uselessly, the arm that Zelda had fired at. "Let go of me!" she scream
ed. She swung her arms round, trying to get a clear aim at the creature with her wand. The creature swung out with one of its arms.

  Hilda and William looked at what was happening all around them for a few seconds. The two cats had disappeared from view, back into the darkness from where they had come.

  "I'll try to help Zelda," Hilda said. "You try and weed out these dead folks down there."

  William nodded and dove down, spraying waves of pressurised air through the ranks of dead people that were pressing closer to the humans. He did a great job. For a few seconds. Then a large hand, attached to a long arm, slammed him into a wall again. He crashed into it and fell down. He managed to protect himself for the impact with the ground as the broken broom fell from under him. "Holy Bejee-oompf."

  Hilda shot fire and lightning at the arms and chest of the creature. "Damned dragon balls," she cursed, "what are you made of!" All her spells bounced off, creating impressive but also dangerous fireworks in the confines of the container dome.

  "Do something, stupid witch!" Zelda screamed at Hilda. "It's going to tear me apart!" It was as if she had given the creature an idea. One of its hands reached out and closed around the hand she held her wand in. The wand snapped.

  The iPod hovered near her, mockingly. "So let me hold you tight and share a killer thriller!"

  On the ground, a very strange thing was taking place. The skeletons, ghouls and all other scary creatures were forming an impenetrable ring around the big creature. All the humans were pushed outward, their backs against the metal walls. All the candles that had been lit were hovering overhead, held up by some mysterious unseen force.

  William, also pressed against a wall, tried to take aim with his wand, but there simply was no room to move and do something worthwhile. Everytime he had crushed a few dozen invading spooks, the open space was filled up in a matter of seconds. He knew it was a lost battle but kept fighting.

  Hilda was not facing better options: everything she tried was in vain. The creature managed to keep its back towards her more and more as the legion of dead people at its feet grew thicker.

  "And though you fight to stay alive... Your body starts to shiver..."

  The grey creature started walking, holding Zelda almost carefully in its big hands. The witch was screaming her lungs out, casting spells as fast as she could, threatening doom and destruction onto everyone. Hilda and William fought off the spells that bounced off the creature, catching and neutralising them before they would hurt any of the humans that had unwantingly become part of this extreme and unfair battle.

  The creature crushed bodies beneath its feet as it moved forward. It was only ten feet away from the black mirror it had come from when it looked back for a moment. Its eyes caught Hilda, who was still on broomstick.

  "You close your eyes and hope that this is just imagination, girl!" the iPod declared. Then it slowly fell down onto a carcass. The wire of the earbuds got caught in the ribcage; the player itself gently swung back and forth inside it.

  Everything stood still in the