Goosebumps: Vacation of the Living Dummy

2 *UPDATED*

"Do you think this is some kind of JOKE?" Percy yelled, slamming the dummy down onto the desk. Baffled, Bert just stared at it in confusion.
"I-I swear I left it here, no-one came to collect it" he stammered. He too was trying to get his head around the situation.
"This isn't funny, Bert," Percy replied sternly, "you know these things terrify the living daylights out of me, and fear isn't something to be messed with." He thought Bert was messing with him, but he was just as concerned.
"Look, I left it right over here with the other dolls and toys" he said, reaching down to rummage in the box, but it wasn't there. That meant it had to be the same dummy.
Percy saw the frustration in Bert's eyes, and realised this wasn't a prank.
"There's got to be a rational explanation to this... Perhaps we both had a false memory? Or maybe we're both dreaming?" Bert suggested. Percy was sceptical.
"I don't think we'd have the exact same false memory if it was a false memory, and this can't be a dream, it's all too real and has gone on long enough. Besides, if we were both dreaming, why would we both be in each other's dreams? That can't happen, except maybe in some sci-fi movie like The Matrix." He explained, getting a sinking feeling in his stomarch after speaking every word, realising he was rulling out the sensible solutions...
Bert shrugged. "Perhaps it's just possessed" he proposed, in such a casual fashion that it seemed like the idea was almost normal and a perfectly reasonable solution.
"Again, Bert," Percy growled, "not funny."
Realising he's exhausted all possible answers, Bert slumped down into his swivel chair. "I don't know," he sighed 'maybe we'll come up with a good idea as to what happened in the morning." They had both been working night shifts, and it was past the time where Percy would usually be tucked up in his bed asleep, and Bert doesn't usually work nights, so being tired was definitely an issue. It seemed to the pair that perhaps the glowing rays of the morning sun would wash away their doubts and give an explanation.
But that, however, wasn't the case.
In fact, things got even worse the next morning...
AAAAIEEEEE!!!!!
Loud screaming awoke Percy all too early. Panicking, he rushed towards his door, ready to open it and find out what was happening, and then it happened again.
AAAAAAAIEEEEEAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!
He could hear his heartbeat pounding in his long ears, as loud as death. He griped the doorknob and tried to turn, but it was incredibly slippery. With something on the handle or with his own fear-induced sweat, Percy was unsure, but one thing was for sure: he wasn't getting out. He tried and tried but he couldn't escape, getting more and more frustrated and scared at every attempt. He twisted so hard that he slipped and fell backwards into something slimy, knocking the wind from his lungs and ruining his new pyjamas. He stared up at the ceiling in shock, trying to regain his breath and coughing violently. Fear didn't just grip his heart, it tugged at it violently.
The screaming continued, seeming almost melodic this time, and Percy began to recognise the voice. It was his next door neighbour, Nancy, and she wasn't screaming, she was trying to sing along to her new Taylor Swift CD. Breathing a sigh of relief, Percy got up, slipping once more in the substance, and brushed himself down.
'I can't believe myself sometimes' he thought to himself, 'scared so much by my neighbours bad singing. What'll become of me if I ever have to face any real danger?'...
He tried to open the door again to tell Nancy to be quiet, but again, he couldn't open it. Now in a more relaxed state of mind, he could tell his whole door was shiny and covered in bubbles.
"What on earth is this?" Percy whispered to himself, his eyes drifting down the door and onto the floor. He noticed that there was a trail of shine and bubbles across the floor, which he must've slipped in, and it was leading right to his wardrobe, the handles of which were also slippery, but not too much, so that Percy could open the door with minimal difficulty. Now it was his turn to scream.
Inside his wardrobe, nestled amongst his clothes, was the dummy, grinning madly with a bar of soap in it's little wooden hands.
And there was that giggle again...
* * *
Waves of fear and anger washed over Percy. He was beginning to believe the third of Bert's suggestions. In an act of frustration, he picked it up and shook it, making it's little wooden head rattle about.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME, DEMON?" Percy screamed, his teeth bared. After a while of staring into it's terrifying eyes, he was sure he saw them blink. Exclaiming, he dropped it to the floor and staggered back, falling onto his bed. This was all too weird to be his imagination, he had to figure out what was going on. 'But I know nothing about the paranormal,' he thought, 'kind of ironic, seeing as I am a monster myself technically speaking'. That's when he remembered that just next door was the expert he was looking for.
Last month Nancy had helped Ross with his possessed spoon, and the moth before that she had successfully performed an exorcism on Jeremy's bearded dragon, and rumour had it last year she was able to correctly name 22 different types of ghost at a pub quiz. If anyone knew what was going on, it was her. Tucking the dummy under his right arm, he stormed out of his flat, down the hall and to Nancy's flat. He rapped on the door, the music behind it stopped and Nancy opened it. She was fairly pretty for a Horror, tall with long hair that fell around her shoulders, and her ears stuck up instead of flopped down (1 in 4 Horrors have ears like this. It's more common than freckles on a Horror). She was wearing her uniform, which consisted of a short, spiderweb themed dress, and rainbow bracelets on each wrist, which were not part of the uniform but she wore them on her own accord.
"Heeeeello!" She said cheerfully. Most Horrors have south English accents, and if they don't they tend to have other accents from the British isles, but Nancy was an exception. Apparently, when she first got a job in Horrorland, she had a fairly northern accent, however over the years she had picked up an American accent, presumably from the guests. No-one knows why she did this, not even Nancy herself, it just happened.
"Hey I was wondering if you could take a look at this for a second?" Percy asked nervously, holding the dummy up for her to see. She gave an exclamation of disgust and invited him in.
Unsurprisingly, Nancy's flat had several rainbow themed objects decorating the walls, and an astrological chart hanging on one, and several books on supernatural powers. There was a fresh, lemony smell in the air, coming from seemingly both an air freshener and some squeezed lemons on her breakfast bar. Nancy gestured to a round table with an ornate purple tablecloth draped over it, golden stitches weaved in and out of the cloth like birds in a sunset sky. Percy obliged and sat down, placing  the dummy on the table; Nancy took a seat on the other side of the table and began to examine it. She looked inside it's mouth, pulled at the strings, even took off it's little shoes and shook them about!
"So what seems to be the problem with him?" She inquired.
"Well, I found him last night in a bush during my shift, it seemed as if he'd been following me (Nancy continued to examine the dummy whilst Percy spoke), so I took him to Bert, who was still there sorting things out, and we parted ways. But when I got home, I found him on my bed! So I took him back to Bert, and then we went home to bed, and this morning he was inside my wardrobe, and he had smeared soap all over my door! Not to mention the horrible laugh I keep hearing! I thought maybe you would know what was up" He replied with a sigh. In less than 24 hours, his life had seemingly been changed for the worse.
"Interesting..." Nancy remarked, now looking through it's pockets. She muttered something about this being an 'interesting case', before reaching into the top pocket and pulling out a little yellow slip of paper. She began to read it aloud but stopped midway, dropping it to the floor with a gasp.
"What's wrong?" Percy asked, rising from his seat, concerned for his neighbour.
"D-did you know about this?" She stammered, picking up the paper shakily, staring at it wide-eyed.
"Yeah, I found it when I first got it. I reckon it's instructions on how to work it. The writing's in another language though so it's not very useful to me." He said, sitting back down in relief. Nancy looked him dead in the eye with the most serious expression on her face, and for the first time ever, Percy saw fear in the eyes of another Horror.
"Percy, these aren't instructions," she whispered,
"This is a curse..."