“You don’t understand!” Gus wailed. I ignored him. Best not to listen to the cries of a dead man. “He’s not what you think he is! He was a mistake! My burden!” This all sounded a bit concerning but also pretty vague and like bullshit.
“Come here you fuck!” I yelled as he took off through the long tables, leaping over all the dead parents I’d been ignoring. I grunted and ran after him. I laughed a little as I leapt over dead bodies and held the chainsaw aloft. I really needed to stop doing that laughing thing when fighting. Even I could appreciate how unhinged that was.
“Ramona! If you kill me you’ll let him free!”
“That’s the fucking point, preppy boy!” I yelled. Gus tripped and fell and I leapt at him, lifting the chainsaw high. I had to do this quickly because the hair on my arms was raised, hearing the quick stomps of Frankie coming up behind me.
Gus held up his bleeding hand with its two missing fingers. I began to bring down the loud, rumbling chainsaw as Gus tried to talk some more.
“He’ll kill everyone. He’s a—” The sentence was cut off as the weapon's metal teeth ripped into him. Blood splashed up on my face, stinging my eyes. I had to squish them shut and just keep bearing down as hard as I could until I was hitting the floor.
I turned off the machine and didn’t hear Frankie’s footsteps. I swiped at my eyes and looked behind me. Frankie was standing there, blinking at me with red glowing eyes, not moving.
“You did it,” he said before he began to laugh…a lot. I laughed a little too, I mean we just defeated the bad guy! I smiled at Frankie and tossed a quick glance at Gus to make sure the job was complete. Uh, yep, the head wasdefinitelydetached.
Frankie was still laughing though. He took a big breath and laughed some more even. This was getting weird. It wasn’t the chittering chipmunk thing, thank god. But the cadence was deep and almost evil villain sounding in its nature. I chuckled a little with him, I mean it was contagious even if off-putting.
“You sure are happy I saved you, huh?” I asked. Frankie came walking up to me, a smile stretched over his face that could only look evil as he flashed all those sharp metal shark teeth. His hands came up and held my face tenderly. I bit my lip, feeling a little self-conscious being the hero and all.
“You are…” he trailed off with a laugh.
“So cool? Perfect? Lovely?” I suggested. I could really get down with being someone’s hero. Especially when they had such a big tongue.
“So gullible,” he said before breaking off into more laughter. My face dropped. Well, fuck.
9
Istarted to struggle out of Frankie’s grip but he powered down. Red glowing eyes faded to nothing, he sagged forward slightly and became stiff. I backed away, looking around at the carnage.
What was it Gus had been saying before I beheaded him mid-sentence? His words felt a lot more important now. Like just maybe he was actually telling the truth and that killing him was a bad idea.
Oh yeah, he said Frankie would kill everyone. Cool, cool. I should probably run and pretend I wasn’t the person who started whatever shit show was about to rain down in Umbra Valley Mall, maybe even California as a whole.
Frankie still wasn’t moving as I slowly shifted backwards. As I inched my way around my beheaded boss, I realized belatedly I definitely wasn’t getting a paycheck for my hours. This sucked.
All the television sets in the room suddenly turned on, loud static hissing out. The pizza parlor showroom had about eight TVs strapped to the walls. They were snuggled high up so kids could watch reruns of Frankie’s Funhouse, the tv show, during the daytime when the animatronics weren’t in service.
“That’s unsettling,” I whispered. The static grew louder and then the TVs cut off one by one until there was only one left. It blue-screened before fading to a gray glow. Two glowing red eyes and a big glowing smile filled the tv.
“Thank you so much for freeing me, Ramona.” Frankie’s voice came from the tv, the mouth moving in time with the words. The hair on my arms rose up.
“Mmm, yeah. No problem. I’m just going to…” I flipped a thumb over my shoulder towards the dim mall hallway in the distance.
“Trying to leave already, Ramona?” Frankie asked.
“It’s been a long shift.” It certainly had been. I was exhausted, half-naked,anda murderer. Not sure anyone had ever accomplished this much on their first day before.
“I don’t want you to leave.” An electrical cord slid up my leg, wrapping around it tightly.
“What the fuck!” Another cord grabbed the other leg. I struggled against them but couldn’t move. I dived to the ground and tried to crawl.
“You see, Ramona. I told a few lies,” Frankie said. “And you ate them up so easily.” He laughed and the cords pulled me across the floor, dragging my body closer to the tv he was talking out of.
“You don’t say?” I grumbled, trying to scratch at the carpet.
“All I had to do was throw a few puppy dog eyes at you and act like a fool.” Clearly, I wasn’t getting away so I gave up trying and looked at the tv.
Admittedly, I was embarrassed I fell for his act. My face was hot as he shamed me about it. The cords on my legs tightened and shifted higher. Yet another cord slipped around my body and headed between my legs, dragging itself across my center.
