Chapter Text
Trent went dark on social media two days after Coraline saw him in the woods. It wasn’t a surprise and she set an alert for any articles with his name in them that might pop up. Sure enough a week after that a scottish headline read: Young Park Ranger Goes Up in Flames: Trent Macovy, 26, doused himself in kerosene and lit himself of fire yesterday afternoon. He died of third degree burns soon afterwards at the local hospital. His family and colleagues describe him as a thoughtful, kind person who will be sorely missed.
Coraline snorted at that, then told herself off for being disrespectful of the dead. It was a tragic loss, no doubt, but someone who had explicitly ignored all instruction to not poke and prod what he knew shouldn’t have been poked and prodded, couldn’t have been all that thoughtful.
She rubbed her temples. She did that an awful lot these days. That’s what she got for sitting at a desk for more hours a week than had to be good for her, constant headaches and a sore back. She’d been under the impression that that wasn’t supposed to be an issue for her until her forties. She hadn’t been as active as she used to be and her place of work was practically under siege and considering those two factors her mood was declining along with all the lean muscle she’d cultivated from her months wandering the city before quitting school. If they were going to carry on like this, The Archives should invest in a treadmill or at least some standing desks, all their circulation was going to be cut off.
Coraline’s very important train of thought was cut off by a loud thump coming from Jon’s office and a muffled exclamation. Sasha wrinkled her brow. “Good lord what was that?”
She pushed herself away from her desk and got up to go investigate. Coraline would have, but her legs were asleep.
“Alright?” she heard Sasha say.
“Ah…Yeah. A…spider,” said Jon’s muffled voice.
“A spider?”
“Yeah. I tried to kill it…the shelf collapsed.”
“I swear, cheap shelves are…Did you get it?”
“Ah…I hope so. Think so. Nasty, bulbous looking thing.”
Sasah laughed softly, the curly back of her head still facing away from Coraline. “Well I won’t tell Martin.”
Coraline cringed at the thought. She’d had far too many conversations recently about spider’s “importance to the ecosystem”, and Jon must have had too because he repeated her train of thought almost word for word.
There was some shuffling and more low conversation Coraline couldn’t make out, then a loud crack sound.
Coraline got to her feet. “You two alright?”
“Yeah!”off to the side, “No, I don’t think so, it…”
Coraline stepped closer to the office and heard what had made Jon stop short. It was a squelching sound, like someone was stomping through mud, but small and layered over itself so many times that it was a dull roar.
“What the fuck?” Coraline muttered to herself.
“Sasha, run. RUN!” Jon shouted and the two of them barreled from the office, almost slamming into Coraline in the process.
“What’s happening?” Coraline cried, her pulse picking up speed.
“Prentiss,” was all Sasha gasped out, but it made Coraline’s blood run cold.
So the day had finally come. She and Martin had been preparing for this like furtive scroungers. Doomsday preppers without the camo and jerky. She knew what to do. She knew what to do. She knew what to do. She knew what to do, didn’t she? She did if she could just fight through the panic, it was so raw-
Coraline peeled away into the shelves. She’d hidden fire extinguishers in the shelves, she needed a weapon, a defense.
“Coraline what are you do-JON!” Sasha called, her voice high and reedy with fear.
Coraline tuned her out and pulled an extinguisher from a file box. The worms, white and slimy, were pouring from Jon’s office at an immense rate, almost as fast as the beat of Coraline’s heart. She sprayed towards the office door, enveloping a whole swarm of worms in the foamy white fire extinguisher, but they just kept coming.
Coraline cursed and threw aside the empty can, opting to grab onto the shelves and thank whatever god might be out there that she was light, at the same time as praying they would hold her weight. She scuttled up the unit and hauled herself on top where she stirred up a horrific amount of dust. She had to lie flat on her stomach and it was still cramped, like the ceiling was crushing down on her in some sort of concrete grave.
Coraline gasped to catch her breath, but just ended up inhaling enough dust to make her cough like she was trying to dislodge a lung. She heaved some more as she watched the worms writhe along the floor, though there was no sign of Prentiss herself yet.
Despite the adrenaline coursing through her, and the raw fear that though Coraline may have survived the Other Mother and her own twisted mind in the years since, this might be the end of her, Coraline was still hungry for a glimpse of THE Jane Prentiss. She angled her head to make sure she had a good view of the office door and wondered if this insatiable curiosity for all things horrifying made her bad in some way. Could a thirst for knowledge make a person bad, if the knowledge they wanted was too?
She snapped out of her quandary as she realized most of the worms had cleared out from the front of the Archives and were squelching through the shelves right underneath her. They couldn’t get her up here, but Coraline held her breath anyway, afraid that if she made one wrong move it would be over for her. Worse though than that feeling of suspense, was the feeling she got when her heart skipped a beat as the door to The Archives slowly creaked open.
Tim walked in, free as a lark, jingling his keys and holding and iced coffee in one hand. He hummed absently, then stopped and grinned devilishly at the tape recorder abandoned on the floor. He picked it up and Coraline opened her mouth to tell him to get out of there, but she only inhaled more dust and ended up in another coughing fit.
“Are you still working? Ah, ok. Test, test. What are you doing on the floor?” he asked, then in a bad imitation of Jon’s voice. “Statement of Joe Spooky, regarding sinister happenings in the downtown old-”
“Tim, look out!” Sasha screamed as she came barreling out into the archives.
“Sasha?” Tim asked, his brow creasing in confusion.
“Behind you! Run!” Sasha shouted.
Tim whirled around and Coraline could see his breath catch in his throat. The blood drained from his face and he stumbled backwards. That was when Coraline heard it.
The voice sent a shiver through her like cold fingers running up her spine or nails on a chalkboard. It had a low undertone like the buzzing of a beehive, and it sounded like the voice of something that should not HAVE a voice. It was the voice of something speaking through a larynx that was already half decayed.
“Do you hear their song?”
“Tim!” Sasha screamed and she barrelled into him, pushing him to the side.
Tim pushed her right back, right through the door of The Archives and slammed it behind her. Coraline could hear her cursing on the other side of the door, but she was quickly distracted by the THING shuffling slowly out of Jon’s office.
Nothing could have prepared her for the reality of Jane Prentiss. Her skin was a slimy looking ashen gray peppered with holes where a worm would occasionally poke its shining white head out of her skin. Her limbs hung at strange angles and she walked with a jolting gait that rustled the tattered remains of her red dress. Through her greasy curtain of black hair Coraline could see two white, glazed over eyes. Corpse eyes.
Corlaine’s heart pounded in her chest as she pressed herself flat against the top of the shelf. Tim was cursing up a storm and Jane Prentiss very slowly turned to look at him. He went dead silent and quick as a whip ducked behind her into the office. Coraline cursed his stupidity, but Jane apparently wasn’t interested in him because she shuffled off further into The Archives in the direction of Martin’s storage room.
“Archivistttt,” she warbled.
Coraline held her breath as she climbed down the side of the shelves opposite from Jane Prentiss. She needed to get to Tim. Only Jon and Sasha, two inaccessible people, knew what was in that office. Tim might need help.
As long as he isn’t already dead, Coraline thought and she shoved the thought away.
She edged around the room and slipped into the office as Jane Prentiss disappeared further into The Archives. Coraline choked on her own spit when she saw what was inside. Worms, more than she had thought possible, writhed and slithered across the floor. Tim had clearly trampled through here into a large hole in the wall at the back of the room, leaving a path of smeared worm guts on the floor. Coraline gagged and swallowed her own vomit before grabbing a fire extinguisher from a box she had filled by the door and clearing her own path to the gaping maw behind the desk.
It smelled musty when Coraline stepped through the hole. She brandished her fire extinguisher as her eyes adjusted to the dark. She appeared to be standing in a low stone tunnel that was surprisingly worm free. There were a few wriggling in the corner, but for the most part they seemed to have all flowed into the archives.
“Tim?” Coraline called softly. “Tim, are you here?”
She stepped forward carefully and a pearly white worm shot out of the shadows, making a beeline for her. Almost on instinct, Coraline sprayed the hell out of the thing, coughing on all the fumes filling up the small space. She cursed herself for using nearly half the can of CO2 for one measly bug when she had no idea what else was in this tunnel.
She crept forward on light feet and realized that she was starting to feel a little bit light headed. It must have been the CO2 fumes. Despite everything, Coraline let loose a shrill giggle and clapped a hand over her mouth. High off of fumes or not, she had to keep it together.
“Tim! TIM!” Coraline called, biting her lip to fight an irrational laugh.
“Coraline?” Tim’s scruffy head poked around a corner Coraline didn't know was there and he gave her a big toothy grin. He had a wild look in his eyes and clutched a fire extinguisher in a white knuckled grip.
“Oh my god, Tim!” Coraline gasped in relief.
“It’s wild out there Coraline,” he said breathily, “Absolutely mental! Did you know these tunnels were here? I never knew they were here! I can’t find the end of them, but I think they wrap around The Archives at the very least. There’s got to be a way out of here, or a way farther or something. Did you see the worms? Did you see Jane Prentiss? Weird that there aren’t so many worms down here inn’t-”
Coraline put a hand on his shoulder, stopping his rapid fire monologue. He seemed to be feeling the effects of the gas as well. “We need to find Martin and Jon. They were trapped in the back room.”
“How are we going to find them from here?”
Coraline wracked her brain. The tunnels wrapped around The Archives. “Listen at the walls.”
Coraline was getting more woozy by the moment, and so was Tim, but they both put their ears to the wall, trekking through tunnel after tunnel until Coraline had to take a step back and draw in a deep breath. She needed to get a hold of herself. A patch of moss on the mildewy walls looked like America. Coraline giggled.
“Found them!” Tim called and Coraline whirled around.
He was already slamming the end of his fire extinguisher into the wall, cracking the mortar, and Coraline rushed to pull the stone blocks free. She took a step back as Tim smashed his weapon into the plywood behind the tunnel and the whole wall exploded in a shower of tile and dust.
“Hi guys!” Tim gasped.
“Tim!”Martin cried.
“Me too,” Coraline poked her head through the hole.
Jon and Martin curled up on the floor close to each other, still staring at Tim and Coraline with looks of shock on their faces. As Tim babbled on about getting into the tunnels, Coraline noticed the dramatic flush in Martin’s cheeks. She noticed how close his and Jon’s hands were.
OH. So that was how it was.
Maybe it was just the fumes, but Coraline giggled furiously.